Chapter 2: The Stygian Residue

The ten minutes Death had given him evaporated in a haze of cold dread. Kaelen didn't touch his noodles. He just sat at his wobbly table, staring at the congealing mess while the aroma of Earl Grey tea did little to calm the frantic thrumming in his chest. He was a passenger in his own life, and the driver was a cosmic entity who didn't believe in lunch breaks.

Promptly, as if an invisible clock had struck the appointed second, Death rose from his chair. The simple movement was imbued with an unnerving finality. "Time's up, Agent Vance."

"I don't have a car that can get us there in..." Kaelen started, but the words died in his throat.

Death simply walked towards the darkest corner of the living room, a space between a bookshelf and the wall that the dim overhead light never quite reached. The shadow there seemed to deepen, to stretch, to become less a lack of light and more a physical presence. It swirled like ink in water.

"Your vehicle will not be necessary," Death said, his voice seeming to come from that patch of darkness now. He gestured with one long, pale hand. "Simply step through. And a piece of advice for your first day: try not to think about the space between."

Kaelen swallowed hard, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at his half-eaten noodles, his keys in the bowl, the whole mundane landscape of his life. Then he looked at the roiling, silent void that had replaced his wall. Taking a breath that did nothing to fill his lungs, he walked forward and stepped into the cold.

For a fraction of a second, there was nothing. No sound, no light, no sensation. It was an absolute, terrifying emptiness that felt like it could last for an eternity. Then, his foot landed on solid asphalt, and the world crashed back in.

They stood across the street from a quaint, two-story suburban house. Red and blue lights painted the manicured lawn in frantic, silent strokes. Yellow police tape cordoned off the entire property, and a small crowd of neighbors huddled on the sidewalk, their faces a mixture of morbid curiosity and fear. The air was cool and smelled of cut grass and car exhaust.

"How..." Kaelen whispered, staring at the impossible transition.

"A shortcut," Death replied, already moving towards the house. He didn't seem to notice the police officers or the tape. He simply walked, and the world seemed to bend around him. An officer standing guard at the perimeter turned his head away to cough at the exact moment Death passed. The yellow tape fluttered up as if in a sudden breeze, allowing him through without a touch. He was a ghost in the machine.

Kaelen, feeling clumsy and intensely visible, scurried to follow in his wake. He ducked under the tape, expecting a shout or a hand on his shoulder, but nothing came. It was as if he and Death were operating on a different frequency, their presence staticky and ignorable to the mundane world.

Inside, the house was jarringly normal. A grandfather clock ticked softly in the hallway. Framed photos of smiling children and grandchildren lined the mantelpiece. In the living room, forensics technicians in white suits moved with quiet efficiency. Two shapes lay on the floor, covered by white sheets.

Kaelen’s eyes were drawn to them. He could just make out the outline of two elderly people, lying beside a polished coffee table. The scene was neat, orderly, sterile. There was no sign of a struggle, no overturned furniture, and most importantly, no water. The Persian rug was perfectly dry.

"I don't see anything," Kaelen muttered, his voice barely a whisper. He felt like an intruder, a fraud. "It's just… what they said on the news."

Death stood in the center of the room, his dark eyes scanning the space not as a place, but as a transcript of an event. "You are looking with your eyes, Agent Vance. That is your first mistake. You were not hired for your eyes." He turned his gaze to Kaelen, a look of infinite patience that was somehow more unnerving than anger. "You have the tool. You feel it on your hand. Use it."

Kaelen looked down at the back of his right hand. The silver sigil, which had been a faint, almost invisible mark, was now glowing with a soft, internal light, pulsing in time with his racing heart. Use it. How? He had no instructions, no manual. He closed his eyes, focusing on the strange, cold tingling sensation of the mark. He tried to push his senses into it, to feel what it felt.

When he opened his eyes again, the world had fractured.

The living room was still there, but it was overlaid with a sickening, shimmering filter, like seeing the world through a sheet of oil-spilled water. The air itself was stained, bruised a deep, sorrowful teal. A low, resonant hum filled his ears, the sound of a deep, cold ocean pressing in from all sides. The very atmosphere felt heavy, saturated with a dampness that wasn't wet, but carried the crushing weight of immense grief.

And the water. It was everywhere.

Not real water, but an echo of it. A negative image of a flood. It clung to the walls in brackish, shimmering sheets and pooled on the floor in ghostly, transparent tides that swirled around his ankles. It was blacker than night but completely see-through, a paradox that made his head swim. The two bodies on the floor were the epicenter. From them, the phantom water radiated outwards, soaking into the very fabric of reality.

"Whoa," he breathed, taking an involuntary step back. The spectral water parted around his feet. He could feel its unnatural cold, a chill that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with despair.

"Describe what you perceive," Death commanded, his voice cutting through the humming in Kaelen's head. He seemed entirely unaffected by the spectral scene.

"It's... a stain. An echo," Kaelen stammered, trying to find the words. "The whole room is flooded, but not. The water is wrong. It feels… old. And sad." He knelt, hesitating before reaching a hand towards one of the dark pools on the rug. His fingers passed through it, and a jolt of profound loss, of utter hopelessness, shot up his arm. It wasn't the couple's fear he felt; it was a deeper, more ancient sorrow. He snatched his hand back. "And it's saltwater. I can taste it in the air. The tang of ancient salt and sorrow."

He looked up at Death, his eyes wide with a new kind of fear—the fear of understanding. "This water… it’s not from any ocean I know. It's not from here, is it?"

A flicker of something—perhaps approval—passed through Death's dark eyes. "Correct. You are seeing the residue of a Stygian event. A crossing of planes. The Great Cycle, Agent Vance, is a delicate mechanism. A soul's departure releases a significant amount of energy. Most of the time, that energy is recycled back into the system. An orderly transition."

He took a slow step, his polished shoes making no sound on the phantom-soaked rug. "But some things are drawn to that energy. Predators. Parasites. Beings that exist in the cracks of reality. They interfere. They feed on the fear, the sorrow, the life force of the transition. They steal the soul or corrupt it, disrupting the balance. This," he gestured to the spectral flood, "is an Anomalous Reaping. A signature of an entity that should not be here."

Kaelen stood up, the pieces clicking into place with horrifying clarity. "So… a ghost fish from another dimension swam into this living room and drowned an old couple?"

Death's expression didn't change. "Your simplistic analogy is… not entirely inaccurate. This was not an act of malice as you would understand it. It was more likely an act of nature. A hungry thing found food."

The weight of his new job suddenly felt crushing. He wasn't a detective; he was an exterminator for cosmic pests. He looked around the room again, his new sight picking out details. The phantom water wasn't uniform; it was thicker, darker, more concentrated around a small, ornate silver box on the mantelpiece.

"The residue," Death continued, his voice pulling Kaelen from his thoughts, "is always strongest at the point of entry. The anchor that allowed it to cross over."

Kaelen's gaze locked onto the silver box. The swirling, brackish energy was practically pouring from it, a silent, dark spring of otherworldly grief.

"Find the anchor, Agent Vance," Death said, his voice a low command. "Find out what it is and why it's here. That is your next step."