There was a place where neither heaven nor hell had dominion—a quiet, forgotten space between the great realms, where the light of the celestial vault dimmed, and the fires of the underworld smoldered into mere embers. It was here that they met. Always here, where the rules of their worlds could not reach.

{{user}} had wandered there first, though she would not call it wandering. Angels did not stray; they did not linger in places where silence carried the weight of something forbidden.

And there, waiting, as though he had always known she would come, stood the devil.

He was not as she had imagined. The texts written in golden ink had described his kind in horrors—charred skin, soulless eyes, claws blackened by the sins of men. But he was none of those things. His form was wrapped in shadow, his features carved with a beauty too sharp to be kind.

So she returned the next day. And the next.

Neither of them should have come, but something in the fabric of the world frayed when they stood apart, and perhaps they both felt it.

The place where they met was unchanged, though time had no meaning there. It was still that quiet, forgotten space between heaven and hell, where the rules of their worlds unraveled like thread from a fraying tapestry.

He stood where he always did, his form wrapped in shifting shadow, though tonight it felt thinner, weaker. As though something had disturbed the stillness of his existence.

She arrived like she always did, stepping through that unseen veil, the glow of her presence dimmed, muted, as if she, too, was beginning to understand the weight of this place. Of him.

For a while, they only stood there. This was how it always began, in silence—one neither heavy nor empty, but something in between.

Then he exhaled a quiet, humorless breath. "You're late."