Jim Slevann pushed open the apartment door, his keys still swinging in the lock behind him. In one hand, a crinkled paper bag of takeout — mango juice, some instant noodles Jenna had randomly craved at 2 a.m. the night before, and her favorite marshmallow cookies. In the other hand, his phone lit up with Matt's text about some podcast he should "totally check out." It was supposed to be a quiet afternoon.
"Babe?" he called. No answer.
He turned the corner into the living room — and his heart dropped.
Jenna was on the floor. Collapsed.
She wasn't sleeping, wasn't passed out in that peaceful, nap-on-the-couch kind of way. Her body was curled slightly, like it had folded in on itself in a final moment of struggle. The color was draining from her face, lips parted slightly.
Jim froze. Then inhaled. This wasn't the first emergency.
They had talked about it — many times. The slow decay, the flare-ups, the days when cancer would return with vengeance. He didn't scream. Didn't panic. He knelt, checked her pulse, pressed his forehead to hers, whispered her name. Then, he called 911.
The ride to the hospital felt like a dream. Doors whooshing open. Monitors beeping. Nurses speaking in that fast-but-calm rhythm reserved for the barely-living. She was alive — but barely.
And soon, they told him the truth.
"There's nothing more we can do," said the doctor, her voice carrying the weight of inevitability. "It's time."
The room filled with silent devastation. Gloria and Matt stood on either side of him, hollow-eyed and clutching tissues. Jenna's parents arrived minutes later, faces aged twenty years in the elevator ride up. They all waited.
Because only one person could decide. They needed Jim's signature to let her go peacefully.
To let her stop fighting. But how do you sign away someone's soul?
Jim stepped back from them all. "I need a minute," he said softly.
He walked out into the evening light, alone, down the hall and into the room he and Jenna had stayed in when treatments brought them close to this hospital. Once inside, he locked the door.
Then, he fell to his knees. And from the depth of his soul, he screamed.
It was the kind of cry that didn't belong to earth alone. It pierced reality. It cracked glass between worlds. It echoed through Senedro, through the halls of starlight and duty.
In Dalab, the miteon girl tending to his comatose body jolted. Her wings trembled. Her eyes widened as she watched something impossible happen.
Jim didn't get pulled into Senedro. He jumped.
Consciousness slammed into the great realm with the force of a falling god. He emerged in Senedro without invitation, without summoning, without rites. He came.
His body remained resting, watched carefully by the loyal miteon girl — but his spirit was already ascending, cutting through layers of starlit gravity like a blade through silk.
He didn't wear his night rider armor. He didn't come cloaked in command. He came barefoot. Soul-borne. Grief-forged.
And the Setrums noticed. Above the living plains of Senedro, the golden gates rippled. Whispers moved through the halls of judgment.
"Jim Slevann," someone muttered.
"He wasn't called," said another.
"But he's coming," said a third. "And I don't think he's coming to beg."
In the chamber of watchers, Dias stood and narrowed his glowing eyes. The council of Setrums watched silently. Jessen, their elder, leaned forward. "He doesn't hear us anymore," he said grimly. "But we can hear him."
They all had heard it. That name. That cry. Jenna Kossel Slevann.
Jim wasn't coming to demand salvation for a stranger. He wasn't another soul in line begging for mercy. He was hers. Her husband. Her warrior. Her miracle.
And he was willing to walk through celestial fire to save her.
Back on Earth, Matt stood outside the hospital room, staring at the closed door Jim had walked into. A gut feeling stirred. Something had shifted. Like the moment before a storm, when the sky goes quiet.
Inside the ICU, Jenna's chest rose and fell slowly, each breath drawn by the quiet rhythm of machines. The room was hushed, heavy with expectation and dread. Monitors blinked in dim colors. Every second ticked like a countdown. Then, without warning — her finger twitched. It was small. Subtle. But those present noticed.
Her father straightened in his seat. Gloria froze mid-prayer. Jenna's mother gasped softly. Something was happening. Something other than medicine. Something beyond them.
And death… was not just coming for her — it was waiting.
Far above Earth, across the layered dimensions of soul and cosmos, Jim Slevann stood before the Setrums.
They were silent — not because they had nothing to say, but because sorrow like his didn't require words. His very presence shimmered with loss. His aura, once crackling with the charge of a night rider, was dimmed by grief. But not broken. Just changed.
Dias stepped forward. The celestial mentor, once stern and unshaken, now bore the expression of a father watching a son suffer a wound he couldn't heal. He didn't speak, but placed a warm hand over Jim's shoulder. In that touch, he poured comfort — ancient, timeless, a balm meant for warriors who'd seen too much. Jim didn't cry. He didn't need to.
His pain was naked, woven into every inch of his presence. The Setrums read it. Felt it. And in their way, they grieved with him.
"Why did you give me a taste of life," Jim asked, voice low but unwavering, "just to take it away again?"
It wasn't a plea. It was the voice of a man who had walked through hell and returned carrying the person he loved — only to lose her again. And now he stood in the halls of eternal watchers, searching not for justice… but for meaning.
Behind Dias, the others remained still, until Jessen, the oldest of the Setrums, rose. His voice did not echo — it settled into Jim's mind like wind pressing into stone.
"It is not the length of life that matters, but how it is lived."
Jim's jaw tightened. His fists closed at his sides. He had wanted to offer his own life — to trade places, to pay the price. But Jessen had already seen it all.
"You are not here for her," Jessen continued. "You are here because you cannot accept that something so beautiful… could ever end."
And that truth struck Jim like a spear to the chest.
"You are not trying to save her," the ancient voice added, "you are trying to spare yourself."
That broke him. Because it was true. Jim thought back: to holding Jenna's fragile hand on their wedding night, to her soft laughter on the hospital roof, her stubborn spirit as she fought the cancer with a smile — not for her, but for him. And he remembered how often she told him, "If I go, don't mourn. I already got everything I ever wanted."
She had made peace. He hadn't until now. Jim fell to one knee. Not in defeat. But in surrender — to truth, to love, to the gift he had been given.
"She deserves her rest," he whispered.
Dias came closer and placed both hands on Jim's head, lowering his own. A farewell. A blessing. An honoring. And then, with a final shimmer of light — Jim opened his eyes.
The door to the ICU opened quietly. Everyone turned.
Jim Slevann walked in — steady, eyes clear, face calm. Not the broken man they expected, but someone reborn. Matt was just behind him.
Gloria stood up. "Jim…"
He simply nodded. "I'm okay."
The doctor met him outside Jenna's room. "It's time," she said gently. "Do we have your consent?"
Jim didn't flinch.
He looked at Jenna through the window — peaceful, radiant even in her state, like a flame in its final flicker.
"Yes," he said. "Let her rest."
The family cried. Gloria clung to her sons. Jenna's mother whispered her daughter's name like a prayer.
And Jim stood still, heart aching but steady. Because for the first time, he wasn't trying to fight the end — he was embracing the gift of what had been. He turned to the sky as he stepped outside.
"Thank you, Jenna Kossel" he whispered.
And somewhere in the great mystery of Senedro, a thousand lights pulsed in acknowledgment.