Chapter Text
YOU DIED ON A TUESDAY.
Of all days, a Tuesday. Not even a Thursday. Not even a Friday.
A Tuesday.
Which is, objectively speaking, the worst day of the week.
You did not go out heroically. You did not exit the world tragically. You did not even leave consciousness interestingly.
There was no dramatic sacrifice to your death. No tearful final words. Not even a single truck in sight.
God had probably looked down upon the circumstances of your death and immediately delegated the paperwork to someone else out of embarrassment.
The official cause of your death was:
Wet floor.
The unofficial cause of your death was:
Overconfidence.
“That’s a sign,” you had thought.
The sign in question had read:
CAUTION. WET FLOOR.
Of course, you had ignored it.
And of course, the universe had responded in retribution. Naturally, by making you die.
As your body soared through the air to meet the hard, wet floor, your final thought had been:
This is going to be embarrassing if I survive.
Unfortunately, you did not.
Which was honestly even more shameful.
The afterlife is not what you expect it to be.
There are no deadly pits of fire. There are no volcanoes spewing poisonous ashes and toxic lava. There are no prisoners queuing up to experience the wonders of the guillotine.
Instead, there is an office.
A horrible, horrible office.
It’s the kind of office that probably inspired the employee revolutions in 1970s America. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, violently assaulting your eyes. Mountains of paperwork tower in every direction, threatening your physical and mental well-being. Filing cabinets stretch endlessly into the distance, an observation you find deeply unsettling. Somewhere nearby, a printer makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a dying animal.
If somebody had told you this was Hell, you would have believed them in a heartbeat.
You stare. The office, or maybe Hell, stares back at you.
Behind a small desk, a clerk watches you undergo your mental breakdown. He looks like the type of man who has lost a fight against administrative duties, and has been continuously losing for several centuries already. His tie is crooked. His hair is on fire. Not metaphorically, this time. Literally, on fire.
He doesn’t seem too bothered.
“Where am I?” you ask, like any sensible person of sound body and mind would.
The clerk barely blinks. He reaches for a folder in the mess on his desk, and flips through several pages.
“[Name][Last Name].”
Flip.
“Cause of death.”
Flip.
“Wet floor.”
Flip.
“Oh.”
FLIP.
“Oh no.”
“What?” Your eyes narrow. “What does ‘oh no’ mean?”
The man looks up. Slowly. In dread.
A long silence ensues. The kind of silence that screams doom in big, bright, capital letters.
“Have you ever heard of clerical error?” the man finally says.
“No,” you reply flatly.
“Fantastic.”
“That doesn't sound fantastic.”
“It isn’t,” he agrees. He slams the folder onto a nearby drawer. The drawer explodes into paperwork.
Neither of you acknowledge it.
“Okay.” The clerk takes a deep breath. “Good news? You died.”
You’re speechless.
“Objectively speaking,” you say, “that is far from good news.”
“You no longer have to pay taxes,” he points out.
You consider.
“Fair point.”
The man continues.
“Bad news? We’ve misplaced your soul.”
You blink. And then blink again. And then blink harder.
“What.”
“Your soul,” he says again.
“My soul,” you repeat.
“Correct.”
“You’ve misplaced it.”
“Correct.”
“How?”
The man has the nerve to look offended.
“Clerical error.”
You stare at him in disbelief.
Somewhere in the background of this Hell-like place, an employee screams. The sound echoes for several minutes. Nobody reacts.
Apparently, this is normal.
You are mildly concerned.
The clerk flips through more paperwork. Each page only seems to make him turn progressively paler. Which you find impressive, considering he already looked deceased before.
“You were supposed to be sent to Earth-767A,” he eventually tells you.
“Okay.”
“You were instead processed under Earth-676B.”
“Okay.”
“You were then transferred to Fictional Reality Sector Sixty-seven.”
“That sounds fake,” you state.
“It is fake,” deadpans the clerk. “It’s called ‘Fictional Reality’.”
“Right.”
That wasn’t what you meant.
“Unfortunately,” the clerk goes on, “it still exists.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose.
“Can I go home now?”
The clerk freezes. The office freezes. Even the printer stops making dying noises.
The silence stretches.
And stretches.
And stretches.
Then the man laughs, a dry, humourless sound.
“No.”
“Why not?” you demand.
“Because you’re dead,” he points out. Rightfully. Much to your annoyance.
“And also because somebody,” his eye twitches as he speaks, “somebody, filled your existence under ‘miscellaneous’.”
For a moment, you just stand there, not knowing how to respond to that.
“That’s incredibly stupid,” you finally say.
“YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?”
The clerk explodes. So does a nearby chair. So does the moaning printer. You flinch. Somewhere in the distance, somebody shouts, “NOT AGAIN!”
The man takes a deep breath.
“No,” he repeats, more calmly this time. “You can’t go back.”
“Oh,” is all you say.
That’s unfortunate.
You hadn't particularly loved your life from before. It was unmemorable, mediocre at best. But it had contained things. Things that were nice. Food. Electricity. The internet. The ability to know where the hell you were.
You fold your arms. “So what now?”
The man looks down at the folder, then back at you.
“Do you know what My Hero Academia is?”
You stare at him blankly.
“No.”
He sighs loudly.
“Wonderful,” he mutters.
He falls silent for a moment, probably thinking about the mysteries of the universe.
“Do you know how compensation works, at least?”
“Hopefully.”
The man grabs a stamp. The stamp is enormous. The stamp is glowing. The stamp is probably radioactive. It’s radiating the kind of energy associated with apocalyptic prophecies.
“What are you doing?” you ask in mild dread.
“Solving the problem.”
“You don’t sound qualified to solve problems.”
“I am not,” he agrees.
The stamp descends onto the folder.
THUNK.
The office shakes. The universe shakes. Reality itself shakes.
The folder bursts into flames.
The man immediately tosses it down a large chute labeled ‘Garbage’. You swear it wasn’t there before. You watch the burning folder vanish into the tunnel, consumed by the square of inky darkness till it is no more.
And then it’s gone, just like that.
“Did you do something?” you whisper.
The man checks a monitor screen. The monitor promptly explodes.
He nods. “Yep.”
“What just happened?”
“You now possess unrestricted reality manipulation.”
You stare. The office, or maybe Hell, stares back at you. Again.
A nearby filing cabinet falls over. Nobody moves.
“What.”
The man gives you a thumbs-up.
“You can rewrite existence.”
"What.”
“You can alter space-time.”
“What.”
“You can bend causality.”
“WHAT.”
The man stands, brushes off his suit, and begins walking away. As if he hadn’t said anything. As if he hadn’t done anything at all.
“Good luck.”
“Wait—!” you call out, hurrying after him.
“No.” He doesn’t even look over his shoulder to answer you.
“You can’t just leave!”
“Watch me.”
“YOU GAVE ME GOD POWERS!”
“Technically.”
“TECHNICALLY?”
“Management defines godhood very loosely.”
He continues walking. You continue following.
“This is insane!” you splutter.
“It is,” he replies.
“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE REALITY MANIPULATION!”
“That sounds like a skill issue.”
You point at him accusatorially.
“I just died twenty minutes ago!”
“Actually, forty-three.”
“THAT'S NOT ANY BETTER.”
The man reaches a glowing doorway. Freedom. Cowardice. Escape. You know it immediately once you see it.
He pauses. For the first time, he looks vaguely guilty.
“Sorry about all this.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
A beat.
“You'll probably be fine.”
“Probably?” you echo incredulously. “Way to comfort me, dude.”
“It’s a fifty-fifty.”
“THOSE ARE TERRIBLE ODDS.”
He shrugs.
“I've seen worse.”
The doorway opens. Light floods the room, bright and blinding and terrible for your astigmatism. Without hesitation, the man steps through.
“Oh, and one more thing.” He halts, one foot over the threshold.
“What,” you grit out.
“Don’t accidentally destroy reality.”
You stare. He stares.
Then the doorway closes.
The clerk vanishes. The office vanishes. The universe vanishes.
Your world fades to black.