Being dead was nothing like being Classtrated.

That was the first thing Lowe realised.

Classtration had been a kind of unmaking—a tearing apart of his very sense of self. Every piece of him that had once fit together so seamlessly had been ripped apart and scattered, leaving only fragments where there had once been cohesion.

The pain of it wasn’t just physical, though that had been unbearable enough. No, it was a deeper, existential agony. A constant ache that whispered, You’re broken now, Lowe. You’re not whole anymore. You never will be.

This, though? Death?

Death was… quiet.

He could get used to it.

Honestly, it wasn’t what he’d expected. Not that he’d ever spent much time expecting death. He’d faced it often enough in his line of work to know it could come at any moment, but like most people, he’d always filed it under "tomorrow’s problem."

Yet here it was, not waiting for tomorrow at all. And it wasn’t pain, or fear, or regret. It was just… release.

He wasn’t sure if he was floating, standing, or lying down, but - to be honest - it didn’t seem to matter. He felt weightless, unburdened, as if all the chains he’d carried through his life had finally snapped.

The worry was gone.

And that worry had always been there, hadn’t it? Even before the Classtration. That gnawing, endless anxiety, chewing at the edges of his thoughts. Worry about making rent. Worry about solving the case. Worry about losing Arebella. Worry about who he was and who he might become.

Worry about being enough.

Now, there was none of that.

The constant hum of tension that had threaded through every moment of his existence had gone quiet. No more Grid View offering him a thousand paths, most of which he couldn’t take. No more Skills to balance, Progress Points to allocate, choices to second-guess.

No more climbing, falling, or clawing his way forward.

Just… peace.

And that was something he didn’t really think he’d ever experienced..

It had always felt like something for other people. It was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

He’d always been so busy running, fighting, surviving. But, right now, he though he understood the attraction. Peace wasn’t something you earned; it was just something you found.

Or maybe something that found you.

When a Dreadnaught had finished crushing you to death, of course.

Was this what he’d been missing all along? He wasn’t sure. It was hard to be sure of anything in this space, wherever or whatever it was. But for the first time in what felt like forever, he didn’t feel the need to figure it out.

There was a strange comfort in the finality of it.

No more battles to fight. No more wrongs to right. No more wondering if he was living up to some expectation, whether his own or someone else’s.

He was done.

Finished.

Complete.

Lowe had never thought of death as a gift, but now, he was starting to wonder if that’s what it was. An end to pain. An end to trying. An end to everything that had ever weighed him down.

And yet…

Even as he floated in this perfect stillness, he couldn’t shake the faintest flicker of a thought. A small, stubborn ember buried deep within him, refusing to go out.

Was this really how he wanted it all to end.

The idea of returning to life—of going back to all that chaos, all that pain—should have felt like a nightmare. But somehow, it didn’t.

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Because as much as Lowe hated the pain, the worry, the struggle, it was also what had defined him. It was what made him who he was. And even in death, he couldn’t quite let go of that.

Maybe that was the joke, the cruel twist at the end of it all.

Even here, in the perfect silence of the void, Lowe couldn’t stop being Lowe. The man who couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. The man who had to see the case through to the end.

The man who, even in death, wasn’t ready to rest.

The void was serene—quiet, peaceful, and utterly free from the noise of life. Lowe had just started to appreciate the calm when the silence shattered.

Oh, you are a dramatic one, aren’t you? A voice Lowe thought he recognised filled the space around him. Floating here in the ether, basking in your existential freedom. Very poetic.

Lowe blinked—or at least thought he did. Did you blink in a void? He wasn’t sure. “Who the hell—?”

Not hell, the voice interrupted. Close, though, depending on how you measure things. Arkola, Supreme Being, Architect of Reality, Arbiter of the Cosmos. Pleased to meet you. . Or did we meet before? I have a somewhat fluid relationship with time.

“You’re kidding me.”

I assure you, I am not. And before you ask: no, nothing is sacred. Least of all this.

“So even death doesn’t come with a little privacy?” Lowe said. “Seriously, mate, I just died. Can’t a guy get five minutes without some omnipotent busybody sticking their celestial nose in?”

Touchy, Arkola said. You mortals really do take dying too seriously. You’re acting like it’s a permanent condition.

“Maybe I want it to be.”

Oh, Jana Lowe. Always the contrarian. Tell me, is that really what you want? To drift here in the void, unburdened, untethered, and utterly… irrelevant?

“You don’t know what I want.”

Oh, but I do. Arkola’s tone was maddeningly smug. I see your soul, Lowe. And you know what I see? The mark of the Blood of the Phoenix .People don’t get Mythic Skills like that when they’re planning to shuffle off this mortal coil permanently. That’s not the mark of a man looking for peace. That’s the mark of someone who plans to bounce back.

“Maybe I don’t want to do it,” Lowe said,“Maybe I’m tired.”

Don’t be a whiny cunt, I never give anyone more than they can handle. And you, Inspector, are nowhere near your limit.

“Funny,” Lowe said, “because from where I’m standing—or floating—it sure feels like I’ve hit it.”

Arkola sighed. Oh, I could argue with you all day, Lowe, but let’s skip the tedium and get to the good part, shall we? I’ll make going back more worth your while. How’s that?

“I’m not interested in bribes.”

Oh, but you’ll want this one, Arkola purred. How about you go back and sort out this messy Dreadnaught business and I tell you who the Black Knight really was?

The name hit Lowe like a fist made of bad decisions, square to the jaw of his consciousness.

It didn’t knock him out, though. No, it woke him up in the worst way possible. Memories sparked like a broken engine coughing to life, throwing up smoke and bile as they roared back to the forefront.

That case. The one that had chewed him up, spat him out, and then went back for seconds just to be thorough.

The one that had led to his Classtration.

The botched operation. That delightful little circus where everyone wore blindfolds and threw knives at each other.

The ransom money that had evaporated faster than good intentions, leaving nothing but death, the stink of failure and career suicide.

The note. The Black Knight. Laughing at him from the smudged parchment.

The Council’s judgment, as warm and compassionate as a snake bite. A room full of grey-faced statues, handing him all the blame

And then, the final hammer blow: his incompetence, they’d said, had left the child dead..

That failure—it wasn’t a weight. No, weights could be dropped, shrugged off, set aside.

This was a shadow, a second skin, a whispering ghost that had followed him into every alley and stared back from every whiskey glass. It had gutted him long before the Council had gotten around to finishing the job.

And when they’d stripped him of everything, left him Classless? That wasn’t punishment. That was just punctuation.

“You’re lying,” Lowe said, his voice hoarse. “The Black Knight was a ghost. A myth. Nobody knows who they were.”

Not nobody, Arkola corrected, his tone smug. I do. And I’ll tell you—if you go back.

Lowe hesitated, his mind a storm of conflicting emotions.

He’d spent a year burying the pain of that case, the anger, the questions. But now, standing—or whatever—in this void, it all came roaring back with a vengeance. The answers he’d always told himself didn’t matter suddenly felt like the only thing in the universe worth knowing.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

Arkola laughed, a sound like rolling thunder. Oh, Lowe. You’re smarter than that. There’s always a catch. But I’ll make it simple for you: go back, and I’ll give you what you’ve always wanted. The truth.

Lowe clenched his fists, the peace of the void suddenly suffocating. His mind raced, weighing the offer, the risks, the price.

Because Arkola was right. He wasn’t ready to rest.

Not yet.

Not with this unfinished.

Not with this one last thread hanging loose.

“Fine,” he said, the word tasting like defeat. “I’ll go back.”

“Good choice,” Arkola said, the smug satisfaction practically radiating from the void. “And, Lowe? Try not to fuck it up this time.”

Before Lowe could retort, the void dissolved, and he fell.