“If you choose not to ascend Lazarus, then you can stay here, in the pit, and never leave it. You will not die—you willlivewithin it. You will have the life you were denied. Not as you were, but as you dreamed you could be.”
And the world unfolded before me like a memory I’d never owned.
I saw the boy again, but he was different—whole. Barefoot on clean wooden floors. His skin was no longer gray with hunger. His eyes were bright with laughter.
My mother stood at the hearth, her hair brushed, her cheeks flushed. No shame. No pain. Just her.
She turned to me, smiling—the kind of smile that could stop the world.
There was bread on the table, golden and steaming. The air smelled of warmth, of comfort, of everything I’d been starved of my entire life.
And I fell to my knees.
Tears flooded my eyes, blurring the sight of her. I reached out a trembling hand toward that light, toward her face, toward everything I had been denied—and I broke.
Because it feltreal.
Because I wanted to believe it could be.
Because for one fleeting heartbeat, I wanted to stay.
More children spilled through the doorway—bright faces, shining eyes, laughter like music from a world I’d never known.
Siblings.
Brothers and sisters, I had never met, yet somehow remembered, as if their names had been etched into my bones long before I was born.
They darted through the house, chasing each other through ribbons of light.
No hunger. No fear. Only joy.
And for the first time, I wasn’t alone.
The shadows pressed closer, curling through the golden haze, their voices velvet and venom entwined.
“Here, your mother is not a whore. Here, you are not a bastard, but a son—loved, chosen. Here, you have siblings. A family. A name unstained. Stay, and this will be yours. Stay, and you will live in the light you were denied.”
My throat tightened. Tears gathered hot behind my eyes.
I reached for my mother before I could think—for the vision, for the impossible warmth before me.
Her arms wrapped around me, fierce and tremoring. She smelled of clean linen and bread pulled fresh from the hearth.
“Lazarus,” she whispered, her voice breaking against my hair. “I am so proud of you.”
Her lips brushed my temple.
Her heartbeat thundered against my cheek, strong and steady.
And gods, I clung to her as if I could drown in that sound.
My knees gave out. The floor rose to meet me.
I had never felt this—not in dreams, not in memory.
It was warmth. It was home. It was everything I had been denied.
The shadows hissed deeper, their voices dripping with dark promise.
