After dying aboard the spaceship, I found myself awakening in a place utterly unlike anything I had ever encountered. The room stretched endlessly in every direction, its very structure woven from lush, billowing clouds that shimmered softly with a pearly glow. No matter where I turned, the misty walls and floor undulated gently beneath my feet, giving the impression of standing on a fragile, ethereal sea. The only anomaly in this serene, dreamlike landscape were the strange clocks — ancient yet unfamiliar — floating aimlessly through the air, ticking softly but without any discernible order or rhythm.

  The last thing I could clearly recall was the mundane, mechanical task of replacing the oxygen filters on the ship. I had been meticulous, careful to ensure everything was sealed tight and functioning. And then… nothing but this.

  I glanced down at myself. My uniform — the one I’d worn for hours without rest or care — was startlingly pristine. Not a smudge, a wrinkle, or a sign of wear. It almost felt too perfect, too deliberate, as if I had just stepped out of a tailor’s shop rather than having undergone the exhaustion and grime of hard labor. The incongruity made my skin crawl.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” I called out, my voice fragile in this strange silence. The sound seemed to ripple across the invisible surface beneath me, sending small, concentric shockwaves outward — like a pebble dropped into a still pond. The echoes faded into a thick quiet, and moments stretched on with no response.

  Just as I began to question my sanity, a figure appeared out of nowhere, materializing as if summoned by the ripples themselves. A middle-aged man stood before me, his expression calm but urgent, a cigarette lazily hanging from his lips. His eyes darted nervously toward the drifting clocks, as if they were silently dictating his every move.

  “Hi,” he said briskly. “You must be Lars. I’m Cronos. Pleased to meet you.” His voice was fast, clipped, betraying a restless energy. “I know you’re confused. You probably have a million questions. But let me get straight to the point: you died.”

  I blinked, trying to make sense of it all. “Died? But… where exactly am I?”

  Cronos flinched at the chiming of a clock — it struck twelve with a resonant toll — then quickly averted his gaze to the others, ignoring me almost entirely.

  “So… this is heaven?” I ventured, my eyes tracing the floating clocks again, watching the ripple patterns on the cloud-like ground hypnotically.

  “Not quite,” he corrected, voice sharp. “You’re not here in any heaven you’ve heard of. You’re standing in the present of the future and the past, all at once. To put it simply, I am the god of time.” He smiled, but it was thin and uneasy, like a man juggling too many responsibilities. “Now, let’s not waste time. We need to get you ready for your new life.”

  I frowned, confused and frustrated. “Wait — the god of time? Then why rush? Can’t you just stop time so we can talk properly?”

  Cronos shook his head, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. “Believe it or not, time only flows one way — forward, always forward. And as time itself, I feel it slipping away from me constantly. So, yes, I’m in a hurry.”

  I struggled to grasp the concept. “I… don’t understand.”

  He barely acknowledged my confusion. “No time to explain at length. You’ll be a cleric — Lars Aphistropheles — holding a high rank in my church on a distant planet called Solaris. I can’t create a new body for you, but I can transplant you into one already lived in for about twenty years. You’ll adjust, I’m sure.”

  His words tumbled out so fast, my mind could barely keep up. “Wait, what?”

  Ignoring me, Cronos pressed on. “Your role will be that of a prophet, divining the future by my command. It’s important work — and it comes with privileges: wealth, power, influence, whatever you desire. But seeing your old friends? Impossible. Don’t ask.”

  Finally, he paused, his breath coming in short gasps after the rapid monologue. “Do you understand?”

  I opened my mouth to respond — “Ehm, n—” — but he cut me off sharply.

  “Good. I’ll contact you when the time is right.”

  With that, the clouds, the clocks, and the figure of Cronos all dissolved into darkness. For several seconds, I was swallowed by nothingness, weightless and disoriented.

  Then, suddenly, a flood of memories overwhelmed me — memories that weren’t mine. Faces, places, feelings, and experiences poured into my mind with relentless force, rewriting my very sense of self.

  Lars Aphistropheles’s life had, by most measures, been uneventful so far. Simple, predictable, almost dull. But even that quiet monotony was too much for me when I became him — or rather, when I saw her again. Sister Lily. I found myself staring into her gentle, curious eyes, my mouth falling open in a mixture of shock and confusion that took several long seconds to process.

  Who was I now? And what had become of me?

  Inside my head, a storm raged. Memories from my previous life aboard the spaceship were still there, flickering at the edges of my consciousness like old, faded photographs. Yet intertwined with those were vivid new memories — moments I had never lived, feelings I had never felt before. It was as if two souls had been forced into one, each claiming their own territory in my mind.

  “Lars, are you okay?” Lily’s soft voice pulled me back from the abyss. She stood before me, clutching a stack of ancient, dusty books. Her brow was furrowed with concern, the warmth in her eyes genuine and comforting.

  I swallowed hard, forcing a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you, Lily.” The warmth in my chest surprised me as the smile settled on my lips, and for a moment I just stood there, soaking in the presence of this woman I had met only a month ago. The feelings I had for her weren’t mine — or at least, they weren’t from my old self. This crush, this gentle affection, was foreign, yet it had somehow always been a part of me, waiting to bloom.

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  Weeks passed. Three weeks of wrestling with the truth that I was neither the Lars who had lived on Solaris before nor simply the man who had died on that spaceship. I was both — a fusion of two lives, two identities, stitched together in this strange new reality. Slowly, painfully, I began to accept it.

  As I made peace with this fractured self, my feelings for Lily deepened. That initial spark blossomed into a rich, enduring love — one she reciprocated with a tenderness that made the world feel right again. My days, though often repetitive, became filled with moments of genuine happiness. I experienced the beauty of nature as if for the first time, breathing in the clean air of Solaris and feeling truly free. This world had become my home.

  Everything seemed to be falling into place — until one ordinary afternoon, while I was doing laundry, the god of time appeared beside me without warning.

  “It will rain tomorrow. Write it down and tell others,” he said simply, and before I could respond, he vanished as mysteriously as he had come.

  Startled, confused — yet strangely unafraid — I found myself trusting him. After all, he had given me a second chance at life, a life filled with love and meaning. While we didn’t live extravagantly, Lily and I were happy. So I took his words seriously. I wrote down the prophecy and made my way to the town square, proclaiming it aloud.

  At first, the townsfolk were skeptical. A man claiming to foresee the weather? It sounded like superstition or trickery. But when the rain came exactly as I had foretold — not once, but ten times in a row — their doubt turned to belief. Word of my prophecies spread quickly, and soon enough, I was entrusted with a great responsibility: the position of Pope of Time.

  With this newfound authority, I was finally able to grant Lily some of the more worldly desires she’d quietly longed for. We moved into a beautiful house nestled in the heart of a bustling city. From there, we extended our help to many who were in need, providing support and hope where there had been little before.

  And then came the greatest joy of all: we were expecting a child. The entire community rejoiced with us, their happiness adding to the overwhelming sense of fulfillment that filled our lives.

  One day, without warning, the god of time appeared again, his presence as sudden as ever. “I have more for you. Go to a public space where you can say it out loud.”

  By now, I had stopped questioning him. Explanation was never part of the bargain.

  I hurried to the bustling marketplace and climbed atop a small stone pedestal. Curious eyes turned toward me, some even clutching their holy scriptures, murmuring prayers. The weight of their expectation pressed down, but I took a deep breath and prepared to speak, knowing that my life—and theirs—was about to change forever.

  “In ten years, there will be a small flood in the bay area,” the god of time said abruptly, his voice calm but carrying an undeniable weight. Without hesitation, I echoed the words aloud, imprinting them into the minds of the gathered crowd.

  “In the Worcester Kingdom, in a sunken place, there will be a vampire who serves whoever rescues her.” The prophecy hung in the air — strange, mysterious, but standard fare for the kind of divinations I’d been delivering. Natural disasters, strange creatures, ominous warnings — all part of the role I had grown used to.

  “And this will be my last divination.”

  I paused mid-sentence. Those words—finality—were new, unsettling. I glanced around for the god of time, but he had vanished as suddenly as ever, leaving me standing alone before the curious and expectant crowd. His message lingered in my mind, puzzling and heavy.

  The weight of it only truly settled when I arrived home. My chest ached, a deep, gnawing pain that made every breath feel like a struggle. I looked once more at my wife, radiant and tender, cradling our son in her arms. I wanted to hold them both close, to freeze this perfect moment in time.

  But before I could, my knees buckled. I collapsed onto the cloudlike floor of that surreal space — my face hitting the ground and sending ripples across its strange, invisible surface. Oddly, there was no pain, only numbness.

  “Oh, there you are,” the god of time mumbled as he appeared beside me, his voice casual and almost bored.

  “I… died?” I stuttered, confusion and disbelief flooding through me.

  “Heart attack,” he replied flatly. “You had an undiagnosed condition. Didn’t have more than a few years left, really.”

  My mind reeled. “You… put me in a body doomed to fail me?”

  His gaze flicked to one of the floating clocks, ticking ominously toward twelve. “Yup. Great combo skills, Sherlock.”

  I swallowed hard, my throat dry. “Why? Why would you do that? Everything was… perfect until now. I had a family, a life. Why take it away?”

  He shrugged, impatience flashing in his eyes. “You’re a tool. More specifically, a tool to settle my debt with death.”

  “What? I don’t understand.” Anger boiled over, sharp and bitter. “You used me. You gave me a life only to rip it away. Lily, Tim — my family — you’re destroying everything I fought for!”

  He didn’t look at me, only at the clock, which struck twelve with a sonorous chime. “You don’t need to understand.”

  A black portal flickered open a few meters away, dark and swirling like a void. The god of time gestured toward it. “You knowing anything is a liability to my plans.”

  From the portal, a thick black cloud emerged, swirling tendrils of nebula reaching toward me like cold fingers. “He is all yours. The debt is settled with this,” the god of time said, stepping aside with finality.

  “Lily… please, just let me say goodbye,” I begged, my voice cracking with desperation.

  Only cruel snickering replied from the dark cloud. The god of time looked on with utter disinterest, his expression void of any sympathy. To them, we were nothing more than pawns — expendable pieces in a game far beyond my comprehension.

  “I’m sorry,” the black cloud whispered, voice cold and merciless. “Your love isn’t as important as my beloved. Thank you for helping me.”

  It extended a tendril, touching my body with its smoky essence. In that moment, my last thoughts were of Lily and Tim — my family — before my soul was torn apart, shattered and consumed by darkness.