Chapter Text
It was honestly a bit embarrassing to be dying at such a prehistoric age.
Eugene Thompson had always assumed that his personality would have done him in by forty, but here he was, proving that being a total nightmare was apparently the secret to longevity. The saints and the heroes were all long dead, but Eugene—who once threw a tantrum because his private jet’s interior was the wrong shade of eggshell—had endured.
Anyway, he was an insecure bitch to the very end, a man who had never known the indignity of a debt or the taste of a four-star hotel. He had spent his decades being a “High-Society” icon, a man of the one percent who heard the word “millionaire” so often it sounded like white noise.
He had been a prick, certainly, but he had been a prick with excellent tailoring.
For example, he had lived a life where money entered his account faster than he could think of ways to waste it. He had shunned the ordinary and looked down on anything that did not have a designer logo stitched into the soul of it. He was the man who let his “friends” borrow five-figure watches just to show he had plenty more.
But as the lights began to dim, a glitch in the universe occurred.
The memory of a boy rushed back, unbidden and sharp. He remembered the kid he had tormented at Midtown High, the boy who had actually been the greatest hero the world had ever known. Eugene had spent eighty years being a pampered nuisance while that boy had been alone, forgotten by the world.
Forgotten by the world.
The phrase echoed in Eugene’s fading mind like a skipped beat in a high-priced stereo system.
He knew this boy—he could feel the phantom weight of a shove, the heat of a cruel laugh and the nagging sense that he had spent his youth being a secondary character in someone else’s epic. But when he tried to look at the boy’s face, it was like staring at a corrupted file. There was just a blank space where a nose and eyes should be, a smudge of brown hair, and a voice that sounded like a summer afternoon.
How did he even know the world had forgotten? He just knew. It felt like a piece of cosmic legislation had been repealed in his final seconds. Plus, he lived in a world where Norse gods levelled city blocks, where purple aliens snapped away half of existence and where wizards in capes messed with the fabric of reality. Memory magic was practically a Friday afternoon occurrence.
Perhaps that was it.
Some sorcerer’s grand design had accidentally left Eugene with a guilty conscience on his deathbed.
A cold dread began to seep through his designer hospital gown. Despite never having a mugshot to his name, being a lifelong prick felt like a fast track to the fiery basement. That forgotten boy, however, felt like the sort of person who was currently sitting on a cloud.
Eugene decided then and there: if there was an afterlife, he would demand to speak to the manager. He would file a formal complaint, find the boy’s file and finally say he was sorry—even if he had to admit he didn’t actually know who he was apologising to. But his thoughts were slowing, the data was corrupting and as a man of science, Eugene knew what was coming.
Death was simply a long, dreamless sleep. Here it comes, he thought, with a calm that felt entirely unearned, and here I come.
He spent his final sparks of consciousness wondering what the “lobby” would look like. Would it be the fluffy white clouds of Sunday School, the reincarnation cycles of Buddhism or perhaps a more cinematic, noir-style weighing of the heart?
He began mentally rehearsing his speech to the Afterlife Manager, trying to strike a balance between “distinguished VIP” and “sincere penitent” without crossing into full-blown Karen territory.
Mr Thompson...
A voice drifted through the static. Eugene brushed it off. “No, thank you,” he grumbled internally, “I’m quite busy drifting into the eternal void.”
Eugene Thompson!
There it was again. It sounded suspiciously like Mr Harrington, his old decathlon coach. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Eugene thought, is my limbo really going to be haunted by a man who couldn’t even manage a school bus schedule? I’m trying to move towards the light, leave a message after the beep.
Eugene!
Seriously? Whoever is calling me, please desist. I am busy navigating the great beyond. I am literally in the process of becoming stardust. Shoo.
“EUGENE THOMPSON!”
The voice boomed right into his ear, sharp and undeniable. Eugene’s eyes snapped open as he shot upright, his heart thumping against ribs that felt... strangely solid. “What the—?” He started to swear, but the words died as a violent, unapologetic morning sun hit him full in the face.
“Glad to see you’ve rejoined the world of the living, Eugene,” Mr Harrington sighed, leaning over a desk that definitely wasn’t a hospital bed. “I know my lecture on the chemical composition of polymers isn’t exactly a chart-topper, but do try to keep your eyes open. Unless, of course, you’ve already mastered the material in your dreams? If so, do share with the class.”
Eugene blinked.
He was in a classroom.
Specifically, he was in the front row, perched in one of those ergonomic nightmares masquerading as a chair. It had been decades—literally a lifetime—since he had been forced to endure a lecture on polymers. There were the beige walls, the faint scent of floor wax and a whiteboard covered in chicken-scratch equations. He looked around, spotting his classmates staring at him with the sort of bewildered amusement.
Eugene did not care because he was far too busy wondering if this was, in fact, the “fiery basement.”
If this was hell, it was impressively underwhelming.
He turned his gaze back to the front, squinting at the “Grim Reaper” currently masquerading as Mr Harrington. He had no idea what sort of cosmic karma had resulted in his eternal punisher taking the form of a perpetually stressed-out science teacher, but it was a solid choice for psychological warfare. “The entity” was currently tapping a marker against the desk, looking increasingly annoyed by Eugene’s catatonic state.
“Well, Eugene?” the Harrington-creature asked, his voice dripping with a very familiar brand of academic exasperation. “Are you still with us? I asked you a question about synthetic chains, not for a blank stare that suggests you’ve forgotten how to breathe.”
Wow. Just because this hell-spirit had borrowed his teacher’s face did not mean he was going to be intimidated. Eugene sat up straighter and looked the entity dead in the eye. “I want to speak to the manager.”
The classroom erupted into a cacophony of snorting, howling laughter.
Eugene watched the Harrington-creature, entirely unmoved by the raucous noise surrounding him. The entity’s face was turning a fascinating shade of puce, his mouth opening and closing like a landed trout. If this was a hell-spirit, it had clearly studied the “stuttering, overworked educator” archetype to a professional degree.
The laughter of the other “hell-mates” didn’t bother Eugene—he assumed it was simply the background soundtrack to his eternal processing.
“The... the manager?” the Harrington-creature stammered. “Eugene, what on earth are you—this is a classroom, not a... a department store! What do you mean, ‘manager’?”
Beside him, a boy was wheezing so hard he looked like he might actually expire—though, being in hell, Eugene supposed that was redundant. The boy slapped a hand onto Eugene’s shoulder, giving him a teary-eyed thumbs-up. “Oh man, Flash! That’s... that’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said! ‘The manager’! Absolute legend!”
Eugene turned his head slowly to look at the boy.
Who was this again? The face was youthful, but the annoying, high-pitched bray of a laugh was unmistakable.
Jason Ionello.
In the life Eugene had just left, Jason had gone on to become a moderately successful, albeit thrice-divorced, insurance broker who never missed an alumni gala. “Jason?” Eugene asked, his voice sounding oddly crisp and young in his own ears. “My God, man, is that you? You’re in the fiery basement too? I suppose that third divorce really did involve some questionable assets, then.”
Jason didn’t even process the words seeing that he simply fell off his plastic chair, rolling onto the floor in a fit of pure, unadulterated hysterics. Eugene watched him with a look of profound distaste.
How many hundreds of teenagers walked there daily? Even if the custodial staff were demons, he doubted their cleaning standards were up to his five-star requirements. Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about his sciatica acting up while he watched the display because, apparently, in hell, your old-age aches were traded in for fresh psychological trauma.
“Mr Thompson! And Mr Ionello, get off the floor this instant!” the Harrington-creature barked, finally finding his footing. “I will not have this... this blatant insurrection! This is a place of learning, not a comedy club! Sit up, be quiet or you will find yourself in the principal’s office before the bell rings!”
Eugene gave a slow, deliberate nod. “The principal. Right. My mistake for assuming you had a corporate structure. I should have guessed hell would be stuck in the public sector.” He turned his back on Jason’s prone form, focusing entirely on the entity behind the desk. “Lead the way. I’d like to speak with the principal immediately. I’ve already navigated the process of dying once today, and I have no intention of spending my afterlife in a room that smells this strongly of body spray and desperation.”
The laughter died out as if someone had flicked a switch.
The silence that followed was heavy and awkward.
Mr Harrington’s frustration vanished, replaced by a look of deep, unsettled worry.
“E… Eugene, sit down,” Harrington said softly, his voice wavering. “You’re scaring your classmates. What are you talking about, ‘dying’? Did you have a nightmare? You never sleep in class. Never. Do you need a moment in the hallway to clear your head?”
Eugene felt the atmosphere shift. It was a pressure he recognised—the feeling of a high-stakes negotiation where the other side was trying to gaslight him. Oh. This was the test. They wanted to see if he’d retreat into the role of a scared child. He had to double down to prove his worth.
“I don’t need a hallway,” Eugene said. “I need a resolution. Whether this is a dream, a test or a very elaborate punisher’s trick, the fact remains: life is short. I don’t see the point in dallying. I have things to get done, people to find and a lifetime of being a prick to atone for. Now, are we going to see this principal, or am I going to have to find the exit myself?”
The silence that followed Eugene’s declaration was so thick it felt like one of his high-thread-count duvets. He took it as a win considering that he had clearly passed some sort of threshold in this negotiation. Yet, a small part of him winced—he sounded exactly like he did during the board meeting of ‘52.
A few girls in the second row began whispering.
“Did he say atone?” one hissed.
“Is he... is he having some sort of existential breakdown?”
Eugene opened his mouth to tell the Harrington-creature that he could drop the act now—there were surely more aesthetically pleasing forms for a hell-spirit than a man with a persistent coffee stain on his tie—but a hand gripped his shoulder. It was Jason. His eyebrows were furrowed.
“Flash, man... are you okay?” Jason asked. “You’re acting really... weird. Like, ‘calling the police’ weird.”
Eugene rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop the theatrics, Jason. We both know where we are. Did they put you in charge of my intake? Because I’d like to request a transfer to a department with better lighting.”
Jason’s face paled. He looked up at Harrington, ignoring Eugene’s remark. “Sir, I think... I think he’s really sick. Maybe he hit his head? I’ll take him to the nurse.”
“The nurse?” Eugene scoffed. “Is that what they call the first circle of punishment now? A medical-themed torture ward? Innovative, I suppose.”
Jason didn’t wait. He grabbed Eugene’s arm to pull it over his shoulder, but the moment their skin met, Jason froze. His eyes went saucer-wide. “Dude... you’re cold. You’re like... like a corpse.”
“Well, obviously,” Eugene sighed, leaning into the support. “I am dead, Jason. Keep up.”
“Sir! He’s freezing!” Jason shouted. “He needs a doctor or something right now!”
Harrington snapped out of his daze, his face ashen. “Right—yes! Jason, go. Get him to the nurse immediately. And Eugene,” he added, his voice trembling but firm, “don’t think this excuses your... your appalling disrespect earlier. We will discuss this later. Just... go.”
Eugene didn’t argue.
If the next level of this hell-simulation involved a nurse, perhaps they at least had better chairs.
As Jason steered him toward the exit, Eugene allowed his gaze to sweep over the classroom one last time. It was like flicking through a morbidly interactive yearbook. There was Cindy Moon. He remembered her funeral in ‘84—very tasteful, far too many lilies. There was Abe, who had eventually lost touch with everyone after moving to the south of France to open a vineyard that produced a surprisingly mediocre rosé.
The afterlife sure was a one-stop shop for all his past social failures.
Then, his eyes drifted toward the back.
There sat Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones-Watson. They were still the same “losers” he had spent his youth belittling, though his eighty-year-old self knew better. He remembered the news of their MIT acceptance—a proud moment for the school, actually—and how he had eventually grown to respect their grit from a distance.
They were good people. Decent people.
The sort who shouldn’t be in the fiery basement with a man who once mocked a child’s trainers for sport.
But then, he saw him.
Sitting right next to Ned was a boy Eugene didn’t recognise. He was slight, with messy brown hair and a face that was... well, it was annoyingly adorable. He looked like the personification of a kicked puppy, staring at Eugene with a mixture of concern and utter bewilderment.
Eugene’s sharp, “Midtown-level” intellect whirred. He knew everyone in this year. He had memorised the social hierarchy like a stock ticker. Was this a transfer student? A glitch in the hell-code? But as he looked at the boy, a strange, magnetic pull tugged at his chest. He felt as if he should know that face—as if that face was the most important thing he had ever forgotten.
Then, the heavy classroom door swung shut.
Eugene turned his head back to the hallway, letting Jason drag him along. The hallway muffled the chaos of the classroom, but Mr Harrington’s voice still managed to pierce through the wood. Eugene heard the man clear his throat—that wet, irritating sound that always preceded a “significant” announcement.
“Now that we’ve had our morning excitement,” the Harrington-creature announced, his voice fading as Jason pulled Eugene further down the corridor, “I want to focus on the Stark Industries field trip in two weeks. This is a monumental opportunity for Midtown, provided you all get your permission slips signed by—”
The rest was lost to the hum of the school’s air conditioning. Eugene let out a snort. A field trip? In the afterlife? He wondered what that actually entailed. Was it a tour of the boiler rooms for the particularly sinful, or perhaps a demonstration on the molecular structure of eternal damnation?
Seeing Ned and MJ in there—two people who were practically saintly compared to his own track record—didn’t quite add up. They shouldn’t be in the fiery basement. Maybe this is just the lobby, he thought, his eyes tracking the lockers as they blurred past.
Or perhaps the afterlife had a particularly twisted sense of humour. Maybe this was the ultimate sorting hat: a restart of your teenage years where your final GPA determined your eternal destination. Bad grades got you the basement and a 4.0 got you a cloud and a harp.