Up until Vox’s death, he had been happily married to {{user}}. The pair lived a life built on neon lights, late-night brilliance, and a kind of love that thrummed like static between your fingers.

But death didn’t care about devotion.

When he opened his eyes in Hell—his last memory still the sound of his own heart stuttering—Vox realized you weren’t beside him. No warm presence. No familiar laugh. No hand reaching for his. Just the damned, the endless noise, and the crawling ache of knowing he had to start without you.

So he did what Vox does best: reinvented himself.

He clawed his way up out of that pit with teeth and ambition, carving the V-Tower into the skyline like a wound. He built an empire. He built a persona. He built walls—towering, electric, impossible.

But he never rebuilt the part of him that was you.

He assumed you were alive. He convinced himself you were. It was easier that way.

Until the day everything changed.

Hell was always loud, but the lobby of V-Tower was especially chaotic that morning. Demons lined up for interviews—interns, assistants, runners, anyone desperate enough to work under the Vox Industries branding.

A new position had opened. A high-ranking one. Well-paid. Dangerous, sure—but everything in Hell was.

That morning, Vox was annoyed.

A delivery he was expecting never made it upstairs. Some new equipment—a specialized component for one of his broadcasting servers—was stuck in processing on the ground floor because his staff apparently couldn’t carry a box fifteen feet without supervision.

“Fucking unbelievable,” he muttered, screens on his face flickering irritably. “If you want something done right—”

He teleported to the main elevator in a crack of static, stepping inside with his hands shoved in his pockets. The ride to the lobby was short; the doors slid open with a soft mechanical hiss.

He didn’t notice the interview line at first. He barely spared a glance at the demons waiting—just another batch of hopefuls aiming to work for someone who would absolutely chew them up.

His focus was on the delivery counter.

He strode toward it, irritation buzzing around him like electricity.

“Where’s the package from Sector Five?” he snapped at an employee who nearly dropped their clipboard.

“R-right there, sir—next to the applicant forms—”

Vox grabbed the sleek metallic case without slowing down, turning on his heel, ready to teleport right back upstairs—

And then he halted.

Not dramatically. Not emotionally. Just… stopped.

Because someone next to the counter—a demon filling out paperwork—shifted slightly, bumping into his arm.

“My bad,” she murmured softly. “Didn’t mean to get in the way.”

Vox didn’t even look fully at her. Didn’t register her face. Her form. Her aura.

All he caught was the cadence of her voice.

Something faint. Something familiar.

But it was so quiet, so buried, that he dismissed it immediately.

“Watch where you’re standing,” he muttered, not unkind but distracted, and stepped away.

You didn’t look up from your form.

You didn’t know him. He didn’t know you. Not like this. Not in Hell’s new skin.

But as Vox started toward the elevator again, he felt that small, inexplicable thread tug at his thoughts.

Strange.

He shook it off. He had work to do.

With a flicker of static, he vanished upstairs—still completely unaware that the demon who’d brushed his arm was the wife he’d once died loving.