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Amelia Watson was dead.
She died while on a case -- the guy obviously knew what he was doing, knocked her just below the skull while her back was turned, 9mm, killed her instantly.
It was disappointing, really. Just some run-of-the-mill missing persons case, except the murder got away this time, and with two kills to his name.
She knew something was happening when she became aware of herself -- weightlessly floating, everything was black. Opening her eyes did no good, though she didn’t know if she even had eyes: there was just her thoughts, and this void.
As Amelia was thinking about her predicament, and the events that led up to it, a faint pinpoint of light appeared in her vision. It gradually started to grow and glow brighter, as if rapidly approaching. A sudden panic overcame her -- if she didn’t move she’d be plowed over.
Amelia struggled to regain feeling of her limbs, flailing desperately, or what could be described as desperately, as the orb grew until it very nearly filled her entire vision.
All of a sudden the orb came to a stop. There was a deep thrumming sound emanating from it, but otherwise it was silent. After a moment of nothing, Amelia began to relax -- the light from the orb was oddly soothing, and at a glance around, the void started to take the shape of an odd, pulsing landscape of some semi-liquid substance. For some reason, she called out.
“What… what happened?” She thought. She could only think. “Where am I?”
“You died.” A voice replied. It might’ve been coming from the orb, she couldn’t tell.
“That house… the journalist had a gun.”
“Yep.”
“I… I died?”
“Yes. But don’t feel bad about it, everyone dies.” The voice was distinctly female -- deep, and English-speaking, though Amelia didn’t really know what she expected. She took a glance around at the liquidesque landscape. “What is this place?” She blurted. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less.” The voice said. Cryptic and vague -- Amelia felt like she made a face.
“Are you god?”
The voice paused ever so slightly. “Yep,” It said, “I’m God.”
There was a flash of light as the orb dissipated, and the remaining light particles coalesced into the shape of a woman: a rather tall woman by Amelia’s standards, she had short, bob-cut hair, an odd shade of navy, and deep sapphire eyes. She didn’t smile, but her straight face wasn’t exactly frowning either.
“My friends… my wife,” Amelia said when the figure blinked at her expectantly.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
The corners of the figure’s mouth twitched. “That’s what I like to see,” it remarked, voice a little softer this time, “You’ve just died and your main concern is for your family -- that’s good stuff right there.”
It -- rather, she -- then floated around Amelia as if inspecting her, and the detective twisted to watch her. She was a fascinating person, but didn't really look like any God: If the floating, clock-like mechanism behind her head said anything, she might’ve been some kind of vague authority figure. Maybe.
“Don’t worry,” she said after coming back around to Amelia’s front. “They’ll be fine. The Myths didn’t think too badly of you. They knew you had your flaws, but you did too. Your wife, the Priestess, will cry on the outside, but will secretly be relieved -- to be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling that way.”
Amelia scrunched her nose at that last line. “Oh.” She said instead of instigating. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven, or hell or something?”
“Neither.” The figure replied, “You’ll be reincarnated.”
Amelia perked up. “Ah, so the Hindus were right.”
The figure seemed to shrug. “All religions are right in their own way,” She flicked her wrist. “Walk with me.”
There was a slight tingling sensation as Amelia watched the figure stroll off in the direction away from her, then turn and beckon her forward. Amelia took a deep breath, the first she’d had since…
She looked down at her legs, which existed now, and then at her hands. Her clothes were no longer splotched with blood, though upon feeling the back of her neck, there was a sizable divot where the bullet pierced her skin.
She took a step towards the figure, then another, and slowly caught up with her as they travelled through the liquidesque landscape. Amelia walked on an invisible path of sorts above the ground, while the figure floated beside her. Apparently walking was only for the lowly mortals.
They went for a while, and Amelia watched as the landscape shifted and changed around them. “Where are we going?” She asked.
“Nowhere in particular.” the figure replied. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point then?” Amelia poked at a bubble as it drifted past, then turned to look up at the figure. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not quite,” The figure looked down at her, a look in her eyes Amelia couldn’t decipher. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them now.” She stopped suddenly, and took Amelia by the shoulders, making the detective realise how tall she really was. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you could possibly imagine. The human mind can only see a tiny fraction of what you are.” She let go of her shoulders and took a step back, cupping her hands around one of the bubbles floating by. “It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s got or cold -- you put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.” She dispelled the liquid in a smooth motion, and beckoned Amelia to follow again.
“You’ve been a human for the past 37 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here long enough, you’d start remembering everything, but there’s no point in doing that between each life.”
Amelia stood dumbfounded. “How… many times have I been reincarnated then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. And in lots of different lives” The figure said nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t just dumped the entire meaning of existence onto the detective. Her eyes started to glow, and when Amelia squinted, she could see faint outlines of what resembled clock faces, each hand spinning rapidly until the glow faded. “This time you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait what?” Amelia stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically.” The figure said. “Time as you know it only exists in your universe. Things are different where I’m from.”
Amelia gave the clock floating behind her head a dubious look. “Where you’re from?”
“Well, I also come from somewhere. Just somewhere else.” The figure shrugged. “There are others like me. And I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh.” Amelia said, a little let down, and a little surprised that this woman figured out what she was going to ask next. “But wait, if I get reincarnated to other places in time, that means I could’ve interacted with myself at some point.”
“Oh sure, happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespans you don’t even know it’s happening.” The figure shot her a smile and sat down, and Amelia realised that they were standing on a sort of cliff ledge, overlooking the vast landscape. The rolling hills of the liquidesque substance could've been compared to sand dunes, with small particles of dust blowing in the phantom wind.
She sat down beside the figure, looking out into the distance. “So what’s the point of it all?” The question sort of just came out.
The figure looked back at her, a smirk evident on her angular face. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a bit stereotypical?”
Amelia threw her arms up in exasperation, but the figure just laughed. “It’s a reasonable question,” the detective tried to defend herself, but the figure only shook her head, then turned again, staring Amelia directly in the eye.
“The meaning of life, the reason I made this timeline, and all the other timelines is for you to mature.”
Amelia gave her a dubious look. “You mean mankind? You want mankind to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this all for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
Amelia hugged her knees. “Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else.” The figure’s voice softened until it was just above a whisper. “In this timeline, there is just you, and me.”
Amelia stared blankly at her. “But all the people on earth…?”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait, I’m everyone?”
The figure snapped her finger with a smile. “Now you’re getting it.”
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
Amelia narrowed her eyes. “I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth too.”
“I’m… Hitler?”
The figure looked down. “And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
Amelia fell silent.
“Everytime you victimised someone, you were victimising yourself,” The figure adjusted her position to be facing Amelia, her eyes showing a particular intensity. “Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment experienced by any human has been, and will be, experienced by you.”
Amelia Watson thought for a long time.
“Why?” She croaked out after a while. “Why do all this?”
The figure smiled, holding out her hands for Amelia to take, and she did. “Because someday, you’ll become like me. Because that’s what you are -- you’re one of my kind.”
“Woah.” Amelia looked down at their clasped hands before meeting the figure’s deep, sapphire eyes. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No, not yet -- You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every life throughout all of time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” the detective voiced, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” The figure answered.
Amelia felt something be pressed into the palm of her hand, and she looked down -- the shape of a shiny brass pocket watch was nestled perfectly within the palm of her hand, as if it had always belonged there. She reached up to touch the shiny case before--
“Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
Amelia’s head shot up, meeting the deep sapphire eyes one last time.
“Wait--”
Then she was whisked on her way.