I didn't know how long I had been asleep.
When I finally woke up, there was nothing—just darkness. Not the kind you experience when you close your eyes, but something deeper, heavier. An endless void.
But I wasn't blind. I could still see my hands when I held them up. I could move, breathe, think. So I whispered to myself, the words echoing strangely in the empty space.
"Where… am I?"
I tried to remember. The snowstorm.My car.It flipped.I climbed out.I walked.The cold…
I paused. My thoughts circled.And then the question surfaced, sharp and haunting:
Did I… die?
A cold shiver crawled down my spine—if I even had one anymore. Time passed, or maybe it didn't. Seconds, days, weeks, years—it all blurred together in this nothingness. I screamed once. All the grief, the regrets, the words I never said—I screamed them all out into the void, until I was empty.
And then I waited. Silent. Alone.
Sometimes I moved. Or thought I did. Sometimes I stood still. Or thought I did. There was no ground, no up or down. Only darkness.
Until one day—or whatever passed for a day here—I saw something.
A glimmer. A distant flicker of pale light.
I stared. I didn't know what it was, but it was the first thing that wasn't darkness. So I ran. My legs moved without resistance, without effort. The light grew brighter.
And then I saw it.
A crescent moon.
Suspended in the void like a silver boat in an ocean of shadow.And on it—sitting calmly—was a boy. Or a man. Or something else entirely.
He looked down at me, smiling gently.
I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted up, "Hey! Man of the Moon! Are you listening to me?"
The figure tilted his head, as if amused. Then he spoke in a calm, steady voice.
"Hi, Nicholas."
I froze. My heart—or what remained of it—skipped.
"H-how do you know my name?" I asked, breathless.
The man on the moon smiled again.
"I've always been watching you."
The figure on the crescent moon hovered above, serene, as if the entire universe waited in silence for his words. His silver cloak fluttered gently, though there was no wind in this void. Only presence.
Nicholas stared, still stunned.
"You've… been watching me?" he asked again, voice thin in the vast dark.
The man nodded. "Always."
"Why?"
"Because you are not finished."
Nicholas took a step forward, his boots making no sound.
"I died."
"Yes," the man said softly. "You did."
"Then what is this?" His voice cracked. "Where am I?"
The man didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stood up from the moon's curve with impossible grace, floating slightly above it.
"This place is the space between stories. A quiet corner of existence. A hallway between endings and beginnings."
Nicholas looked around at the endless void.
"This is… purgatory?"
The man shook his head. "No. This is mercy."
Silence fell again.
Nicholas took a breath. It still fogged the air faintly. Even here, in nothingness, he still felt cold.
The man of the moon extended his hand. A soft shimmer of stardust traced his palm.
"You asked for another chance."
Nicholas blinked.
"I did?"
The man nodded once more.
"When the storm claimed you, just before the dark took you—you whispered it. 'I hope... I get another chance.'"
Nicholas felt his chest tighten. He remembered now. The snow. The cold. The fading world.
"Was that enough? Just a whisper?"
"It was everything."
A light opened behind the man, not blinding, but golden and warm. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
"What is that?" Nicholas asked.
"A door."
"To heaven?"
The man smiled faintly. "To a world."
Nicholas frowned. "What kind of world?"
"A different one. New skies. New rules. No memories of this life… unless you choose to remember."
Nicholas hesitated, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Can I choose to keep my memories?"
The man's expression softened.
"Yes. You can."
Nicholas stepped closer, heart pounding. "Why me?"
The man's gaze turned distant, deep like galaxies behind his eyes. "Because even the quietest souls deserve to roar. Because even the lost deserve to find their way."
The golden door shimmered brighter.
"You may not remember your name, your pain, or your regrets," the man said gently. "But something inside you will remain. The longing. The kindness. The will to endure. And if you choose to carry your memories... then the road will be harder—but truer."
Nicholas looked at his hands. They were beginning to glow faintly, like embers.
"If I walk through… will I be alone again?"
"Not forever."
Nicholas swallowed hard.
"Will I be… happy?"
The man gave him the kindest smile he'd ever seen.
"That part… will be up to you."
Nicholas turned to face the door. The light was pulsing in rhythm with something inside him now. A quiet thump. A breath. A second beginning.
He stepped forward.
The void behind him disappeared.
The moon vanished.
And the world——changed.