Prologue
One evening, when the sun had just barely begun to dip below the horizon, an extremely unfortunate accident unfolded.
As the vibrant oranges and pinks streaked across the sky, a boy stood on the railing of a rickety bridge. He knew there was no way of surviving once he fell, and he was content with that. For he had endured far too much for far too long; he felt he had suffered enough.
The water rushed below him in a soothing, hypnotic song, and the slight fall breeze cooled his warm cheeks.
He had been good. He had tried with everything in him to fight and to hold on to that desire to live. That was enough, right? Can we all agree that he did enough? That he deserved this—this escape?
But there was one who did not agree. A man—no, someone more than a man—who had been watching over the boy: protecting him, loving him.
If the boy were to die, he would become nothing again. For it was the boy who had made him a god.
So, no, the god did not agree. And on that one evening, the deity came to him and spoke, as if answering a prayer. He spoke until the boy could think of nothing but him—nothing but this beautiful, darling god and the future they could build together.
And the boy decided to come down. He decided to live to see another sunset, to suffer for just a bit longer. He would let his god try to save him once more. He could do that much.
That was the worst part. That was the cruelest part of that one evening, that unfortunate accident. In the end, the boy had decided to live. He had wanted to come down, to live to pray another day.
Sometimes you spend your whole life waiting to die, and just when you decide you want to live, the choice is taken from you. There is not always a happy ending. Some people are simply dealt the bad cards.
And this boy… he was one of them.
The god who loved him with every fiber of his being couldn’t accept this. And in turn, he used all of his strength in an attempt to save him up until the last second. He extended his wings and soared straight off that rickety bridge.
And because love is such a beautiful, devastating thing, even in the last moments of his life—with his death imminent—the boy found a way to protect his god from sharing his death. With his body—with his flesh and bones presented as a cradle to catch him.
And then he died—instant and painless, but not without fear. Not without sorrow.
And twenty-three days after that one evening, that unfortunate accident, the god could take it no longer. For howcould anyone expect him to go on when he had nothing to live for? When all he had left was the memories of a false life lived and a body that was saved by the corpse of his disciple?
He left the sunflowers at the boy’s grave and watched the bluebird fly away. He made peace with the end of this life.
The god went to that rickety bridge, and he jumped.
If he could not receive redemption as a man-made god, he would die and become something less.
Now, that one evening—that one evening that turned into two—they were miserable and unjust. Two souls so deeply intertwined that one simply could not exist without the other, and both were lost so suddenly.
And it was horrific, and it was cataclysmic, but do not fret. For you see, divine intervention, destiny—the red thread of fate that ties two souls together—it was all made for them.
That boy and his god.
There is no lifetime in which they do not find each other. There is no reality in which they do not meet.
So, as they were mourned by their loved ones, two souls shot across the galaxy, bright as converging stars. And the universe laid a hand upon them and felt their love, the goodness in them.
Twenty-three days after that first evening, that unfortunate accident, two souls were born into a new reality. A new life within an alternate dimension.
Here they will grow, and they will love—once again finding each other. Continuing that endless cycle, fulfilling old promises from a previous lifetime.
And not for the first time.
Though for the first time reborn into a reality aligned so closely to the one from which they came. And what happens when the universe keeps your present self slightly tethered to your past self?
Well, memories start to bleed.
Chapter One
