The rain fell not in drops, but in a fine, grey mist, a shroud settled over the world. It clung to the black wool of Aiko's suit, beaded on the polished mahogany of the casket, and soaked into the raw, turned earth of the grave.
It was a fitting veil for the day, he thought. The world itself was crying the tears he could no longer muster.
He stood apart from the small, huddled cluster of other mourners, their umbrellas like black mushrooms sprouting from the mud. Their whispers were a distant hum, a meaningless static against the roaring silence in his head.
His eyes were locked on the casket. His brother, Ren, was in there. Or what was left of him.
The news had been a dry, crackling voice on the phone.
A fire.
An electrical fault in a cheap apartment in a city too far away to ever visit. Ren had been working late, they said.
Probably never even woke up. Aiko hoped that was true.
The alternative—the panic, the smoke, the searing heat—was a thought that coiled in his gut like a cold serpent.
'He was just working,' Aiko thought, the words a dull hammer against his skull. Paying rent. Buying groceries. Living a small, quiet life that ended in a flash of heat and noise in a room he didn't own.
The priest's words washed over him, a river of empty comfort flowing around a stone. "…in God's hands… part of a plan… eternal peace…"
Aiko's hands clenched into fists in his pockets, nails biting into his palms.
A plan?
What kind of plan ended with a man being reduced to ash and bone over a spreadsheet?
What peace was there in being unaware, snuffed out like a candle in a draft?
They put murderers on death row, gave them a date, a last meal, a semblance of control.
Ren had gotten none of that.
None of them did.
Every single person standing here under their black mushrooms was on the same row, shuffling forward day by day, just waiting for the door to open.
The only difference was the blindfold.
The service ended. People began to drift away, casting sympathetic glances his way he didn't see.
Their lives would continue.
They would get in their cars, drive home, eat dinner, laugh at something on television.
The world would keep turning, utterly indifferent to the man in the box.
Aiko remained until the groundskeepers arrived, their faces grimly professional. He watched as the casket was lowered into the ground.
The first shovelful of dirt hit the wood with a final, sickening thud.
It was the sound of a door slamming shut forever.
That was the point, he realized, a cold certainty settling in his chest. That was the whole, ugly truth of it.
Life was a death sentence where the executioner couldn't even be bothered to show his face.
You lived with no say in the matter, and you died with no say in the matter. You were just a passenger on a ride hurtling toward a cliff, and anyone who told you different was selling something.
A raw, bitter sound escaped his lips, half-chuckle, half-sob. The absurdity of it was suffocating. The pointless struggle, the fleeting joys, all of it just… noise before the silence.
He turned his back on the grave, on the mist, on the world. The feeling that followed him home wasn't grief. It was a profound, all-consuming disgust.
---
The bottle of pills was cool in his hand. He didn't even know what they were for.
Something his mother had left behind, another token of a life ended too soon. He didn't care about the purpose. He only cared about the effect.
He didn't do it for drama.
He didn't do it to be found.
He did it with the same grim finality as a prisoner walking his last mile.
It was the one choice, the one semblance of control he could claw back from a universe that offered none. If he was on death row, he would choose his own time. He would open the door himself.
He washed them down with tepid water from the tap. Then he sat on the edge of his bed and waited.
The room was silent.
Outside, a car alarm wailed, then cut out.
Life went on.
The world first softened at the edges, then began to dissolve.
The silence was replaced by a sound like the deep, resonant song of a cello played in a vast, empty hall. There was a sensation of immense, gentle movement.
He opened eyes he didn't remember closing.
He was riding on the back of a creature so vast its skin was a landscape of ridges and valleys, plated like ancient armor.
It swam through an ocean of liquid, deep and impossibly blue, that felt like cool silk against his skin. The air smelled of ozone and something sweetly metallic.
He looked down.
The *grass* they glided over was a field of tiny, humanoid figures, all moving in unison, a silent, living carpet. In the distance, trees of crystalline azure reached into a sky the color of a fresh bruise, their branches holding not leaves, but shimmering, slow-drifting lights.
"Bummer way to go, huh?"
The voice was light, cheerful. A boy sat cross-legged nearby, as if he'd always been there. His hair was the blue of the deepest ocean trench, his eyes the pure, untainted blue of a high-altitude sky. He looked like a child, but his gaze held a weight of epochs.
Aiko just stared, his own gloom a tangible shroud around him. Words felt pointless.
The boy—Dream—sighed dramatically, picking at a thread on his shorts.
"Totally unfair. My Claim lets me do all this," he gestured at the impossible world around them, "but the Flaw is I have to, like, grant wishes. It's a total part-time job. Cramps my style."
He peered at Aiko, his head tilting.
Then he laughed, a sound like clear bells.
"Whoa. You are dark. I can smell it on you. Let me guess... one of the ordinary planets? The ones where you just... end?" His smile was wide, wicked.
Aiko's voice was a rasp, unused. "I just... wanted it to stop. I wanted it to be different."
"Different how?" Dream asked, kicking his feet idly over the whale's side.
"To mean something. To have a say. They just... take you. However they want. Whenever they want. What's the point of any of it?" The words came out flat, drained of everything but the hollow truth.
Dream made a thoughtful face, puffing out his cheeks. Then he shrugged, a gesture of cosmic indifference. "Dunno. Beats me. I'm in the dark too, buddy." He laughed again, but it was softer now.
"But hey, it's not just your rock. It's everywhere. Everyone everywhere can buy it in the dumbest, most pathetic ways possible. No say. No warning. Universal truth. Sucks, right?"
He leaned forward, his blue eyes capturing Aiko's, holding them. "But you? You got lucky. The universe feels... sorry for you. So it gave you a coupon. One wish. So... what's it gonna be?"
Aiko paused.
The bitterness, the helplessness, the image of Ren's casket being swallowed by the earth—it all crystallized into a single, burning point.
"I hated it," Aiko whispered, the words sharp as glass. "The helplessness. I never want to be that powerless again. I want a say."
Dream's smile returned, brilliant and terrifying. It was the smile of a god indulging a curious ant.
"Wish granted."