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Will woke up face-down in something that felt soft and light, like if a mattress could be made of condensed morning fog. He blinked, rubbing his eyes. Everywhere he looked, there were clouds. Endless, blindingly white, fluffy cumulus clouds stretching out beneath a sky of blue. And floating on those clouds were frogs. Hundreds of them, each sporting a golden halo and a pair of tiny, fluttering white feathered wings.
"Where am I?" Will muttered, pushing himself up. "This is the Great Hall of Judgement," a voice boomed softly. It was a rich, echoing, divine baritone. Will spun around. Towering over him was someone he recognized. It looked exactly like his best friend, Hasan Piker. But instead of a suit or vintage designer, he wore a flowing, pristine white gown.
A pair of white wings extended from his back, and a long, golden herald’s trumpet was slung elegantly over his shoulder. "Judgement?!" Will gasped, taking a step back. "Oh, not to worry, Will," the Angel said, his expression completely zen, devoid of any regular Hasan chat-induced rage.
"You'll go to Heaven. All who truly mean well go to Heaven because, unlike the rest of the population, you were good, and loyal, and kind. "Will paused, smoothing down his shirt. "Ah, yeah... I suppose that's true."
The Angel broke out in sing-songy voice. "Welcome to doing whatever you wish!" the Angel said, gesturing broadly to the sky. "Ah, this is really a lovely place you got here," Will said, looking around at the choir of Pepe frogs. "Eating whenever you please!" the Angel continued, his wings giving a gentle, rhythmic flap.
"Follow me. To a constant temperate climate, we keep it 73 degrees. We're still on Fahrenheit here." "That's fine with me," Will said, though a tiny bead of nervous sweat formed on his brow. "Welcome to no more rat race! To order and calm instead." the Angel chanted softly. "Ah, great." The Angel smiled, a blinding, terrifyingly serene expression. "Welcome... to being dead." Will froze. "What?!"
Before Will could even process the words, the Angel moved with an impossible, dreamlike fluidity. He floated backward, kicked off the edge of a cloud, and launched himself into the air in slow motion. He landed perfectly onto a wooden stool tucked behind the desk. He spun the stool around, his white gown billowing around him like a cloud, his massive white wings extending to help find his balance.
"You mean I'm, I'm..." "Stone-cold, I'm afraid."
The Angel came to a stop, facing Will across the desk. A massive, leather-bound ledger was resting perfectly flat on the wood. He licked his thumb and began flipping through the pages to check for sins. The Angel murmured to himself, his eyes scanning the golden text. "Let me see..." Will blinked, "Wait, hold on. What even happened? How did I die?"
The Angel’s serene expression faltered. He looked down at a specific line in the ledger, his jaw tightening. A faint flush crept up his neck, contrasting sharply with his holy aura. He cleared his throat softly, his large white wings giving a small, self-conscious twitch. "The exact, uh, physiological sequence of events is... highly unusual, Will," the Angel mumbled, deliberately avoiding eye contact as he quickly closed the book with a heavy thud. He cleared his throat again, instantly trying to regain his professional, bureaucratic composure. "Moving on!"
"There's a mistake been made here!" Will insisted, backing away from the hovering desk. "You got the wrong guy!" Will said, gesturing wildly. "Listen to me, my time's not up yet! This is hard to explain. May I speak to your superior? 'Cause I don't wanna die!" "Oh, but it is up," the Angel said calmly, stepping out from behind the desk. "There is no mistake about that. Up here, we know everything."
Will groaned, pacing back and forth on the condensed mist, his mind racing for a loophole. He paused as his foot hit something solid hidden in the lower ridge of the cloud. He looked down and through the cloud. Resting on a small shelf was a vintage, slightly scratched mechanical watch on a worn leather strap among many other different types of clocks."This must be the watch department, huh? Hey, what's this?" Will asked, pointing at the worn watch. "That watch there is your life... and it stopped."
Will immediately lunged forward, reaching for it. "Well, can't you just wind it up or something? Send me back?" "Oh, no, no, no," the Angel let out a soft, melodic chuckle. "No one is ever allowed to go back. Just put your hand right here on our book of records. You see, everything about you that was, or ever will be, is right here. It is all perfectly planned."
Will froze, staring at the Angel, a sudden horror washing over him. "Wait. You mean there's no surprises or anything?" The Angel beamed, completely missing Will's growing panic. "We know exactly how it all turns out." Will looked around at the endless rows of angelic frogs, all floating in their perfect, unchanging spots, smiling their perfect, unchanging smiles. The utter lack of chaos was suffocating.
Will took a slow step backward, his eyes locked onto the stopped watch. He needed a distraction.
"Say," Will said, his tone suddenly shifting into a smooth, theatrical purr as he slid into a flawless ballroom stance. "Would you like to dance?" The Angel blinked, his serene lookalike facade slipping for a fraction of a second. "Dance?" "Think about it," Will said, gesturing grandly to the horizon. "If I'm waiting for an inside straight up here, I'd know in advance whether I filled it? Where's the fun in that?"
Before the Angel could answer, Will lunged forward and grabbed his hands. He yanked the celestial being forward, kicking off the cloud beneath them. The movement triggered a sudden, unspoken rhythm as they cloud-hopped to a higher tier of mist. The Angel found his feet moving to match. His massive white wings extended wide for balance while the long golden buisine slung over his shoulder swung wildly.
"You must’ve studied dancing." Will called out, spinning the Angel around. "You have natural rhythm." All around them, the legions of angelic frogs began to sway in perfect unison on their respective clouds, their tiny feathered wings fluttering to the unwritten beat like a divine backing choir.
"Everything is so lovely here," Will muttered, landing a dramatic leap onto a neighboring cloud. "So planned, so ordered... And that's what's driving me crazy."
Will threw his hands wide, delivering the lines with all the rhythmic, high-stakes bravado of a Broadway lead: "I need Brazil. The throb, the thrill! I've never been there, but someday I will. Adventure and danger, love from a stranger... Let me be surprised."
He spun back toward the Angel, grabbing his hands again and accelerating the pace, leaping from cloud to cloud in a dizzying zigzag. "Today there’s sun, they said there'd be snow," Will talked rhythmically, dipping the towering Angel backward over the edge of a sheer drop of fog. "When all’s said and done, it’s fun not to know. What keeps my heart humming is guessing what’s coming." He pulled the Angel back up, spinning him out and snapping him back in like a professional swing dancer. The Angel’s baritone voice finally broke through his composure, echoing Will's rhythm as the sheer momentum took over.
"Oh! Ain't it great?" Will threw his head back, laughing into the sky. "Ain't it great?" the Angel echoed automatically, entirely caught up in the rhythm of the cloud-hopping steps. "When fate makes you wait?" Will shouted, executing a sharp pivot turn on the edge of a cloud. The Angel let out a perfectly pitched, melodic, "La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!" while spinning. "The world seems mirthless, you feel worthless," Will drove the rhythm home, pointing dramatics at the rows of watching Pepe frogs. "Then suddenly, there's a big bone on your plate!"
"Oh, Will, please remember," the Angel panted, his serene expression twisting into mild panic as they hopped precariously close to the edge of the cloud tier. "Down there's a world of used cars, and singles' bars, broken dreams, and out-of-reach stars." "But it isn't over!" Will shouted, a wild spark in his eyes. "Not for this Rover! I don't like to steal, but I don't buy this deal!" With one final, high-speed, theatrical twirl, Will spun the Angel hard. The fast-paced cloud-hopping and relentless rotation finally broke the entity's divine equilibrium. The Angel stumbled, his golden halo tilted dangerously to the side. "Oh!" the Angel gasped, clutching his forehead as the clouds spun around him. "I'm getting dizzy!"
That was the exact window Will needed.
As the Angel swayed, completely disoriented, Will’s hand whipped behind his back. With a practiced thief's precision, his fingers clamped around the vintage leather strap of the watch, snatching it off the shelf. "In 'bout three seconds, he'll have realized," Will laughed, stepping back as the entire choir of Pepe frogs let out a collective, shocked gasp. "Will?" the Angel stammered, his eyes focusing just in time to see Will holding something behind his back. "What are you doing?"
Will gave a mischievous, life-loving grin. He hooked his thumb around the watch's crown. "Wait and you'll see," Will whispered. "Will, don't wind that watch!" the Angel yelled. Will twisted the crown three times. "He's gonna be..."
Click. Click. Click.
"Surprised!"
The watch began to tick furiously. Instantly, the ground gave way beneath Will's feet. The solid cloud dissolved into a swirling vortex of blinding white light. He plummeted straight down, tumbling backward into the void. Up above, the perfect blue sky tore open as the Angel dived after him, his pristine white gown whipping in the cosmic wind and his massive white wings straining as he reached a desperate hand into the abyss.
"Will!" the Angel’s voice echoed, booming with the terrifying, tragic weight of a divine decree. "Will! You can never come back!" As Will fell faster, the clouds rushed back together, sealing the rift. The last thing he saw in the heavens was a sudden, piercing beam of golden light cutting through the mist, illuminating the finality of his choice. The echo of the Angel's voice lingered like thunder in the distance: "You can never come back.."
Then came the impact. Will snapped his eyes open with a sharp, gasping breath. He sat straight up, his heart hammering against his ribs, his lungs burning as if he had just broken through the surface of deep water. He wasn't on a cloud. He was face-down in his own familiar bed. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint, static glow of his phone.
He let out a massive, trembling breath, slowly calming his frantic pulse. It was chaotic. It was imperfect. It was entirely unpredictable. Will went to rub his face, but his right hand felt unusually heavy. He paused, looking down. Clutched tightly in his fist was a worn leather strap with a vintage mechanical watch. And in the quiet stillness of his bedroom, it was ticking loudly.