My eyes snapped open and I was greeted with, well, nothing. It looked like I was in an endless black void. I was reasonably sure I would remember travelling to an infinite black void, but something wasn’t right. I couldn’t remember the last thing I was doing. I remember waking up in the morning and skipping breakfast because I was already thirty minutes late. I had to get to one of those classes where attendance was most of the grade, so obviously, I had to rush over. Then it just sort of stopped there. I feel like I’m missing something importa—
A snicker coming from behind me interrupted my musings. “Oh man, that was a doozy. They’re going to need to power wash you off the road after that mess. Want to see how it played out?”Turning around, I was greeted by a little man sitting at a desk. He was dressed in a suit and was wearing a tiny top hat. That’s not what was odd about him, though. Instead, the bizarre part was that his skin was crimson red, and he had an impish physique. His ears seemed to curl at the tips, and his nose ended in a crook. In front of him were several stacks of charcoal black paper and a computer monitor that didn’t seem to be plugged into anything. For some reason, I instantly felt at ease around him, which is somewhat unusual in comparison to how I usually am with people.“How what played out?” I asked while checking myself over. I was still all there, just in a weird place that didn’t make sense.The man grumbled, “Another amnesiac. No wonder you didn’t arrive screaming at the top of your lungs. And here I thought you were just a trooper. Obviously, I mean your death. You’re dead, kid—donezo, deceased. Anyways, wanna see it?” He gestured at the monitor.Ah, shit, there were still things I wanted to do... It doesn’t really matter now, though, does it?
I shrug and walk up to the desk. “Sure, why not?”The man fiddled around with the computer a bit, then turned the monitor towards me. On the screen, I saw myself from what appeared to be somebody filming me from ten feet in the air. I was hurrying to school, as I remembered, reading something on my phone while jogging. I took a crosswalk I normally take to leave my neighbourhood and head towards the subway station closest to my house. Less than five feet across the crosswalk, a truck came barreling through the intersection and clipped me. “Oh, come on, I totally had the right of way there! You can see the stop si—”“Shh, you’re missing the best part.” The man raised a hand, and suddenly, I didn’t have a mouth to speak with anymore.The best part was, apparently, when my arm was caught on the side of the truck. I got to watch as the lower half of my body degloved itself, leaving a bloody smear on the road before the driver managed to stop. I then proceeded to bleed out before paramedics arrived. That’s what I get for trying to look nice and wearing shorts. Sweatpants are the way to go in the future—if I even have a future.He lowered his hand and looked at me expectantly, a grin plastered on his face. My mouth reappeared as he lowered his hand.“So what is this? I wasn’t expecting an afterlife at all, so I really have no expectations. This doesn’t really conform to any mythos. I was quite partial to having my soul weighed against a feather,” I asked. I didn't really care that I had died. I wasn’t planning on living very long anyway, but I suppose an afterlife kind of changes my plans. Instead of being embraced by sweet nothingness with no thoughts forever, I now have to deal with whatever this is.“Not even going to comment on how cool you went out? Come on, you’re at least in the top three deaths this week!” He replied in an exasperated tone. “Fine, you’re in hell, congratulations.”The sound of a party popper resounded through the space, and little bits of confetti rained down on me.The uneasy feeling I’d been shoving aside surged up, tightening my chest. “Hell? I wasn’t that bad of a person in life, was I? I mean, I barely interacted with people. How did I end up here?”“Oh no, you misunderstand. Here in hell, we don’t discriminate. Everybody ends up here in the end. We have to keep the ratings up by testing out new forms of torment, and there are not nearly enough souls.“ I realized my breathing was coming in sharp and fast, and I tried to slow down, but that just seemed to make it worse. “Anyways, we have processing to do!” The imp replied with a Cheshire grin plastered on his face. “So just to make sure you’re the right person, we do get mix-ups sometimes, and it’s never pretty when that happe—
I could barely hear the words he was saying. A buzzing noise filled my head, and the air felt heavy, each breath coming in shallow and sharp. My hands felt clammy. I looked down and noticed they were trembling. The edges of my vision fuzzed and darkened, tunnelling down until the imp’s Cheshire grin was all I could see. I tried to swallow to clear the haze in my head, but my mouth was bone dry. I felt tears welling up in my eyes but didn’t move to clear my vision. My heart was pounding in my ears so loudly it almost hurt.This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. Fuck, being tortured forever? That’s just the rest of my existence now?
A snap echoed through my mind, and suddenly, my head cleared, and I felt a calm wash over me.“Don’t have a panic attack now. Please wait until registration is complete. You’re free to panic all you want while drowning in a lake of fire.” He said, his voice somehow coming across as soothing yet mocking in tone. “Now, your name is Ellie Winters, correct?”“Yes,” I said, wiping the tears off my face. I feel like I should have reacted more to the lake of fire comment, but somehow I couldn’t seem to care, probably because of whatever he just did.
“Great, now let’s see where you end up.” He said, pulling out one of those things they use in bingo parlours to pick a number. It was filled with black balls that seemed to glow with some kind of dark light. He spun the wheel for a little bit, then closed his eyes and picked a ball out at random. He looked at the ball, and his eyes lit up with glee. I couldn’t tell any of them apart, so I had no idea what was happening.His crimson face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Oh damn, kid, you’re a lucky one! You’ve been chosen for our new beta test!” He practically leapt out of his chair, knocking over a stack of papers. “I didn’t even know it was ready for release yet. I’ve been so excited to see what the lab coats have been cooking up all these centuries.” His tone had changed from bored mockery to some sort of frenzied enthusiasm in an instant.“So, what does this mean for me,” I asked, unsure if this was a good or bad thing.“Well, our ratings have been dropping for years. Apparently, the gods are getting tired of the same old trapping a guy in a box forever and watching him go crazy, the kind of stuff we’ve been doing for a while. They wanted something new and exciting, with actual stakes involved, so Kaelzar decided to give them just that. A new interactive experience where the gods get a hand in the game as well.” He coughed, “Obviously, there’s a lot to be earned on the side profits from gambling. But don’t tell anyone I mentioned that. Our sponsors don’t like that kind of messaging.” He pointed a finger at me as he said the last part, and I felt some kind of compulsion wash over me to never speak of gambling in this context in the future. Why the hell did he even tell me if he was just going to do that?Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.“That’s great and all, but you didn’t actually explain anything,” I said in a flat tone.“I’m getting to that part, geez, what’s the rush?” He walked over from his desk toward a projector display I could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. After waiting nearly twenty minutes for him to figure out the projector, I spoke up.“Need any help with that thing? I used to be pretty good at figuring out how the new digital projectors work after my high school replaced the old overhead projectors.” I asked.He sighed, “All this newfangled tech they’re throwing at us with the project… Fine, have a go at it and see if you can figure it out." With that, he tossed me the remote.I swapped the video input around until I managed to get something to display, and then I tossed the remote back. That was always the problem. They always needed to have the video input set correctly. The first image was just the word “Eternia” in an impact font reminiscent of posters from the 1980s overlaid on an image of a town somebody pulled out of a horror film. Specifically, one of those horror films where nobody survives to the end of the film, and the message is something like, "There are forces in this universe so vast and uncaring that to resist them is to court madness." The kind of story that reminds you how small and powerless you are in the face of something beyond comprehension. One of those tales where the only real mercy comes when the horror finally swallows everything, leaving behind silence. Actually, I guess it wouldn’t be mercy in reality since everybody would end up in hell.“I’d like to present to you our new innovative, very immersive, Afterlife version 2.0, Eternia!” He said, the sound of applause echoing from the darkness around me. I found myself suddenly seated in a movie theatre seat. “Thank you, thank you, but please hold your applause for the end of the presentation.” Isn’t he doing that himself? Who is he even speaking to?He clicked the remote, and the presentation did one of those slide transitions you see in PowerPoint presentations put together by fourteen-year-olds. The following slide came in from each corner of the screen to join itself in the middle. This slide was labelled “Features” and had a list I didn’t have time to read before he continued.“Our new Afterlife will be gamified and will include everything youngsters are into: game-like elements such as levels, classes, professions, and abilities. You get the idea. Eternia will be like a whole do-over in your life since if you die in Eternia, you go straight to the worst kind of hell we can think of for you. Oh, but don’t worry about timing out and dying of old age. As long as you progress at your species levels fast enough and reach your evolution thresholds on time, you will eventually be able to live forever!” He said with a flourish at the end. I was immensely relieved because this meant I probably had a way out of being tormented forever. I just had to play it safe and stay alive. That couldn’t be too hard, right?“Now you may be thinking, ‘Well, Ledger, I guess I’ll just hide somewhere nobody can hurt me for the rest of my life then,’ but unfortunately for you, dear listener, the gods don’t particularly like boring participants, so we’ve concocted mandatory events for participants to join in on. Anybody who is spending all their time hiding away, for example, in the starting city, Fateswatch, we will whisk away periodically to participate in all manner of cruel and unusual games for the entertainment of our Patrons.” Oh well, never mind then… “Does the audience have any questions?”I raised my hand, and he pointed towards me, “Yes, the young lady in the front?”“What kind of cruel and unusual games?”“Ah, ah, ah, I can’t give out any spoilers now. That wouldn’t be fair to the others who’ll be joining you on your adventure in another world.”“So I’m not alone in this? I’m not the only beta tester, then?” It wasn’t normally my style, but it would probably be a good idea to get a group together to improve survival odds. Unless they encourage us to stab each other in the back, then maybe sticking on my own would be better. Not that I’ve ever been fond of people, though—my only real friend in high school was an extrovert who sort of adopted me like those types tend to do. In college… Well, it’s probably best not to think about that.“You will be sent in at the same time as thirty thousand other participants as the first wave of testers. You’ll each be given a tool to report bugs with, and correctly spotting a bug that impacts the performance of the world will net you a reward. We want this to be spotless before it goes live. This obviously means the first wave of users will have minimized interactions with gods, except for the ones who had a helping hand in the project, at least until the full version goes live.” I’m going to die by falling through the floor into an endless void within the first thirty minutes, aren’t I?He switched the slide again, and the next slide, labelled “How Classes and Professions Work,” appeared from the side.
“Is this information really all necessary? Can’t we just get to the part where you send me on my way?” I asked. I figured that I could find out all of this along the way anyway.Ledger pouted and said, “But I put together this whole slideshow, and you’re probably the only one I’m going to give it to until the full release.”“Yeah, no thanks. This is way too much exposition all at once. I think it’ll be more fun to discover things on my own.” I replied, getting up from the chair.“Fine, have it your way. Just pay attention during the tutorial.” With a wave of his hand, the projector setup disappeared, revealing a platform covered in complex patterns that glowed with some kind of magic. At least, I assume that’s what it is. If they’re just LEDs, I’d be so disappointed. “Before you run away from me, you should probably know you were chosen as one of the few to be given the option to select a new species. I’d recommend becoming an imp personally.” His eyebrow wiggle did not inspire confidence in that choice.“I just stand on the platform, then?” I asked, stepping over onto the platform.“Yes, just stand right there. Please keep all limbs inside the circle in the centre. You don’t want to leave a piece of your soul behind.” He answered, and I made sure to squeeze myself as small as possible after getting in place.“Alright, now please enjoy your adventure in Eternia! And remember, try not to die too quickly, or don’t we can find a use for you either way.” He pointed a finger at me while saying his probably pre-written line. “Oh right, I almost forgot to disable the calm spell.” With his other hand, he snapped his fingers, and I felt whatever he did to me undo itself.
Cold sweat clung to my back as I felt myself being yanked in a manner that contradicted everything I had ever known to be true about physics. The world around me blurred, and a single thought raced through my mind just before everything went black. I should have paid attention to the entire presentation.