The figure emerged, radiant, unsoiled by this desolate world. Its voice rang like a cathedral collapsing in reverse—a flood of purity, echoing like a thousand whispered prayers.
"I am a guide to the lost. To those who seek their destiny."
Jin listened, captivated—then revolted.
"I am hope. I have come to lead you... to your final destination."
For a moment, time held its breath.
But then Jin's eyes narrowed. The spell shattered.
"Hope," he hissed.
"You came to guide me? Spare me your sanctified lies."
His voice twisted, bitter and sharp.
"Hope is a myth. A lullaby for the weak. A lie crafted to soften death's approach. It's not salvation—it's sedation. A fragile veil over the screaming void."
The light dimmed slightly, as if his venom had touched it.
"Hope fails. Always."
The chains of despair clamped tighter. Cold. Eternal.
***
The angel did not flinch.
Jin's venomous words hung in the air—acidic, raw. Yet the light did not recoil. It stood silent, letting the stillness echo like a funeral bell.
Then, slowly, it spoke.
"You misunderstand me," Hope said—its voice softer now, like a dying candle that refuses to be extinguished.
"I am not comfort. I am not a lie whispered to the dying."
It drifted closer. The light surrounding it did not shine—it deepened. It carried weight, like the ache of truths long buried beneath ancient sorrow.
"Hope is not a promise of victory. It is not salvation wrapped in certainty.
It is the act of standing—bleeding, breaking—and still choosing to move forward."
Jin sneered.
"Poetry. Pretty words for those too weak to face the void."
But the angel merely hovered beside him, amidst the ash and ruin, and continued.
"Hope is not denial of the void, child. It is defiance of it.
The will to dream, knowing dreams will shatter.
The will to seek meaning, in a world that sneers at meaning.
The will to walk through silence, and still sing."
Jin's laugh stuttered. It didn't reach his lips.
It drowned in the silence of his chest.
Hope raised its gaze to the Eye above.
"Even if your soul is gone," it said, "you are still here. That alone is proof.
Proof that some part of you still dares to hope.
To live. To protect.
To keep the promise you made… to your mother. To your sister."
Jin remained still. His voice low.
"For what? Even if I return… even if I reclaim my soul—this feeling, this clarity, it will vanish.
My mind will silence it. My 'realism' will kill it.
I'll tell myself the task is too great. That saving her is impossible. And I'll give up, like before."
He looked up, bitterness gleaming like a blade.
"So what's the point? Why move? Why endure? For what?"
Hope did not speak right away.
Instead, it lifted a hand—glowing, unshaking—and pointed. Not at the sky. But at him.
"Because you, Jin… you are someone's hope."
It stood tall, light orbiting its form like stardust caught in gravity.
"You are your mother's hope, that always believed in you.
Your sister's hope—tethered by a frayed, crimson thread that still holds.
And I am your hope, born from the part of you that never gave in."
Hope stepped forward, each footfall weaving light into the dust.
"The question is not 'What is the point of enduring?' The question is—Who do you become, when you endure anyway?"
Jin was silent.
The winds of this dying world fell still.
Even the Eye above… paused.
Hope turned and began to walk, leaving behind a trail—faint, ephemeral, but real.
Jin remained kneeling.
The chains of despair still gripped him. Heavy. Cold. Familiar.
Hope extended a hand. Not to pull. Not to drag. Only to offer.
"Take my hand, Jin. Accept me.
And I will give you what you never understood. Hope—not as a dream, but as a weapon. And despair… will never touch you again."
Jin stared. At the hand. At the trail. At the fading glow in the distance.
And for a moment, he didn't laugh. Didn't curse. Didn't weep.
He simply listened.
And so did the silence inside him.
Then—something cracked.
A long-buried voice stirred within him. A whisper rising like smoke from dying coals.
"You're not Death!?"
"Death? No." The voice was calm."I will never die. Don't you remember, I am you. Atleast a voice you never let go. I am you, and I am telling you—take the hand already."
The voice sighed. Almost fondly.
"Come on, don't just sit there like some broken puppet. Are you really planning to let that pathetic version of yourself be our last conversation?"
Jin's non-existenting throat tightened.
"So you're really going. Like all the others did."
"No, Jin. I told you—I never die. I'll become part of you. I'll see through your eyes. I'll remember."
The voice faded, like twilight swallowed by dawn.
"And I'll be waiting… To see her again."
Silence returned.
But it was no longer empty.
Something rose in Jin's hollow chest—not despair. But something soft. Fierce. Unyielding.
Hope. It was Hope.
He stood.
He took the angel's hand.
Then the light exploded—blinding, infinite, searing through the darkness like a sun awakening in the ruins.
The chains shattered.
And Hope… guided him forward.
***
The shimmering light floated before him, drifting in slow, elegant arcs, as if beckoning him forward. Jin watched it for a moment—suspended in that strange stillness where thought and emotion blur—then rose to his feet. Or what passed for feet in this hollow form.
He didn't walk. He moved. Pulled by something deeper than muscle or bone.
"It must be one of the High Angels," he murmured. "The Angel of Hope."
The Angel led him onward—into the heart of a forest cloaked in ancient night. Trees loomed like silent watchers, their twisted branches clawing at the sky, their roots sunken deep into forgotten sorrow. Jin followed without question, his thoughts a storm of awe, suspicion, and something else he hadn't felt in years:
Anticipation.
The journey lasted long into timelessness. Whether it was a day or a lifetime, Jin couldn't tell. But when the Angel stopped, it was before a gate unlike any he had ever seen.
A towering archway rose from the earth like the spine of a god. Massive, ancient walls surrounded the city, etched with intricate carvings that pulsed faintly in the twilight. Symbols spiraled across the stone like living stories, etched by hands that remembered the dawn of the world.
Jin stared in reverence.
"This must be the capital... Solomon."
His voice was a whisper.
"The only city left without a barrier. The only one still protected by a wall—carved by the first emperor himself."
The Angel floated beside him, then began to swirl—slowly at first, then faster, circling him in playful, luminous spirals. Jin tilted his head, unsure.
"What is it?"
Then the light stopped, suspended in the air. It pulsed once—then spoke.
The words echoed not in his ears, but in his psyche.
"Child of the Anu Amari," the voice said, as if carved into the silence itself,
"I have tested you, and you did not break.
You are worthy to pass into the land where souls sleep. May you find what was taken.
And may hope never leave you again."
Then, as gently as it had come, the Angel dissolved—fading into motes of light that scattered into the air like drifting stars.
Jin stood at the gate, alone once more.
But something inside him had changed.
He looked up at the monolithic walls, then down at his own hands—so often clenched in rage, now open.
A faint smile touched his lips.
Bitter. Self-aware. Tired.
"A test, huh?" he murmured.
"So... giving up and rise was the key all along?"
He chuckled under his breath.
Not out of joy. Not mockery. Something in between.
"How stupid."
And yet—he stepped forward.
Because even in the darkness, the gate had opened.
And Hope had not lied.