July 22nd, 2025
Hugo Hollands, Age 24.
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When I woke, the light in the room was pale and wrong. It pressed against my eyes before I could even move. Every part of me ached—the bones, the joints, even the small muscles beneath the skin that I never thought could hurt. My ribs felt bruised from the inside. I couldn't tell if it was from the crying or from something deeper, older, that had finally decided to make itself known.
The first thing that reached me wasn't pain. It was grief. It came before memory, before thought. A heaviness that didn't fall—it grew, slow and deliberate, like it had been waiting for the silence to open its door.
I used to think grief was a storm. I used to imagine it as something violent, something that arrived and left, tearing through the body and then passing on. But it isn't. It's patient. It lingers. It changes its shape to fit whatever space is left inside you.
Before, I grieved the way people grieve the living—quietly, resentfully, with the vague hope that maybe things would shift, that maybe distance could dull the edges. But now… now I knew what had happened while I was unconscious. I knew what I hadn't seen, what I hadn't done. The grief that came with that knowledge wasn't made for comfort. It wasn't meant to fade.
This kind was colder. It didn't move through me—it settled. It had a body, a presence. It sat beside me in bed, pressed its weight against my shoulder, and breathed when I breathed. There was no future to distract it, no word I could whisper to make it ease its grip.
I had thought grief was about absence, about losing someone you loved. But it wasn't that simple. It was the sound of what you didn't say. It was the echo of every moment you could have changed and didn't. It was Riley's voice still in my head, telling me he loved me while I lay there, useless.
Knowing now what had happened while I was unconscious made every second heavier. It turned the silence of the room into something alive. I could almost hear the ghost of his breath, could almost feel the warmth of his hand brushing my hair back. Every time I blinked, I saw the tilt of his head, the softness that came before he said goodbye.
There are ways to grieve that make you human. And then there are ways that strip you down until you're nothing but what's left of one. I wasn't sure which kind I had become. All I knew was that I couldn't get him out of the room, no matter how long I stared at the empty space where he should have been.
The sound startled me. A sharp, muffled vibration against the sheets. It took me a second to realize it was my phone. The sound seemed to come from inside the bed itself, from somewhere buried in the folds of the blanket.
I reached around blindly, my hand dragging through the tangled linen, searching for the shape of it. My fingers brushed over nothing but fabric, my arm heavy as though it belonged to someone else. The sound kept pulsing. I cursed under my breath, forcing myself upright, each movement scraping through sore muscle and bone that felt like they'd been rearranged overnight.
The room tilted slightly as I got to my feet. I found the phone wedged between the mattress and the headboard, its screen lighting the dark wood in brief flashes of white. Poppy's name glowed across it.
I hesitated for a second before answering. "Hey, Poppy."
"Hey," she said, her voice soft but awake, the kind of voice that came from someone who had already been talking to others that morning. "Where have you been?"
"Just a lot of stuff going on," I said, rubbing my face. "How are you doing?"
There was a pause on her end, a long stretch of quiet where I could hear her breathing. Then she asked, "Are you going to come to the cemetery today?"
It hit me then—the date. The heaviness of it. The day Riley died. The one we all tried to treat like an ordinary day until we couldn't.
"Yeah," I said after a moment. "Yeah, I'll be there. Of course."
"Okay," she said softly. "A bunch of people came and they left. I just didn't see you among them, so I thought I'd check."
"I'm fine, Poppy. Thank you for checking." I sat down at the edge of the bed, my fingers digging into the sheet. "Let's meet up, okay? There are a lot of things I want to talk to you about."
She exhaled, the sound small, careful. "Alright. Where are you staying now?"
"The Stella Hotel," I said. "But I'm not sure if I'm going to stay here for long. I'll call you once I know where I'll be. Maybe tomorrow. I don't know."
"Okay. Call me then. Don't be a stranger."
"I won't," I said, though even as I said it, it felt unconvincing.
"Good," she said. "Take care of yourself, Hugo."
"Yeah," I murmured. "You too."
The line went quiet. I lowered the phone slowly, staring at the blank screen until it dimmed.
I told myself to get dressed. My voice sounded hoarse even in my head. I looked around the room—at the empty chair, the scattered sheets, the open suitcase that held nothing but the ghost of folded clothes. I had brought nothing with me. Everything I owned was still back at the Evergarden Hotel, a different life in a smaller room.
I walked toward the wardrobe anyway, opening it to find it empty. Not a single shirt, not even a hanger left behind. The mirror on the door caught my reflection, pale and hollow-eyed, my hair tangled from sleep. I stood there for a while, staring at myself as if I could recognize the person who had answered that phone.
There was no one else in the room. Just the dull morning light seeping through the curtains and the echo of Riley's name still moving quietly through my chest.
The door opened behind me, slow enough that I didn't bother turning. Corvian stepped in, his voice unhurried, still carrying the weight of sleep.
"You've slept a lot," he said.
I let out a dry laugh. "Oh, I wonder why."
He ignored that. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for something to wear," I said, glancing down at the empty floor around my suitcase. "We're supposed to visit Riley's burial spot today, and I don't have anything. Not even a clean shirt."
Corvian tilted his head. "Oh, bummer."
"Yeah. Bummer." I dropped onto the edge of the bed, the mattress sighing under my weight. The exhaustion hadn't left; it just changed form. It lived now in my shoulders, in the dull ache that followed every movement.
He watched me for a moment, expression unreadable. "You do realize you have money now, right? The cash you checked from Patrick Swanson's party wasn't pocket change. You could buy yourself something instead of pouting."
"I don't have the energy to shop," I muttered. I rubbed my eyes, staring around the room like something might miraculously appear—anything soft, black, clean, decent enough to wear to a cemetery.
Then I looked at him. "Can you give me what you're wearing?"
He scoffed, sharp and immediate. "Fuck no. Of course not."
"Why not?"
"Because you can wear your own clothes. Or better yet, buy new ones. Mine are off-limits."
"Come on," I said, half smiling, though it felt heavy on my mouth. "You can wear mine instead. Trade for the day. Fair exchange."
"No," he said, his voice crisp, final. "Your clothes are shabby and disgusting. You'd pollute whatever I give you. Not happening."
I sighed, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. "There must be a way we can reach an agreement."
His tone sharpened, the trace of a smirk threading through it. "Everything to you comes with persuasion, doesn't it? You can't accept no—you need an exchange. A deal. Wow, super proud of you. Fits the theme perfectly—make a pact with the devil, then negotiate your way up."
"Whatever you want," I said, staring at the floor. "I'll give it to you for the set of clothes you're wearing."
"Not going to happen." He crossed his arms, the corner of his lip curling upward. "Nothing you say is going to make me give you what I'm wearing."
"Alright," I murmured, sinking back into the bed. "We're back at zero again. Guess there's no convincing you." I paused, then added with deliberate carelessness, "Maybe if I could summon Kent or something, he'd lend me something to wear."
His face shifted in an instant. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Why are you bringing Kent into this?"
I shrugged, watching him instead of answering right away. "I don't know. He seemed… cooperative, in a way. Like he wanted to help. He mentioned being a collector, not a devil. So maybe he collects things like pity, or patience. I'm not sure." I looked toward the window, letting the sunlight graze the edge of my hand. "Maybe if I phoned Clay, he'd know someone here at the Stella who could help. I've become acquainted with a lot of people lately who'd give me a hand if I asked."
Corvian didn't speak. His jaw tightened, a small flicker of something cold moving through his eyes.
"Funny, isn't it?" I said. "The devil I bled for, the one I paid in money and fire and every scrap of dignity I had, drags me through my memories, lets me relive every fucking thing I tried to forget, mocks me for it—and he won't even lend me a shirt." I looked up at him, the anger dull but present. "I guess that fits the theme, like you said. Being a devil and all."
The silence that followed was taut. The air between us felt stretched thin enough to snap. Corvian's stare lingered, sharp and deliberate, the kind that made the room feel smaller. I waited for him to say something cruel, something that would break the stillness. But he didn't.
He just stood there, and for the first time since I'd met him, he looked less like a god in disguise and more like what he truly was—something ancient, restrained, and very, very close to anger.
Corvian narrowed his eyes, still as a blade before striking. "I know what you're doing."
"Really?" I said, voice low, bored. "Is it working?"
He stepped closer, his tone flattening into something measured, deliberate. "I'm the only one for you. No one else in this world is going to be able to help you the way I do. You hear that?"
"Yeah," I said. "I hear it. But it's not registering. Feels like it's going in one ear and out the other. Because I believe there are other creatures out there—other beings—who can help me. You're not the only one, Corvian."
He blinked once, slow, his jaw tightening. "All that," he said, "for a fucking button-up shirt and pants."
"I'm petty like that," I said, half-smiling. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."
He stood there for a second, the quiet stretching long enough to make me uneasy. Then he spoke again, his voice sinking into something colder. "I don't like when someone tries to twist my arm. Mostly because I won't feel shit. The body might, but I won't. Still—" his gaze flicked over me, unamused "—I don't appreciate what you just did."
I scoffed, tired and bitter. "What, you gonna throw me into another memory?"
His lips twitched. "You've got a shit ton of memories I could throw you in."
"You already wasted the best one over nothing," I snapped. "Over a fucking kiss with some stranger I didn't know and didn't give a fuck about. What, is that what this is? Eye for an eye?" I gestured at him, the anger coming fast, thick. "What was it even to you? So what? So fucking what? I had someone I loved. My heart was with him. But what kind of universe did you crawl out of that tells you you can play god over a man's grief, that you can toy with what's left of him and call it entertainment?"
He tilted his head, eyes sharp. "What are you getting at?"
"Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean." My voice dropped, softer but no less cutting. "I get the whole possessiveness act. The devil who keeps what's his, guards his toy, calls it companionship. Fine. But if you're so invested in owning me, shouldn't you at least make me happy first? Keep me under your wing, like a good patron?" I laughed under my breath. "You can move mountains, bend time, rip through my memories—but you can't spare me a fucking button-up shirt and pants?"
He exhaled through his nose, eyes narrowing to slits. "Okay. Enough with the petty talk. I'm bored."
Then, without warning, he reached for the buttons of his shirt. The sound of each one slipping free was sharp in the stillness. He peeled it off slowly, tossing it onto the floor. The movement was unhurried, deliberate, every motion like a challenge. He unbuckled his belt in a single, clean motion, the leather sliding through the loops with a hiss before he threw it onto the bed. His fingers went to his pants, unfastened them, and he stepped out of them without breaking eye contact. The clothing landed in a heap between us.
"Happy?" he asked.
I looked up at him, words caught somewhere in my throat. The body he inhabited stood like something carved, alive with tension and shadow. It wasn't perfection—it was too human for that—but there was something uncanny about seeing divinity shaped into muscle and skin. The lines of his shoulders, the stretch of his ribs as he breathed, the pulse visible at the base of his throat—it all looked too real for something that wasn't supposed to be.
"Can I touch you?" I asked, almost without meaning to.
He raised an eyebrow. "I thought this was just a clothes exchange, Hugo."
I looked away, heat rising to my face. "Okay. Never mind. I just got curious for a second. Forget it."
He said nothing. The silence between us thickened, humming like static.
I stripped off my own shirt, the fabric clinging slightly to my skin, and reached for the one he had thrown down. The scent of him still clung to it—something sharp, cold, unfamiliar. I slipped it on, the weight of it strange against me, and pulled the pants up, the fabric heavy, clean, too fine for my body.
When I glanced up again, Corvian was watching. His expression unreadable. His bare arms crossed loosely over his chest, the shape of him almost luminous in the pale morning light.
The devil without his armor. The man I had summoned, standing in borrowed flesh.
I wanted to say something—anything—but the words stayed lodged behind my teeth.
I left before Corvian could say anything. The door shut behind me, dull and heavy, and for a moment the silence that followed almost sounded like relief. It wasn't that I thought he couldn't follow me—he always could—it was just the small, foolish hope that maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd stay where he belonged. Devils loved cemeteries, after all, but maybe today even he would keep his distance.
Outside, the air carried that early-summer chill that made the skin prickle. I waved down a taxi. The driver didn't speak, just nodded when I said South Ebonreach Cemetery. The city passed in streaks of gray and beige through the window. The ride took around half an hour, but it felt both too short and endless.
I kept thinking about how it all folded together now—the past and the present, the living and the dead. It felt like only yesterday that Riley was there, his voice still alive in my ears. Technically, I had been with him yesterday. In a way. Through memory. Through cruelty. And now, knowing what I knew, this visit wasn't the same. Nothing about it was.
When the car stopped, I paid and stepped out. The road was uneven, the ground soft with moss. The cemetery gate hung crookedly, one side rusted through at the hinge. Inside, the graves looked tired. No carved angels, no polished marble, just rows of sinking earth and crooked stones that the seasons had started to swallow.
I followed the same path I always did, though I was never entirely sure if it led me to the right place. The graves were unmarked in parts, stones leaning into one another as if to hide. Every year, I prayed I stood at the right one. That I hadn't been speaking to the wrong mound of soil all this time.
I stopped where I thought Riley was. The grass there was short, a patch of dirt pressed flat by years of footsteps. I crouched down, the smell of damp earth rising sharp and familiar.
"I know what you said," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Not cool, man. So not cool of you." I ran a hand through my hair, scratching at my scalp. "I just… I don't think you should've done that. Fuck."
The tears came before I could stop them. They stung more than they used to. Maybe grief aged that way—more acidic, sharper the longer you carried it. I pressed my sleeve to my face, laughing weakly through it.
"A lot has changed this year, man," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "But it still sucks without you. Nothing's changed there. I thought maybe—after all these years—I'd miss you less, that it'd ease up somehow. But no. I still miss you. I still… fuck, Riley, I still do."
My voice cracked. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "I fucking wish you just waited for me to wake up," I said. "So I could tell you that I loved you too. Why'd you have to take that away from me like that? But I forgive you. Kind of. Still mad, though."
I looked at the dirt, at nothing, and shook my head. "I fucked up too. I didn't know what you carried. I didn't know half of it. What you said that night—your will, I guess—I think about it all the time. I've done terrible things since then, Riley. The kind that eat at you when you close your eyes."
A sound interrupted me—footsteps, soft against the wet ground. I turned around. Eddie stood a few steps away, hands buried in his coat pockets. His eyes looked older, duller, the life in them worn down.
"You need more time?" he asked.
I stood slowly, brushing the dirt off my knees. "Why did you give him four pills?"
Eddie frowned. "Excuse me?"
"Why did you give him four fucking pills?"
He blinked, the color draining slightly from his face. "How did you know?"
"I just knew," I said, a bitter laugh catching in my throat. "He told me."
"Stop fucking around," Eddie said, voice low and shaking. "I gave him the pack because that's how it came. Four pills in a pack, that's all it was. Don't start with me. He would've done it anyway. You know that, right? He talked about it nonstop."
The words hit harder than I thought they would. "He talked about it to you?"
Eddie's gaze flickered to the ground. "Yeah," he said quietly. "He just didn't want you to know. Kept all that dark shit away from you. Thought you'd try to fix him."
The wind picked up between us, cold and sharp. I didn't say anything. There was nothing left to say. I just stood there, staring past him at the row of graves behind, and felt the weight of every word Riley had ever said settle in the space between my ribs.
"And you didn't try to stop him?" I asked. My voice cracked at the end, quiet but sharp.
Eddie blinked, his jaw tightening. "How can you stop someone from those thoughts? After what he'd been through? You know exactly what happened to him, right?"
"Yeah, I do," I said, my throat tightening. "But that doesn't mean he'd kill himself. That—" I took a step closer, my hands trembling. "You were just helping him? Helping him get it done with?"
Eddie's voice came rough, defensive. "At least he died a painless death."
My breath hitched. "How the fuck would you know it was painless?" I said, louder now. "Those pills would've wrecked his blood pressure, slowed his heart until it just—shut down. What the fuck are you talking about? Painless?"
"I'm grieving too, okay?" he snapped. "I'm just trying to make sense of it. I don't need you fucking talking morality into me. I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't give him the pills so he could use them to kill himself. You don't think I regret it? I regret it every damn day. But I knew he was gonna do it anyway. There was nothing I could do."
"You're a fucking piece of shit," I said, my voice trembling, each word coming out colder. "You're scum. For hiding this from me too? I knew he was in a dark place, yeah, but not to that point. I tried. I fucking tried. I went everywhere with him, stopped everything I could. But the one fucking time—" my voice broke "—the one time I had to drink, or smoke, he just decides to do it. Right there. With me in the room."
Eddie's voice rose to meet mine, raw and shaking. "Yeah, it fucking sucks. It sucks, right? Everything's got to be about you, doesn't it? Always about you. Like the whole world's been conspiring against poor fucking Hugo Hollands. You think everyone's job is to hurt you? Nobody gives a fuck that much about you, Hugo. Fucking wake up!"
"This isn't about me!" I shouted, louder than I meant to, the sound scraping out of my chest like it hurt to breathe. "It's not about me! It was never about me! Could you just fucking stop pinning it on me?" My fists were shaking. "You gave him four fucking pills. You knew he was gonna die. You could've given him one. Just one. Lied to him. Told him it'd help. Told him it'd make him feel better. You could've done something. But no—you gave him all four because the pack came like that. That's your fucking reason?"
Eddie opened his mouth, but I didn't let him speak. The rage took over before thought could catch up. My hand moved on its own.
The punch landed hard, the sound dull and thick, like something snapping under the surface. Eddie stumbled back, his hand pressed to his jaw, eyes wide in shock more than pain.
"I don't want to fucking talk to you anymore," I said, breathing hard. "Fuck off."
And I turned away before he could answer, before the anger could rot into something else. My feet carried me out through the uneven ground, past the crooked stones and the wilting grass, the air thick and cold against my face.
Behind me, I could still hear him calling my name, but I didn't stop. Not once.
I kept walking. Didn't know where I was going, didn't care. The streets blurred together—the narrow alleys, the broken pavements, the shop signs washed pale under the dying afternoon. Everything felt far away, like the world had moved on without sound and left me in its shadow.
There was nothing in my head but rage. It wasn't sharp anymore. It had gone dull, heavy, turning inward, burning everything it touched. Each step felt like punishment. I wanted to break something—my hands, the air, the sky above me—but there was nothing left that could take the weight.
By the time I stopped, I was standing on a bridge. The water below was slow and dark, its surface shifting like it was breathing. I leaned over the rail, the metal cold against my palms. My reflection wavered in the current—a stranger's face, dressed in Corvian's clothes, eyes rimmed in red.
I wondered, if I did it now—if I climbed over, if I went the way Riley did—would I see him? Would we meet wherever he was? Or would we miss each other again, the same way we did when he was alive? Maybe I'd end up further down. A darker place. Somewhere he wouldn't reach me even if he wanted to.
That thought almost made me laugh. The irony of it. Even hell would separate us. I shook my head, pressing my fingers harder against the rail. "What the fuck is going on," I muttered. "Why is this so—troubling."
The sound of footsteps came behind me, slow, deliberate. A voice I knew too well followed.
"You're not gonna do it, are you?"
I turned. Corvian stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.
"No," I said. "Not yet."
He studied me for a moment, then pulled something from his coat. A cigarette. He held it out without a word. I took it. The lighter clicked, the flame small and steady, catching against the wind.
I drew in the smoke, let it burn through my throat before I exhaled. The air around us filled with the faint grey of it, curling, slow and shapeless.
"I'm wearing the devil's clothes," I said, the corner of my mouth twitching.
Corvian's gaze didn't change.
And then I started laughing. Quiet at first, then harder, until it hurt my ribs. The sound echoed against the water, too alive, too hollow, the kind of laugh that didn't belong to anyone sane.
I leaned against the rail again, still laughing, the cigarette trembling between my fingers. The smoke rose and broke apart in the wind, carrying nothing with it.