Chapter 2: Death (Jeremiah)
I'd lived... a life, that much was certain. I really wasn't expecting the first thing to greet me at the end of it to be a robber's muzzle.
I'd stared down more than a few rifles in my time. Been in a couple dozen firefights across multiple theatres of war.
Kinda ironic that it'd be a cheap snub nose that would do me in. I'd gotten old, I guess, and my reflexes were just too slow.
Or maybe I'd just gotten dumb. Trying to disarm someone at point blank range was a stupid move. I knew that kind of thing just didn't work.
But the cashier was just a high school kid, probably only a year or two younger than my own. Someone's baby girl was at risk and that had made me act. I just hope she'd gotten out okay.
Which reminded me, where was I? And why didn't I quite remember how the whole thing had panned out?
I somehow instinctively knew I wasn't alive anymore. Which answered one long-standing question and opened up a whole slew of others.
It began to dawn on me that I wasn't quite aware of a physical body until the thought occurred to me, either.
It almost felt like I was flexing my hands into existence as I lifted them in view. They were strong and middle aged, just as I'd remembered them. Not shaky or injured as I knew they should be.
My instincts told me that something was up.
"Hello?" I asked in a calm voice; I was already dead—I figured it couldn't get much worse.
Just as I hadn't considered my body, I wasn't sure that I'd been experiencing sight until I tried to take in my surroundings. It wasn't disorienting in the moment, but the feeling of things being different than they were in the living world was off putting to think back on if I lingered on it.
"Ahem," a nondistinctive voice cleared the air.
"And you've been there how long?" I asked of the being who was seated at a fairly nondescript office desk.
"Oh, give or take a few eternities," the elderly woman responded with a smile as she pushed forward a document.
I stepped forward to glance down at the strange documentation she'd moved my way. "Are you?"
"God?" she asked with a kind smile.
"Not yours," she responded. "Which presents a problem."
I was never a religious man. Now, staring at this peaceful, if overworked, looking lady, I was beginning to question not only my, but everyone's else's belief.
"So we all got it wrong, huh?" I asked; and secretly pondered to myself if there was some cult of the business blazer wearing goddess that I had never been made aware of.
The goddess laughed. "Sorry, I forget that it's impolite to read minds among the lower spheres."
"No, you see, Jeremiah, I'm afraid a mistake was made. Your world never had the chance to understand who I am, because I'm not assigned to your particular layer of reality, or universe if you will," she explained.
"Okay," I paused and pondered. "So, I'm getting the impression that I shouldn't be in your office."
"No, I'm afraid it's not so simple as a soul being assigned to the wrong judging deity. That would just require a phone call and rescheduling with the patron of your choice," she replied.
"The issue is that you should be in my office. But that you're supposed to have already been here once, before you were born, but that this is your first visit."
"Well, I can't say that I remember that," I replied.
"You wouldn't," she clarified, "but I certainly would. One of the benefits of being relatively omniscient."
"Did you forget?" I asked. "I'm thinking no, but it sounds like you might be as confused as me."
"I've mostly verified that you should be here," she answered and once more indicated the paperwork in front of me.
"But there's more than a few issues," she stated.
"One, is as I said" she held up her manicured finger. "I don't remember filling out your creation documents and yet here they are."
"And two," she pointed down an unsigned signature line at the bottom. "I never released you into a lower sphere to live your allocated years."
"There's also the fact that this biography has been filled out, proving that you did live a life, but this Earth you come from isn't one of my worlds."
"I also can't contact the deity of your universe and none of my associates have ever heard of it," she said with an even greater level of worry.
"And this all sounds like it's not normal, ma'am?" I asked.
"Regardless of the danger that a rogue reality might present, there's also the matter of how many rules have been danced around if not broken just by you being here right now," she said.
I felt a slight worry formulate in my mind at those words.
"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I don't mean to imply that I think it's your fault. I've already looked you over. Other than your circumstance, you appear to be a perfectly normal man. So you're either a higher order of being than I've ever encountered, or you're just an anomalous mortal."
"So, where does that leave us?" I asked.
"Simply put, I can't send you to an afterlife, or even assess whether you deserve one based off of a life lived in a reality where I didn't design the rules," she admitted.
"I could destroy you or strip your soul's memories and reincarnate you, but that would seem altogether cruel, given the fact that I can tell from this documentation that you've appeared to have lived a virtuous, if bloody, life," she explained.
"I'd rather not forget who I am," I replied. "Or be... destroyed."
I felt myself growing internally frustrated with my situation. Whatever this was, just as this strange apparently cosmic being was saying, it wasn't my fault.
"I wouldn't either," she agreed with me. "Which leaves me with really only two courses of action, because this documentation means I can't just pawn you off on anyone else, since it currently appears that you're at least supposed to be one of mine. So: you can stay here with me, for the possible eons of time that it will take to sort this out. Or you can try your hand at living in one of the worlds under my domain and earning an afterlife."
I paused for a moment. If my surroundings were any indication, even if I didn't know how the human mind processed time after death, I really didn't want to be stuck in this mostly colorless void for eons. Especially considering I had been the kind of man to grow restless spending too much of an afternoon in a waiting room
"And what are those like?" I asked.
The goddess smiled. "I read that you liked virtual reality games in your off time. Specifically RPGs?"
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