Chapter 1: The Permanent Lunch Break

When Kaelen Vance stepped out of the elevator, the world didn't so much reappear as it did slam back into place. One moment, he was in an office that defied geometry, a sterile white space smelling of ozone and old paper, listening to a job offer from a man who was decidedly not a man. The next, he was standing in the middle of a sun-scorched desert, the air thick with the scent of creosote and dust.

The elevator doors, a seamless pane of obsidian that had risen from the cracked earth, silently sank back into the ground, leaving no trace. He was alone, save for the buzz of insects and the oppressive weight of the heat. He instinctively glanced at the back of his right hand. There, faint as a watermark, was a shifting, silver sigil, an intricate knot of lines that seemed to writhe just at the edge of his vision. Part of the welcome package, apparently.

He patted his chest, the crinkle of paper a reassuringly normal sound in the profound silence. He pulled out the newly issued ID badge. ‘Kaelen Vance, Liminal Agent, Grade 1’. Below his name was a smaller version of the symbol on his hand, a swirling vortex of silver and black. This new job, this new… responsibility… came with a badge and a dull, throbbing ache behind his right eye. But it didn't come with a manual. He had no idea what his shift was. When to start, how lunch worked, or when to clock out. He hadn't even discussed a salary.

He thought about trying to summon the elevator again, to go back and ask his new employer—the impossibly tall, thin man in the slightly-too-large black suit who had introduced himself simply as ‘The Manager’—for clarification. Instead, he just shrugged, the motion feeling small and useless under the vast, indifferent blue sky.

“Right. I’ll just… call Human Resources when I get home,” he muttered to his only company, a lizard sunning itself on a nearby rock. It blinked one slow, ancient eye at him before skittering away into a crack in the parched earth.

The drive back to the sprawling mess of Los Angeles was a surreal buffer zone. His beat-up sedan, which he’d somehow known would be waiting for him just over the next rise, felt like a tin can hurtling through a dream. He cranked up the only classic rock station that reached this far out, letting the mythic guitars of Blue Öyster Cult turn the bug-splattered windshield into a cinematic screen. It almost made the encroaching sprawl of suburbia look like the ramparts of some forgotten kingdom. Almost.

Back in his small apartment, the comfortable quiet felt alien. The air was stale with the ghosts of microwaved meals and solitude. He kicked off his worn boots, tossed his keys into a ceramic bowl filled with old receipts and loose change, and turned on the evening news. The low drone of the anchors discussing another brush fire off the 395 was the familiar soundtrack to his life. He pulled a container of two-day-old chow mein from the fridge and shoved it into the microwave, the scent of stale soy sauce filling the air. This was his reality. Not obsidian elevators and cosmic job interviews. This was it.

While the microwave whirred, Kaelen pulled out his phone. The number ‘The Manager’ had given him wasn’t a number at all, just a single, intricate symbol he was supposed to 'focus' on. He sighed, feeling ridiculous. He was a guy who fixed leaky faucets for a living last week, now he was supposed to Jedi-mind-trick a phone call to the Grim Reaper. Staring at the sigil on his screen, he took a breath and pressed the call icon.

His head went numb. A ringing echoed through the apartment, sharp and clear, but it wasn't coming from his phone. It was coming from the kitchen.

Kaelen froze, every muscle in his body screaming. There, standing by the counter as if he’d been there all day, was the thin older man in the loose-fitting suit from the desert. His face was a roadmap of wrinkles, his eyes dark pools that held no reflection. He was holding a kettle that Kaelen had never seen before, a sleek, black thing that was already beginning to whistle softly on his stove.

Kaelen’s training from a dozen dead-end customer service jobs kicked in, a shield of forced politeness against the abyss. “Hey, Manager,” he said, his voice a little too casual for a mortal addressing a cosmic entity. “Want some dinner? It’s… vaguely pork.”

The being, Death itself, didn’t turn. He simply opened the now-dinging microwave and pulled out the steaming container, his movements unnaturally smooth and precise. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, his voice even and devoid of emotion, like gravel rolling down a silk sheet. “I’m making tea as well. Earl Grey. I find it… grounding.”

“Not to be rude, sir,” Kaelen said, his survival instinct warring with his confusion as he automatically grabbed two plates and a pair of mismatched mugs from the cupboard, “but how did you get in here? And why are you here instead of at… you know… The Terminus?”

Death finally turned and stared at him. It was a long, unblinking moment, the kind of look a scientist gives a microbe under a slide, assessing its every twitch. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. “You left before I detailed your work schedule,” he said. “What better time to discuss it than over your lunch break?”

Kaelen blinked, setting the plates down on his small, wobbly dining table. “It’s dinner time, though. Seven P.M. Or supper, I guess, if you’re old school.”

Another unamused stare. “Supper,” was all Death said as he glided over to the whistling teapot. “A semantic distinction. Consider this your orientation. You are on the clock permanently. Rest when you can. Eat when you must. The work finds you, Agent Vance. Not the other way around.”

As Kaelen started to plate the lukewarm noodles, he nodded slowly, the words sinking in like stones in a pond. “So, I’m on call all the time? Like a doctor?”

“No,” Death corrected, pouring steaming water into the two mugs. The aroma of bergamot filled the air, a strangely comforting scent in the face of the incomprehensible. “A doctor can choose to ignore the call. You cannot. You are on the clock. All. The. Time.”

As if on cue, the news anchor’s voice on the television changed, shifting from droning reportage to urgent seriousness. A ‘BREAKING NEWS’ graphic splashed across the screen.

“We interrupt this program with a developing story from the Northwood district,” the anchor said, her face grim. “Authorities are baffled after an elderly couple, identified as George and Eleanor Pembrook, was found dead in their home this evening. Paramedics on the scene have confirmed the cause of death as drowning.”

“What a weird way to go,” Kaelen commented, shaking his head as he sat down. “In their own house. Must have been the bathtub.”

“The strangest detail, however,” the anchor continued, her voice filled with professional gravity, “is that while the coroner reports both victims’ lungs were filled with saltwater, their bodies, their clothes, and the entire living room where they were found were, quote, ‘completely and utterly dry.’ More at eleven as this story develops.”

The screen cut to a commercial for a smiling family ecstatic over a new brand of laundry soap.

The silence in the apartment was suddenly heavy, charged. Kaelen looked from the television to the entity sitting across from him. Death was sipping his tea, his dark eyes fixed on Kaelen, a flicker of something almost youthful in their ancient depths. It wasn't amusement, not exactly. It was… anticipation.

“That’s your first assignment, kid,” Death said, his voice a low rumble. “Anomalous reaping. A violation of protocol. Someone or something has interfered with the natural transition. You’re going to find out who, and you’re going to fix it.” He took another delicate sip of tea, the clink of the mug against his teeth the only sound in the room.

Kaelen stared down at his plate of greasy noodles. His appetite was gone, replaced by a cold knot of dread in his stomach. A violation. Fixing it. The words echoed in his head, meaningless and terrifying.

“Me? What am I supposed to do?” he asked, the sarcasm draining from his voice, leaving only raw disbelief. “I unclog drains, man. I don't solve impossible supernatural murders.”

Death placed his mug down with finality. “You do now.” He stood, his tall frame seeming to swallow the light in the small room. “Finish your supper. We leave in ten minutes.”