Death was not the end. It was motion. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. I had no body, no weight, no sense of up or down. But I was moving—or maybe, the void was moving around me. The sensation was faint at first, like being carried by an unseen current. Then, suddenly, it was rushing. I felt my existence being pulled forward, dragged through an abyss I couldn’t comprehend. For a brief, terrible moment, I thought I was being torn apart—not physically, but fundamentally, like my very self was unraveling. And then, just as abruptly as it started—I stopped. The nothingness around me shattered. Before me, floating in the vast, dim grey void, was a massive, golden dharmachakra. The dharmachakra hovered before me, massive and glowing, its golden rings turning slowly in the dim void. I didn’t know how far away it was—perspective felt broken here. It could’ve been floating just a few feet ahead, or it could’ve been as big as a planet, looming over me like some ancient, celestial monument. The wheel itself was intricately carved, its outer rim covered in symbols I didn’t recognize. Eight thick spokes jutted from the center, their edges sharp and precise, almost mechanical in their perfection. But despite its symmetry, it didn’t feel artificial. It felt... alive. The dharmachakra hovered before me, massive and unknowable. It turned with slow, deliberate precision, its golden light pulsing in the void like the rhythm of some ancient heart. It wasn’t alive, but somehow, I knew—it was watching me. As the wheel completed another rotation, a shift rippled through the space around me. I felt it first as a weight pressing into my chest—or what I thought was my chest. But I had no lungs, no heart, no body at all. The sensation wasn’t physical. It was something deeper, like an unseen force reaching into me, peeling me apart, exposing everything I had ever been. Then, without warning— **「𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗘.」** The instant the words formed, my mind exploded with memories. They poured in without warning, slamming into me like a tidal wave. I saw the fire, the ceiling cracking apart as the heat ate through the beams. Emma’s tiny hands slipped from my grasp as I threw her outside. I heard her screaming my name as I turned back. Then there was Tsagi—his arms locked around me, his voice shaking, whispering against my ear. _"I got you."_ And after that, there was nothing but unbearable pain. My skin peeled away, my lungs filled with smoke, my body crumbled into fire and ash. I had died. That much was clear. So why the hell was I still here? The dharmachakra turned again. Another pulse of golden light surged outward, and for a moment, everything was still. Then— **「𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗥. 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡...」** The wheel stuttered. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible hitch in its motion, but I felt it immediately. The smooth, perfect rhythm faltered, like a machine struggling to process an input it wasn’t programmed for. A deep vibration hummed through the void, and then— **「𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗥!」** The dharmachakra’s golden glow flickered. The symbols carved into its surface pulsed erratically, rearranging in patterns that didn’t make sense. A moment later, the wheel spun too fast, then too slow, then stopped entirely. The space around me trembled. 「𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗘.」 「𝗞𝗔𝗥𝗠𝗜𝗖 𝗕𝗔𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘: 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧.」 「𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗔𝗦𝗖𝗘𝗡𝗗. 𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗗𝗘𝗦𝗖𝗘𝗡𝗗.」 「𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗥.」 The words pounded into my skull, each repetition more distorted, more broken. The golden light flared violently, flashing between blinding brilliance and total darkness. It was struggling, malfunctioning, its once-perfect form fracturing under some unseen force. Something had gone wrong. I didn’t understand what was happening, but the realization hit me like ice in my veins—this thing, this system, was supposed to decide what happened to me after death. If it was malfunctioning, then what did that mean for me? Would I just stay here? Was I stuck? The thought curled through me like poison. What if I just existed in this space, floating in silence, watching this broken wheel spin and glitch forever? Would I feel time passing? Would I even know how long it had been? A year? A hundred? A million? The idea of eternity had always been abstract, something people joked about when thinking of Heaven or Hell, but now it was real. What if I never moved from this spot? What if I stayed conscious but frozen, watching the same golden light pulse again and again, until I forgot why I was here in the first place? I tried to move. My instinct was to struggle, to fight against whatever was holding me in place, but I had no body to resist with. I was nothing, just a formless awareness trapped in a system that didn’t know what to do with me. The panic that clawed at me was unlike anything I had ever felt. Even in the fire, when I knew I was dying, there had been purpose—I had saved Emma. I had chosen to go back for Tsagi. But here? I had no choices. No way out. The dharmachakra convulsed violently. Its golden glow surged and dimmed in erratic bursts, its rotations becoming jerky and uneven. The space around it warped, rippling like the very fabric of reality was tearing. Then, without warning, something hit me. A force, unseen and incomprehensible, slammed into me like a floodgate bursting open. At first, I thought it was fire, but there was no heat. Then I thought it was ice, but there was no cold. It wasn’t either of those things, but something worse—something deeper, something raw and untamed. It sank into me, filling the empty space where my body should have been, clawing into me like it was trying to rewrite my very existence. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t even react. The pressure grew unbearable. I was suffocating, drowning in something I couldn’t see or name. Every part of me felt like it was stretching, expanding beyond its limits. There was no pain, but there was something worse—a sensation of being too full, too vast, like my mind was fracturing under the weight of something it wasn’t meant to hold. The dharmachakra cracked. A jagged fracture split across its perfect surface, golden sparks bleeding into the void. The system was collapsing, and I was collapsing with it. Then, the final phrase echoed through me— 「𝗕𝗘𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗥𝗘𝗜𝗡𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗠...⟲」 I barely had time to process the words before the force inside me exploded outward. I expanded and collapsed. I was being torn apart and remade. I was disintegrating and reforming all at once. My thoughts fractured. My memories blurred. And then— Nothing.