He processes the dead for a living. He's never once wondered where they go.
Erik Hansen runs the soul-transfer desk in 2035 Neo-Kyoto — a city of neon and simulated sky where death is clean, quick, and managed. Then reality starts glitching. A symbol tears itself into the air above Central Plaza. A symbol from his nightmares. A symbol he recognizes because he died beneath it once — in a snake pit, a thousand years ago.
Earth is a simulation. The afterlife is a factory. The Norse gods are software. And the harvest never stops.
Erik is carrying a dead Viking's soul and a mark burned into him by something older than human history. The Architects built this world. They built him. And they are coming to collect.
He just didn't know he was on the menu.
