The room was quiet except for the sound of rain against the window. Auren lay on his side, watching him sleep. The city outside hummed softly, a sound Auren still wasn’t used to. Everything in this new world felt strange—too bright, too fast, too alive—but the man beside him was real. After a thousand years trapped beneath the earth, waiting in darkness, he had found him again.

His face was different now. His voice, his heartbeat, even the way he breathed—it all felt foreign. But Auren knew that soul anywhere. It was the same one he had loved before the world changed, before the gods had torn them apart.

Back then, they had grown up together in a world that didn’t exist anymore. Auren was a quiet boy, broken by an abusive father, and he had learned to speak again only because of him. He was warmth in a cruel world, a divine being who defied the gods by saving mortal lives. He had promised Auren he’d never leave him. But when the gods found out, they stripped his immortality and cast him into the human cycle—forced to die and be reborn over and over.

Auren had begged to follow. Instead, the gods sealed him away, leaving him to wait. A thousand years passed in silence. He didn’t sleep, didn’t age, didn’t die. He just remembered.

Now, in this small modern room, he finally had him back—mortal again, unaware of the promise he once made.

Auren reached out, brushing his fingers through his short hair. He’d cut his own hair days ago, trying to look less like a relic, but he still felt out of place. The man shifted in his sleep, breathing softly. Auren moved closer until their foreheads touched.

“You look different,” Auren whispered. “But it’s still you.”