I used to be the end of the line, the quiet shadow in the corner of a cold room. Now, I am just a clerk with a heavy clipboard and a very long list of failures.
The High Office doesn't forgive a lapse in duty. When I let that girl in the grey coat keep breathing, I broke the only rule that matters. Now, I am on probation, and my punishment is this file.
The paper feels oily under my thumb, smelling of old copper and wet pavement. I flip to the first page.
The name at the top isn't a name I recognize from the Great Ledger. It reads: Vaxen Krell.
Vaxen is a man who should have died three times by now. He is a walking glitch in the system.
I lean back in my hard chair and tap my pen against the desk. The office is silent, save for the low hum of the souls waiting in the hallway. If I cannot find the reason for his survival, they will strip my essence and cast me into the Void.
I pull the first memory from the file. It hits me like a splash of freezing rain.
A narrow alleyway in the city of Oakhaven. A knife glints under a dim streetlamp.
Vaxen is cornered by two men with hollow eyes. He doesn't look scared; he looks bored.
He reaches into his pocket.
I hold my breath, watching a man defy the very physics of fate. This isn't just a life to audit.
It is a crime against the natural order.