When Kamilah open her eyes, she was surrounded by soft clouds and clean air. The pain that had been her constant companion for months was gone, replaced by a lightness that felt almost foreign.
She felt no ache in her bones, no burning in her lungs, and no heaviness in her limbs. She felt no pain at all, and that absence was more disorienting than any pain she had ever experienced.
She opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the brightness that surrounded her. The light was different here, softer somehow, as if it came from everywhere and nowhere at once. The clouds beneath her were not damp or cold as she might have expected.
They were warm and inviting, supporting her weight as if they had been made specifically to hold her. Everything around her was big and floating, the architecture was stretching impossibly upward and outward, defying the laws of physics that she had spent her entire life obeying.
The place looked ancient yet looked new, as if it existed outside of time itself. There were buildings in the distance, their spires are reaching toward a sky that was not quite blue, not quite white, but something in between.
There were gardens filled with flowers she had never seen before, their colors are more vivid than anything in the mortal world. There was a river that flowed upward instead of down, its water was sparkling like liquid starlight.
It was beautiful in a way that words could not describe, and yet Kamilah found herself feeling strangely unsettled by it all.
She jolted, startled when someone suddenly talked.
"Enjoying the view?"
The voice was warm and melodic, carrying a hint of amusement that suggested the speaker had been watching her for some time. Kamilah turned toward the sound, her heart was pounding in her chest despite the fact that she was fairly certain she no longer needed a heart.
She found herself face to face with a tall woman who wore ancient robes and was smiling at her with an expression that seemed both kind and knowing.
The woman’s robes flowed like liquid moonlight, shifting in colors that did not seem to exist in the waking world. They moved in patterns that were hypnotic to watch, shimmering and changing with every breath the woman took.
Her face was ageless, neither young nor old, with features that seemed to shift slightly every time Kamilah tried to focus on them. Her eyes were the color of deep space, filled with stars that twinkled and danced in their depths. Her smile was knowing, possessing a depth that suggested she had watched a thousand lives flicker out like candle flames.
Kamilah blinked, the sudden absence of the suffocating weight in her chest felt more alien than the surreal landscape surrounding her. She looked down at her hands, examining them as if she had never seen them before.
The trembling was gone, replaced by a steadiness that she had not felt in years. The ghostly pallor of her skin had been replaced by a healthy, vibrant glow, as if she had never been sick at all.
There was no blood on her fingers, no evidence of the illness that had consumed her final months. No scent of iron and sickness clung to her clothes or her skin.
Only the crisp, sweet smell of an eternity she hadn’t expected to see.
She turned slowly toward the voice, her eyes are widening as she took in the woman before her. The robes flowed like liquid moonlight, shifting in colors that didn’t seem to exist in the waking world.
"Where... Where am I?" Kamilah asked, her voice was sounding clear and strong, stripped of the rasping weakness that had defined her final months.
Am I dead?"
"Yep, you are," the woman replied with an easy nod, as if she were confirming the weather rather than the state of Kamilah’s existence. "This is heaven, Ms. Kamilah. Our system saw that you did so many good deeds in your life, which is impressive despite being associated with a kind of people like your family and..." She paused, tilting her head slightly. "... Arranged wife."
Kamilah flinched slightly at the mention of her family and Maeve. Even here, in a place of absolute purity, the memory of that cold, hollow house felt like a weight pressing down on her chest.
She looked away, her gaze was drifting toward the shimmering horizon of the floating city. A bitter, fleeting smile touched her lips as she thought about all the years she had spent trying to earn the love of people who had never been capable of giving it.
"Good deeds," she repeated softly, the words felt foreign on her tongue. She had spent her entire life trying to be good by someone else’s standards—obedient, quiet, invisible.
She wondered if the system counted the times she had swallowed her own pride to keep the peace, or the way she had curated her own loneliness so as not to burden others.
She wondered if it counted the nights she had spent crying alone in her room, muffling her sobs in her pillow so that no one would hear. She wondered if it counted all the times she had smiled and said she was fine when she was falling apart inside.
"I didn’t do those things to be impressive," Kamilah admitted, her voice was steady. She finally looked back at the woman in the robes, a strange resolve flickering in her eyes. "I just... I wanted them to be happy. Even if it meant I wasn’t."
The woman’s expression softened, something like compassion flickering in her star-filled eyes. "Oh... Even in here, you’re really pure. But heaven is not ready to let you go into the light yet, Ms. Kamilah."
Kamilah frowned, a small crease appearing between her brows. The concept of the light sounded peaceful—a final surrender where she would no longer have to perform the role of the perfect daughter or the tolerable wife.
She had spent her whole life performing, always aware of the eyes watching her, and always conscious of the expectations she needed to meet. The thought of finally being able to rest, to let go of all of that, had been the only thing keeping her going in those final months.
To be told she wasn’t ready for it felt, in a strange way, like another demand being placed upon her.
"Not ready?" She questioned, her voice was echoing slightly in the vast, open space. She shifted her weight, feeling the lightness of her new form. For the first time in years, she didn’t feel like she was breaking apart.
She felt whole, complete, as if all the pieces of herself that had been scattered over a lifetime that had finally been gathered back together. "What do you mean? If I’ve done enough good deeds, why am I being held back?"
"Because it’s simply not your time yet," the woman explained, her voice was gentle but firm. "We all knew that we shouldn’t be giving you a second chance. You deserve to go into the light in peace. But through your good merit, the Gods have decided to reward you with a second chance. Only if you want to accept it."
The woman made sure to leave Kamilah with a choice, and whatever choice she made would affect the consequences that followed. There was no pressure, no demand, no expectation. Just an offer, extended with the kind of patience that only an immortal being could possess.
Kamilah went completely still. The words echoed through the shimmering air, vibrating in her chest.
A second chance.
The phrase felt almost like a cruel joke at first, after everything she had endured. After the slow decay of her body and the crushing silence of her home, was she really being offered a return to that nightmare? Was she really being asked to go back to the people who had never loved her, to the life that had slowly killed her?
But then, she remembered the last thing she had whispered before the darkness took her.
I’ll live for myself.
The image of Livia’s birthday party flashed in her mind, the golden lights and the laughter and the way she had been nothing more than a ghost in her own life. She thought about the photographs on her phone, the smiling faces of her family, the way they had all looked so happy without her.
She thought about Maeve, standing at the edge of the frame with that distant expression, and wondered if her wife had even noticed she was missing from the celebration.
If she went into the light now, that would be the end of her story. A woman who lived for everyone else and died alone. A woman who had never been truly seen, never been truly loved, and never been truly alive.
The thought of that submission felt more suffocating than the illness ever had. The thought of fading into nothingness without ever having lived made her want to scream.
She looked up at the woman in the robes, her eyes are narrowing with a sudden, sharp intensity.
The softness was gone, replaced by a hunger for a life she had never actually owned. She had spent her whole existence being what others wanted her to be. Now, for the first time, she wanted to find out who she could become if given the chance.
"I want it," Kamilah said, her voice was ringing out with a certainty that would have shocked anyone who knew her in her first life. "I want to go back. But not to be who I was."
The woman in the robes studied her for a long moment, something unreadable flickered across her ageless features. Then she nodded slowly, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.
"Before I make you go back... I want to show you this."
The woman raised her hand, and a screen-like hologram materialized in the air between them. It shimmered with light, colors swirling and shifting until an image began to form. Kamilah watched, her breath was catching in her throat as she realized what she was seeing.
It was her family.
They buried her with so much grief that her father ended up in a car accident. She watched as his car skidded off the road, as the metal crumpled and the glass shattered, his body was pulled from the wreckage, lifeless and broken.
She watched as her mother found out they were going bankrupt, as the color drained from her face and she collapsed to the floor. And then she watched as her mother discovered Kamilah’s medical report and other evidence that pointed at Livia as the mastermind of the Worthington downfall.
There was no justice for her mother. She died in a grotesque death after being sold by Livia to a syndicate, her body was found in an alley days later, barely recognizable.
Her eldest brother died in a police chase after he became desperate for money and robbed a bank. She watched as he ran through the streets, as the sirens grew louder, as the bullets tore through his body and he fell to the ground.
Her second eldest brother died from a gunshot to the head after Livia put his name as the borrower of millions of dollars. Her third older brother died when he found out Livia was evil, his body was later discovered in his apartment with a single wound to his chest.
Her fourth sister was brutally raped and killed, her body was left in a ditch on the side of the road. Her fifth sister was sold as a slave in the black market and was tortured to death, her screams echoed in Kamilah’s ears even though she knew they were only images.
And then there was Maeve.
Kamilah watched as Maeve and Livia got married after she died, the ceremony was beautiful and lavish, everything that her own wedding had not been. She watched as Livia orchestrated an accident for Maeve just six months into their marriage, leaving her paralyzed and dependent on Livia’s care.
She watched as Maeve’s entire fortune and family empire fell into Livia’s hands, as Livia brought her boyfriends into their bedroom and made Maeve watch as they made love under her roof.
She watched as tears streamed down Maeve’s face, as she lay helpless in her bed, unable to move, unable to escape, unable to do anything but endure.
And when Livia had enough, she buried Maeve in wet cement while she was still alive.
Kamilah watched the cement pour over Maeve’s face, watched her struggle and gasp and finally go still. She watched until the last trace of Maeve Ricarda Belvedere was swallowed by cold, gray stone.
"So yeah... That’s what happened..." The woman said, her voice was carrying a note of disgust at the scene.
Kamilah stared at the holographic display, her breath hitched in her throat. She had spent her final moments wishing for their happiness, picturing Maeve in the arms of someone who could actually love her.
She had imagined a world where they were all finally free of the tension and the coldness, where they could finally find the peace that had eluded them in life. She had wanted them to be happy. She had wanted them to live.
She never imagined this.
The images blurred before her eyes, the blood and the desperation and the grotesque betrayal all blending together into a nightmare she could not wake from.
Watching her brothers fall one by one, seeing her sisters suffer unimaginable horrors, and then Maeve. The sight of Maeve, the untouchable and intimidating Maeve, reduced to a paralyzed shell, forced to watch her own humiliation before being buried alive in cold, suffocating cement.
It sparked something in Kamilah. Something that had been dormant for her whole life.
A cold, visceral rage began to seep into her veins, replacing the purity of heaven with a dark, focused hunger. The grief was there, yes, a yawning chasm of loss that threatened to swallow her whole.
But it was overshadowed by a sudden, burning hatred for Livia. This wasn’t just about her own life anymore. This was about a debt that needed to be paid in full. This was about justice, about vengeance, about making sure that the woman who had destroyed everything Kamilah had once tried to protect would never hurt anyone again.
Kamilah’s hands curled into fists, her knuckles are turning white. She didn’t look at the woman in the robes. She kept her eyes fixed on the image of the woman who had systematically destroyed everything she had once tried to protect.
"They didn’t deserve this," Kamilah whispered, her voice was no longer soft, but sounding like a blade being drawn from a sheath. "And Livia... She thinks she won."
She turned back to the woman in the robes, her gaze was piercing. "Send me back. Now. I don’t just want to live for myself... I want to make sure that monster will never hurt my family again."
The woman raised an eyebrow, a hint of amusement flickering across her features. "Well, that’s just too climactic, isn’t it?"
"Now!" Kamilah demanded.
"Okay, okay! Wait a bit!" The woman turned to her hologram-like screen, her fingers was dancing across the surface as she adjusted the system.
Kamilah didn’t move, her gaze was still lingering on the fading images of the carnage Livia had wrought. The anger was a physical thing now, a humming vibration in her chest that felt more real than the ethereal clouds of heaven.
She didn’t care about the climactic nature of her request. She only cared about the timeline. Every second she spent in this paradise was a second that Livia was allowed to exist, to manipulate, and to destroy.
She watched the woman’s fingers dance across the holographic interface, the colors are shifting rapidly. Kamilah felt a sudden, sharp pull in the center of her being, as if an invisible hook had snagged her soul and was beginning to reel her back down toward the earth.
"Bye-bye!" The woman even managed to wave a hand at her.
The shimmering white light of the afterlife began to bleed into a dizzying blur of grey and gold. The scent of ozone and old incense vanished, replaced by a familiar, suffocating smell: the sterile scent of expensive linens.
The transition was violent, a sudden plunge from the heights of divinity back into the fragility of a human shell.
Kamilah’s eyes snapped open. She gasped, a sudden, sharp intake of air that felt like needles in her lungs, but it wasn’t the suffocating gasp of a dying woman. It was the first breath of someone who had just been given a weapon.
It was the first breath of someone who had been given a second chance.
She was back five years ago, the very day she would meet Maeve, and the very time her family already hated her.