Chapter 1: The Beginning of Life After Death

I open my eyes:

"Name?"

My eyes are hazy as I look in front of me. There is a man sitting in front of a computer screen. He is wearing an all-black tuxedo with red trims around his chest and sleeves. He is primped to the brim with hair gel and fancy accessories. He has a handle-bar mustache and a large goatee. A name tag with the words, "Julian" is adorned right next to his red silk ascot. An overbearing amount of body spray fills my nose as I look away. As I look around the room, it seems like it's an old office room with people working at various stations. The office room is small and damp, and a bright light flickers above me. Compared to the man sitting in front of me, the room itself is rather somber in comparison. Before I could process anything else, the man called back my attention.

He snaps at me and says, "I asked for your name kid, what is it? I'm a very busy guy and I don't have all eternity to deal with some kid who can't remember his own name." I stare at him in confusion, his question resonating inside my head searching for answers. He starts to become more annoyed and says, "Come on kid, some crackhead decided it would be a good idea to go shoot up a gas station because his girlfriend broke up with him. So now I've got to do all the paperwork to not piss off the bosses. I swear, humans shouldn't have even been allowed to crawl out of the mud." I look at him in awe. I lean forward and say, "Well, I'm not sure. I don't really understand what is going on to be honest."

The man groans in annoyance and places a hand on his forehead and says, "Ugh, almost twelve-thousand years of this shit and I still get the same idiots time and time again. I mean can't you monkey-brains ever realize where you are?" The man lifts his fingers to his temples and rubs them in annoyance. He takes a deep breath and says, "Clearly, we're in an interdimensional subspace separated from the living realms. Which is most certainly designed to be the location of my eternal suffering by smooth brain-humans like you." The man reluctantly raises his hands and gestures in air quotes; ''I don't understand what's going on…Who are you? Why can't I feel my legs? Are those bite marks on my arms? Ugh, I swear the Human-Processing Department always fucks up something before you disgusting creatures get to me. Those guys must get off on messing with humans…" Disregarding the strangeness of the situation I urgently look down to my legs and pull up my pant leg to check for bite marks. I check my face and arms to see if anything is missing and thankfully everything seems to be there…I think.

He snaps at me again and says, "Do you want to take turns? I'll try this one more time. My name is Julian, corporate slave and eternally damned to help you losers. What's your name kid, it's not that hard. All I have to do is verify it for the system to make sure they didn't fuck up your soul or something like that before getting to me."

Before I could register anything else I say, "Umm, I think my name is James…but I don't remember my last name. I can't seem to remember much before coming here. Like I said before, I don't understand what any of this is... Is this a dream? Am I on some kind of prank television show?"

The man gives a little chuckle and whispers to himself, "This kid thinks he's on a tv show! Holy shit!" The he stands up and yells across the room, "Hey Marg, I got another one! You owe me drinks after this!" I hear a small "Fuck you!" come from another cubicle across the room. After laughing for a moment Julian sits back down and says, "Well guess what smart-ass, you're dead." He reaches into his desk and puts on a small party hat. He blows on a toy kazoo while throwing confetti into the air. He strains a smile and speaks through his teeth, "Any guesses as to where you think you are though? This is always my favorite part! I love seeing you disgusting creatures struggle to realize you're finally dead!"

I can't believe this guy...out of sheer confusion I play along and say, "Ok, ok, I'll play along to whatever this...is…Um, am I in the good place?"

Julian looks at me with his strained smile and says, "HA, as if! Nope, guess again."

"Well, am I in...the bad place then?" I say with a hearty chuckle, trying to show that my patience for the situation is wearing thin.

"Also, wrong dipshit. You're in the 'In-Between,' and soon you probably won't remember that, HA!" Just then loud trumpet noises blare out from the ceiling. Julian jumps up onto his desk and starts monologuing: "The In-Between is a place where souls neither go upstairs or downstairs, because neither place knows what to do with you yet!" He says backhandedly. "As moderator between the various realms my job is to systematically decide which place you go to, based on a review of the collection of both 'good' and 'bad' deeds you committed while alive." He jumps back down and proceeds to put on an annoyingly large pair of glasses, while reading off a small cue card: "For some people it is a way to renew themselves as future eternal beings and bring one thing with them into the afterlife to aid in their self-reflective 'journey' through eternity. I am here to answer every question and aid you in fulfilling your one request after a review of your life back in the mortal realm." He places the piece of paper down and looks back at me and sighs, "I'm gonna let you know right now that none of your questions are relevant and I will not be answering them. You're dead, get over it. Everyone always asks the same things anyway and I'm tired of repeating myself."

I stare wide-eyed at Julian to try and process what he just described. The first thing that comes to mind is, "Well Julian if that's true, how did I die anyway?"

Julian automatically groans louder and says "This is what I'm talking about man! Like, can't you just get over it, why would you be here if not?" He proceeds to look down at the stack of papers in front of him and pretends to flip through them, "I don't know kid. You probably died from food poisoning or overdosing on drugs or something. To be honest I don't particularly care. If you have a problem with that, try the department next-door at Human Life Resources. Every time someone like you comes down here I have to repeat myself. As I have done yet again…shit."

Julian leans forward and says, "I'll let you in on a little trade-secret ok James. None of us actually review cases. Sometimes when we are bored we just randomly assign humans just to keep things interesting. To be honest kid, I don't give a single fuck what your life was like; and if you don't say something interesting in the next five seconds I'm gonna reincarnate you as a bug, or worse, a politician. Although, they seriously fuck shit up before coming here, their files are always hilarious! Hey, if you say something funny I'm even tempted to send you to the realm where everyday is a massive orgy."

I give him this weird and very concerned look before saying, "Are…are you sure that you don't want to look into why I died? That seems like kind-of important stuff considering I could be eternally damned. I mean, shouldn't there be some type of rules or regulations you have to follow if what you're telling me is true?"

Julian apparently didn't like that question because he just says, "Look kid, what more do you want from me? You want me to give you a pet dragon or a magic unicorn? That sounds pretty 'epic' right kid? C'mon, just say something so I can get on to the next freakshow."

As I sit appalled the only words I can muster are, "Like I said Julian I don't really need anything like that. All I want is to know is how–"

Just then a dark red light appears above. The telephone situated on Julian's desk starts to ring and his whole demeanor changes. Julian pauses for a moment and hesitantly puts the phone up to his ear and says, "Hello?... Yes… Yes… Ok. I will get that done right away." Julian hangs up the phone carefully. He takes a moment to breathe and collect himself, and then the red light slowly fades away.

"Well kid, I don't know why, but *&//# asked for your soul personally. This has never happened in our office's history. I'm not even sure if this request can be done without…" He trails off, whispering silently to himself as he turns around and brings out a small red paper. He stamps a strange symbol onto the page and a seal bursts into flames.

Julian blows off the paper and quickly says, "I don't know why *&//# chose you out of all of my other cases today, but I was specifically instructed to allow you to come back as you currently are, even without reincarnating. Congratulations, this is definitely a special case; so, don't screw it up!" He takes another deep breath and says, "Marg, ohhh! Do I have a story for you!" Julian quickly hands me the small piece of paper.

As I stare at the insignia I feel a sharp tug on my back. My chair begins to fall backwards and I try to regain my balance. The floor beneath me opens up in a giant circle, taking me along with it. I start falling deeper and deeper into a dark colored shoot. The tube becomes darker and darker as light fades from above. I see a faint outline of Julian waving at me with a smug grin on his face. I try to scream out to him for help, but I hear his deep laughter getting quieter and quieter.

Then, the tunnel vanishes, instead I'm falling through the air like I had jumped out of an airplane. The sky above shifts from a dark blue to a bright orange, I see the stars and the moon go by, as if they are chasing each other back and forth. It becomes night and day and night and day as the harsh wind pierces my back. The pressure is too much to turn around; I look up towards the sky and it stops...finally becoming day. Before I had time to say my final goodbyes, I hit the ground.

My eyes jolt open as I take a huge breath. The air around me is dry and I cough furiously. There is soot covering my arms and clothes as my hearing fades in and out. My eyes burn and my chest feels as if it caved inwards. My head is pounding as I try to get up off the ground. I tumble over to my side and carefully push myself upwards. As I take in my surroundings I notice that I am in the middle of a giant crater. There are fallen trees burned to ash and giant mounds of rubble piled around me. The ground is hot to the touch as small rocks and trees continue to burn. I look out onto the vast crater and notice two moving figures coming towards me. My eyes try to squint and make out what is happening but I can't focus. As I try to ask for help, I fall facedown on the ground. My head hits the hot rubble and my vision starts to go black. I faintly hear screams as my mind slips in and out of consciousness.