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Cress opened his eyes, feeling a bit like he had suddenly been flipped around, disoriented and vaguely nauseous. He focused on the person across the desk in front of him, and then gripped the armrests of his chair.
“Where the hell am I?” he said.
The person looked up at him, tilted their head and smiled slightly, and then closed a file in front of them. They folded their hands on the desk. “Welcome to Heaven’s Gate Entertainment!”
Cress stared for a moment, and then let his eyes rove around the room, looking for more information. The room was small, cramped, really, with the desk taking up most of the floor space. The walls were gray, the floor was gray, the desk was gray, and yet somehow there was color crammed into every available space, from pictures hanging on the walls to a plant spilling over the window sill, to a lampshade colored purple, making the whole room feel a little bit hazy. Books were stacked on the corner of the desk, haphazardly, with notes and bookmarks sticking out of them at odd angles. When Cress tried to read the names of the books, the words seemed to slip out of his mind as soon as he saw them, and trying harder only made his head hurt. The clutter of pens, papers, books, files, and sticky notes only served to make the room feel even more cramped than it already was, and Cress took a deep breath, leaning back in his chair, wanting out as soon as possible.
“How did I get here?” he asked, frowning. He wracked his brain, searching through old memories for any mention of the place, or any idea why he would have ended up here.
The person smiled wider, in an almost uncanny fashion. “You’ve died,” they said, straightening up as much as they could. As they did, Cress’s eye caught on the bounce of their ears, almost goat shaped in appearance. Cress swallowed hard.
“Died?” he asked. “I don’t… remember dying.”
The person laughed. “Hardly anyone ever does. Dying is usually painful, miserable, and generally a difficult feeling to process. The brain doesn’t want to remember dying, and so it doesn’t.”
“I do want to remember dying, though!” Cress said, trying to force his brain to come up with the memory. “I want to know what happened.”
“Ah!” the person said, raising a finger. “You see? You want to remember what happened, not dying itself. But you can’t remember one without the other, so you’ll have to settle for not remembering at all.”
“But—”
“No buts, I’m afraid. I can’t control what your brain does and does not remember. If you want to know so badly, that can be arranged, but first I have to confirm I have the right file.” They reopened the file in front of them, and then cleared their throat. “Name?”
“I— Ugh. Cress Sala.”
“Thank you.” They nodded and flipped a page in the file. “Date of birth?”
“April 12th, 19XX,” Cress said, letting his head fall back against the chair and staring at the ceiling. Someone had painted a crude penis on the corner tile. He closed his eyes.
“Living family members?”
“Uh,” Cress said, rubbing his face. “My brother, I guess. Malloy Sala. I don’t know if my father is still alive—”
“He almost certainly isn’t. He dies in almost every timeline before you do.”
Cress looked at them from under his hand. They were comparing two files now, not looking back at him.
“Is this hell?” he asked.
They didn’t look up. “Not at all. Any other family members?”
Cress let his hand fall. “No. Not living.”
Their eyes shifted to meet Cress’s, not moving their head. “Spouse? Children?”
Cress snorted. “No.”
They straightened, tilting their head again. “Partner?”
“Never had any desire for one.”
The person looked back down at their files, comparing them, and then abruptly picked one up and threw it behind them, sending the pages fluttering down to meet the floor. They dug into a drawer, pulled out a stamp, and pressed red ink onto the other file. Cress barely caught the word ‘DECEASED’ before they stuck it under their arm and stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Sala.” They squeezed around the side of their desk, and then past Cress, pushed the door open and turned back. “If you’d follow me, please.”
Given no other choice, Cress stood, following them out of their office and down the hall. They had a tail, too, Cress realized. He supposed, if this was the afterlife, it made sense that the people working there weren’t human, but it was strange to see nonetheless.
The afterlife. He brooded on this, following them down hallways, turning randomly. Thinking about his life and the end of it. What happened next? Reincarnation? Did he move on to someplace else? Or was he going to be sent back, as a ghost, or a fragment, or something? What other kinds of afterlife were there, even? Truthfully, Cress had been hoping that death was a blissful nothingness, where he wouldn’t have to worry about anything at all, ever again.
The hallways had started empty but for the occasional window into a person’s office, with some dull employee tapping away at a computer. As they got further into the building, climbing stairs a handful of times, taking elevators up, or down, or sideways, and even stepping into a door built into the floor, which really fucked with Cress’s sense of direction as gravity shifted on him suddenly, more and more people started to show up. Most of them ignored Cress and his guide, but a few of them would wave, and one even cheerfully chirped, “Hello, Soren! What do you have today?”
Soren waved back, pausing in the hallway for a moment. “Oh, you know, the usual. Got a few deaths to catch up and a few timelines to review and revise. Viewers didn’t care for snippets of stories that didn’t mean anything to the main show, so it’s all on review again, per the boss’s request. Speaking of, if you see Mors, will you tell him to answer my emails? He’s ignoring me again.”
“Oh, Soren, I’m sure he’s not ignoring you, you know how he is. He gets busy.”
Soren laughed and shook their head. “No, no, I think they blocked me again. Tell them if they don’t respond to my emails by tomorrow’s lunch break, I’m gonna start sending the pigeons again.”
The other person laughed, and then said they would pass the message on, and then Soren gestured for Cress to follow again.
“I’m serious about the pigeons, though, you know,” Soren said to Cress, as if they had been talking together all along, and not letting Cress sulk in silence. “Homing pigeons are kind of hard to make work properly, here, by normal means, but I got the one to nest in Mors’s office before, so I can’t imagine it’ll be too hard now, even if he has been promoted.”
Cress didn’t have a reply to that, so he focused on the walls, no longer the dull gray of Soren’s office, but a rich gold color that seemed, honestly, like an eyesore to Cress. As they walked through more doors that changed direction on them, staircases that behaved like escalators (but only when someone was standing on them), and into a glass elevator connected to nothing at all, Cress tried again to think of what caused his death.
In the elevator, going slowly down through the center of building, Soren looked at Cress curiously. “Oh, don’t do that, silly. You’ll only give yourself a headache.”
Cress started. “What?”
“All of this wondering about your death. It’s gonna hurt you more than help.”
Cress stared for a moment, wondering if Soren was good at reading people, or if it was common for people to worry over their deaths.
“Well, it is common, yes,” Soren said, as if Cress had spoken the thought out loud. They looked out the glass elevator, which was slowly entering darkness as the floor rose up around it. “Lots of character wonder over their deaths until it makes them sick. No point to it, really. What’s it matter how you died?”
“Did you—” Read my mind?
“Oh, no, not really,” Soren said brightly, smiling at Cress as the overhead lights kicked in and the elevator continued chugging downwards. “I mean,” they said, considering, “oh, I guess, kind of. But it’s not really what you expect. That’s my job, after all, to know these things.”
“Can everyone here read minds?” Cress asked.
“Oh, no, not all. Just the narrators. And like I said, it’s not mind reading. If it was I could read just anyone’s mind, but as it is, I’m limited to the characters assigned to me.”
“Characters,” Cress repeated. “You said that before, too. What do you mean, characters?”
Soren waved a hand. “Well, you know.”
“I… don’t know, actually.”
Soren smiled brightly and didn’t respond. Cress felt a spark of annoyance flare up. “You haven’t told me anything about what’s going on, you know. Just a few answers would be nice.”
“Oh, poor thing,” Soren said. “Alright, what do you want to know?”
“Where is this, exactly? How did I die? What happens next? Are you, like, a guardian angel or something? Why do you have a file on me?”
Soren sighed. “Alright, let’s start with the easiest one, then.” They opened Cress’s file and examined it. “‘Cause of death: Suicide’,” they read. “Well, there you go.” They closed the file and looked at Cress, tilting their head again.
“Suicide?” Cress asked, feeling like someone had punctured his lung. “Wh- Why would I…”
Soren sighed. “I told you you didn’t really want to know. Either someone killed you, which is upsetting and you want to know why, or it was a tragic accident, which is upsetting and out of your control, or you kill yourself, which is upsetting and sad.” They thought for a moment. “Or you died of old age, which is the normal way to go out.” They laughed. “But I never deal with those characters.”
Cress reached for the memories of his life, trying to sift through them, looking for a reason that he would have killed himself, and found that they all felt distant and hazy. Panicked, he reached harder, grasping at the strongest ones and holding them until they suffocated in his grasp.
“Stop it, won’t you?” Soren said, crossing their arms. “You’re dead, you don’t need those anymore. They’re just going to hurt you, if you can even find any of them.”
Cress had found one. A memory of his brother, beaten and bruised, crying in his room. He wasn’t even sure when it had come from. Malloy seemed too old for it to have been from the time loop, and yet Cress felt too young for it to have been long after. The words Malloy was saying were lost to Cress, and the rest of the world, the context, was all faded. There was just Malloy, nursing a bloody nose, raving to Cress with tears in his eyes.
And then Cress slapped Malloy.
Cress flinched away from the memory, letting it fall and shatter into pieces. He looked up at Soren, who looked back with pity in their eyes. They shook their head. “I told you so.”
The elevator finally pushed down past the darkness, into a bright white room lined with rows and rows of shelves.
“As for the rest of your questions,” Soren said, looking out of the glass as they descended. “I already told you where you are. I’m not your guardian angel, I’m your director, and as for what happens next…”
The elevator stopped with a soft ding, and the doors opened. Soren stepped out and gestured. “You get archived.”
“Archived?” Cress asked weakly, the answers Soren gave him meaningless to him, replaced by this new setting.
“Archived,” Soren repeated. They flicked their tail at Cress, telling him to follow, and swished down a row of shelves. They held the file up. “This file goes somewhere deep in this room, for future reference if we need it, and you’ll get an hour to do whatever you want.”
“And then what?” Cress called.
Soren stopped and looked back at Cress. “And then there’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Cress’s chest constricted. He didn’t want there to be nothing next. He wanted to know more things, to have more time, to do something else!
Soren sighed and pinched the bridge of their nose. “I thought you were hoping the afterlife would be nothing? Blissful nothingness, right? I’m giving it to you. There’s no heaven, there’s no hell, not for you. There’s nothing.”
“But—”
“Look, I get it. Everyone wants more time when they die.” Soren gave Cress a hard look. “Even the people who killed themselves. Everyone realizes how much they left behind, and how much they want it back. Being alive is good. No one knows exactly how good they’ve got it until they’re here, in the Archives, begging for a second chance. There’s no do-overs. No reincarnation. No moving on. You get archived, and then you fade. And the world moves on.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Soren confirmed. They turned and walked down the aisle further, leaving Cress standing where he was, watching them get further and further away.
Finally, they stopped, muttering to themselves under their breath. They opened a drawer, thumbed through it, and then cursed and closed it, moving down a few more shelves. They hummed a noise of approval, opening another drawer, and pulling out a thicker file. They walked back to Cress with it in hand.
“Here you are,” they said. Cress took it.
Universe #483
“What is this?” he asked.
“The end of living can be a scary prospect for characters. At Heaven’s Gate Entertainment, we understand that more than anyone,” Soren said in a flat voice, reading from a small card. “That’s why, in a character’s final moments of consciousness, we provide them a chance to learn everything they’ve ever wanted to know. A chance to see how your loved ones turn out, a chance to learn about human history you missed out on, or a chance to get a glimpse into the future. Please consult your director for the information you desire.” Soren flicked the card behind them. “Ignore that last part, it’s easier for me if I just give you everything.”
Cress turned the file in his hands, examining the thickness. “This is it? Everything in human history is… here?”
Soren shrugged. “And a little more. Just picture what you want to know, open the file, and it’ll all be there. When you want something else, close the file, give it a firm shake, and do it again. Like an Etch-a-Sketch.”
“An Etch-a-Sketch.”
“Yeah! Alright, come on, I’ll show you to the desk.”
Cress followed Soren back down the aisle, past the elevator, and to a series of cubicles. Several of them had frazzled looking creatures, like Soren, consoling distraught humans of all ages, shapes, and states of health. Some of the humans just pored over documents, curious to learn, and some of them refused to ask for information, despite their… what was it Soren had called themselves? Director. Despite their director prodding them.
“Here you are,” Soren said, pointing at a cubicle next to a loudly sobbing woman, who looked ancient, with a series of family photos in front of her. Her director was on their phone, looking up occasionally to scoff and roll their eyes.
Cress shot Soren a skeptical look, and then shrugged and sat down at the desk. Instantly, the sounds from outside of the cubicle went silent, leaving just Cress and Soren together.
Soren rubbed their face. “Look, I have a bunch of extra work to do— The Bad Place Sunscreen miniseries is way more popular than I thought it was going to be, and I don’t have anything scripted yet, so I’m gonna head out. You’ve got an hour,” they pointed at a digital clock, which flashed 59:59 and started counting down, “so get reading, and if you need anything, press the button.”
“Button?”
“Alright! See you!” Soren chirped, and then disappeared, as if they’d never been there at all.
Cress leaned back, and then sighed. He flicked open the file, not sure where to even start.
Universe #483
Nicknamed ‘the Bad Place’ among directors, 483 started with a bang, like 87.5% of universes. It took nearly 13 billion years to come up with anything worth filming. (P46) For details on pre-Earth history, search ‘Universe History’. For details on pre-filming history, search ‘Early Earth History’. For details on potential other filming locations, search ‘Exoplanets and Experimental Cinematography’.
Cress stared. All things considered, his universe being #483 felt… awfully low. He’d imagine there would be more universes than that, really. The words on the page shifted slightly before his eyes, making him dizzy to the point of nausea. Now he understood why he was supposed to close the file before asking for new information.
Only filmed universes are numbered.
Ah.
The file had said his universe was nicknamed ‘the Bad Place.’ He closed the file, gave it a firm shake, and thought, Nickname reason?
Universe 483 was given the nickname the Bad Place in juxtaposition with Universe 482 (nicknamed the Good Place). It is a comedic reference to the show ‘The Good Place’, which exists in 98.1% of universes (ironically, it does not exist in 483). Because of how closely these universes are linked, it is difficult to discuss one without the other.
The nickname has stuck due to the stark contrast between protagonists in 482 and 483. (For a list of protagonists, search ‘Protagonists and Antagonists’.) Despite their beginnings being largely the same, the existence of Archibald Michaelis earlier in 482’s timeline shifted it’s story in a dramatically different direction from Universe 481 (considered to be the ‘True Timeline’ when these protagonists are presented as a story). Audiences that prefer ‘happy endings’ are more likely to rate 482 (the Good Place) highly.
In contrast, 483 (the Bad Place) rates higher with audiences that prefer ‘tragic endings’, although 483 places even higher when played alongside 481 and 482.
Okay. Cress closed the file and reopened it to ‘Protagonists and Antagonists’.
List of Protagonists in 483
Hayte
Sol de la Cruz
Abigail Sun
List of Antagonists in 483
Niall Trygg
Cress Sala
Nimit Karu
The page went on to list secondary protagonists and antagonists, going to the end of the page and beyond, but Cress stared at his own name, in bold letters, under the word Antagonist. He frowned. Had he been that bad?
He pushed into his own mind again, looking for answers, but found nothing. Just whispers of feelings, concepts, people he had once known. He looked at the rest of the list. Nimit Karu was his landlord, but that was the only name he recognized on it besides his own.
He closed the file. He shook it, and then closed his eyes. Cress Sala. He opened it and started reading.
-
Ten minutes into reading about his life, Cress closed the file again. There was nothing good to read in there. Just violence upon violence, angry fit after angry fit, trauma that pricked at Cress’s brain like needles digging into flesh.
He rubbed his face and looked at the clock. 37:29 it flashed. He still had plenty of time left to kill, but there was nothing he wanted to know. Nobody he loved to check in on, nobody he hated enough to look for, nothing he wanted to know, and no where he wanted to see.
He was exactly what the file said he was. Angry about things that he couldn’t control, with no one to care for him, and nothing to be done about it but kill himself. Well, at least Soren promised him nothingness on the other side of this hour.
There was another universe, connected to his, wasn’t there? Another two universes, even. How strange, to think that there was more like this out there. He sighed and focused.
Universe 482 Protagonists and Antagonists.
The file opened blank. He frowned and tried again.
Please see Universe 482’s file for the information you are looking for.
Cress sighed and stuck his head out of the cubicle. Instantly, the sounds of sobbing grated on his ears again. He grit his teeth and pulled back in, looking for that button Soren had mentioned.
He found it, eventually, after wasting 5 minutes searching, on the underside of the desk. He pressed it, and Soren appeared, looking mildly annoyed.
“Yes?”
“I want the Good Place’s file,” Cress said.
Soren started. “What?”
“The– the Good Place, the, um.” Cress flipped open the file. “Universe #482. I want its file.”
“What do you want that for?” Soren asked, narrowing their eyes.
“I want to know what it’s like.”
Soren rubbed their face, and then sighed. “Fine. Wait here.”
Cress waited, and the clock flashed 26:42 when Soren returned, file in hand. “Here you are. I don’t know what you want this for. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Cress disagreed, and took the file. He sat down. Soren stood over him.
“I thought you had things to do?” Cress said.
“Ehh… Mors was saying something about deadlines and ratings… If I go back he’s just gonna keep lecturing me, and I don’t care. This is more interesting, anyways.”
“…Alright.”
Cress picked the file up and thought Cress Sala at it.
“Oh, lord,” Soren muttered.
Cress tried to ignore Soren, and opened the file up.
Cress Sala – Universe #482 Protagonist
Cress stared, already caught off-guard. Some other version of Cress was the main character of life, while he was… dead, in a cubicle, reading about how pathetic he truly was.
The next few paragraphs were a bunch of boring nothing. Details on when in the timeline Cress was born, his physical appearance, his relation to the story at large, all in complicated terms Cress didn’t care for.
Soren sighed. “Here.” They reached over Cress and stuck their hand on the file, and the words shifted, again making Cress nauseous.
The Good Place – Story
For events prior to the Sala Time Loop, refer to Universe #481.
Cress’s heart pounded in his ears. Despite the memory being faded, the terror of the time loop hit him full force as soon as he read the words. He tried to skim as quickly as possible, searching for the end of this section, but stopped full force when he read their name.
Archibald Michaelis joins the time loop, changing the direction of the story. Michaelis and Sala form a close personal bond that strengthens their characters moving forward, despite the many challenges they face.
“Strengthens our characters?” Cress asked.
“Strengthens their characters. That’s not you in there,” Soren said sharply. “You’re from the other universe. This is a different person with the same name.”
Cress let out a shaky breath. Soren sighed.
“It stabilizes him— well, really both of them. They end up happier and healthier and friendlier because of it.” Soren pulled the file away from Cress gently and closed it. “Cress— Good Place Cress, that is— makes friends and adjusts to normal life again and finds Archie after losing her, and things are good.”
Cress looked up at Soren. “And… everyone else?” The memory of him slapping Malloy shot through his brain again, gone almost before he could process it.
Soren smiled faintly. “Malloy gets married and Cress visits her every Christmas with Remi and Archie, and—”
“Her?” Cress said, raising an eyebrow.
Soren grinned, for real this time. “She hasn’t figured it out yet, but she’s going to. The audience is practically begging for it, since the True Timeline’s Mal doesn’t ever explore that part.”
“He’s…” Cress started. “Is my Malloy…?”
Soren shrugged. “Your Mal has a bunch of other shit happening. Probably, honestly, but it’s not something I ever looked into.”
“I, uh, didn’t know,” Cress mumbled, clearing his throat.
Soren frowned. “Right, well, how could you? You treated him like shit and then left him behind forever. You haven’t seen him since you were 18. This isn’t exactly something you send a letter about to someone who you can’t trust.”
Cress flinched.
“Look, dude, I’m not gonna sugarcoat all of this. You were a shitty person. You did shitty things. You beat the shit out of a protagonist and traumatized her. You made bad decisions. I don’t think it’s fair to be upset that your sibling doesn’t trust you.”
Cress closed his eyes. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Mean to what?” Soren asked. “I know you’ve largely forgotten, now, but it’s not like you can accidentally punch someone in the jaw.”
“Well, it’s not entirely my fault!” Cress said, annoyed. “In this universe, I g— Cress gets a friend to keep him sane. I don’t— I don’t know what happened in the other universes, but the time loop, the time loop… It’s practically all I remember about being alive now, and it was fucking miserable. Who else was I supposed to be?”
“I don’t know, that’s not my department,” Soren said. “But you don’t have to be anyone anymore. Your time’s up.”
“No, it’s n—” Cress started, whipping back to the clock.
Soren snapped their fingers, sending the clock from 11:12 all the way down to 00:00. “Time’s up. No more looking at lives that aren’t yours.”
“Wait!” Cress said, reaching for the file. Soren held it out of reach. “At least let me look at them.”
“At who?”
“All of them. Cress, a-and Archie, and… Remi? And Malloy. Please?”
Soren’s face softened. “Alright.” They opened the file to a photo album, setting it back in front of Cress.
Cress took in every feature he could, starting with Archie. Memorizing as much of them as he could, from their hair (orange, waist length, tied back in the casual photos, braided in the Christmas photo), to their gloves, their eyes (they reminded Cress of cameras, strangely, red and orange), to their nose.
Remi, Malloy, Desdemona, Sol, and Abby. Cress clung to every photo he could find of each of them, trying to make himself believe for even a second that this could have been his, if only one thing had changed. He couldn’t. They all seemed so happy. Happy to be together, happy to be alive, happy to be around Cress.
Cress. Even though this Cress was a perfect mirror for himself, there was nothing about him that felt familiar. It tore Cress up inside, seeing all of this, just out of reach. Forever.
“I told you,” Soren said, their voice soft. Cress shivered. He had forgotten they were there. He felt their hand on his shoulder. “Your time is up, for real this time. I’m sorry. We have to put this all away, now.”
Cress stood numbly, holding the files out to Soren.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” he asked. “Just… Just one more chance?”
Soren shook their head. “They’ve already found your body in your timeline. I can’t put you back.”
“Not even as someone else?” Cress asked, feeling small, begging like this.
Soren laughed, although it felt forced. “No matter where I put you, you’d always end up Cress.”
Cress slumped. “You mean… I’d be like that no matter what? Cruel and violent and… alone?”
Soren stared. “No. Not at all. You’d be Cress. Loyal to a fault when there’s someone you can trust, calculating, good at baking, passionate, strangely attra—”
“Good at baking?” Cress said, surprised.
“And cooking. I think you like baking more, though.”
“I never…”
“Never tried? I know.”
“Never though to.”
Soren stared at Cress for a moment. They sighed, and then grabbed Cress’s file, glancing at it briefly.
“Come on, then, Cress. I have to put this file away.”
Cress followed Soren through the Archives, watching them put the Universe files away, and then weaving through aisles to find where Cress’s went.
The opened a drawer, and then looked up at Cress. “Well. This is it, I guess.”
“Does it hurt?” Cress asked abruptly.
Soren hesitated. “I’m supposed to tell you no.”
“Oh.”
Soren put the file away, and Cress disappeared. They closed their eyes, resting their forehead against the cabinets.
They reached back in and pulled the file out.
-
“I don’t know what you mean?” Soren said innocently, eyes wide.
Mors gritted his teeth. “I don’t truly believe even you could be this dim, Soren. There. Is. A file. Missing. In the Archives.”
Soren tilted their head. “Gee, that sounds awful! I hope you get it sorted out!”
“Soren. It’s one of yours.”
Soren’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, no. I see the mistake here. The Archived files belong to Heaven’s Gate Entertainment, not any one individual. Once I’ve archived a character… I give up jurisdiction over it! So sorry I can’t be of further help.”
Mors leaned over his desk. “You and I both know that you stole that file. Just give it back and this can all be swept under the rug.”
Soren snorted. “As if you’d really let me get away with stealing, if I hypothetically did that.”
Mors narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t have it, Mors.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to. You can search the entire fucking building and you won’t find it.”
“You know where it is.”
“Does it matter if I do? I’m not giving it to you.” Soren didn’t remember standing up, suddenly inches away from Mors’s face, glaring back at them.
Mors glowered. Soren stood their ground.
“And I’m Tamari!” Tamari said, cartwheeling into the room. She looked back and forth between Mors and Soren. “Woah. Are you guys gonna kiss?”
“What?” Soren said, snapping back.
“No,” Mors said, still glaring at Soren. “What do you need, Tamari?”
Tamari put a file on Mors’s desk. Mors glanced down and flipped it open. “You know that I can tell this is not your handwriting, right?”
Tamari did a cartwheel back out of the room.
Soren sat down, and after a moment, Mors did, too.
“Do you know how much paperwork goes into trying to recover a lost file?” Mors said.
Soren rolled their eyes. “You and your damn paperwork. There’s other things to worry about than paperwork. How much is it, then?”
Mors shuffled some papers on their desk. “…Not much, as it turns out. The upper management doesn’t want to spend too many resources searching for files that are unlikely to get used again.”
“Hah!” Soren said. “What are you gonna do with your life now?”
Mors scowled. “I know you stole it.”
“I disagree.”
Mors stared at Soren for another long moment. “Fine. As it was just a minor file, and I don’t have time for you, there’s nothing more to be done about it. Get out of my sight.”
“You love me!”
“Not at all.”
Soren traipsed out of the room, beaming nonetheless. They waved at people as they passed, working their way down to their cramped office. On arrival, they opened their drawer and pulled out their latest character file.
Sure, they’d had to replace all of the names to keep it under wraps, and using someone else’s universe meant he’d never be even in the main character’s orbit. It was no Good Place, really, but it was the best Soren could do on such short notice. A new set of photos materialized in the file as Soren reloaded it for updates, of the bakery windows filled with decorated cakes, cookies, and muffins, and the two siblings, dressed in aprons handing out samples, for once together and enjoying it.
Soren closed the file and tucked it back in the drawer. There was nothing even remotely interesting about the two of them, and quite honestly, that was how they liked it.
Soren smiled and opened the window to let the pigeon out with their note addressed to Mors. This time, for sure, Mors just had to approve the giant crossover season. For sure.