The day I died started like most of my others: somewhere between apathetic and caffeinated.

  I was at work, which meant I was technically seated at a desk, surrounded by motivational posters so faded they looked like they were trying to retire. The office smelled like printer toner, burned coffee, and the slowly decaying ambitions of everyone who hadn’t left yet. Including me.

  I worked at a mid-tier adtech firm that once branded itself as "disruptive" before being disrupted out of relevance. My job was, officially, audience insights. Unofficially? I tracked which colors made people angrier and how fast they clicked on things they hated.

  But a few months earlier, I’d done something stupid.

  I wrote a filter. Nothing big. Just a browser plug-in I built over three weekends while living off frozen dumplings and resentment. It detected manipulative emotional language and blocked it. Ads, clickbait, political garbage—gone.

  I called it the Silence Filter.

  I uploaded it for free. No patreon, no monetization, no grand speech. I just wanted some peace while watching cat compilations. Then it went viral. Then it went global.

  Then things... changed.

  Companies lost revenue. Influencers lost their minds. Three governments blamed me for inciting public apathy. A journalist called me "the man who unplugged the noise."

  And then, quietly, I went back to work. Because what else do you do after you accidentally decapitate the world's dopamine faucet?

  The office didn’t fire me. I think they were afraid of me. Or maybe they didn’t want to admit they were still paying the guy who ruined half the industry. So they left me alone. I left them alone.

  Which brought me to the chicken wrap.

  It was from the vending machine in the break room. The kind of meal that's legally required to list sadness as an ingredient. I ate it anyway, sitting alone in the corner, scrolling through death threats on one tab and a forum for quiet keyboard reviews on the other.

  The first cramp hit around 3:17 p.m.

  By 3:19, the world was going soft at the edges.

  I remember standing. Trying to say something. Maybe a joke. Maybe just “help.”

  No one looked up.

  I collapsed in the hallway outside the elevator, arms sprawled like I was trying to make a snow angel on industrial carpet.

  Everything went white.

  ***

  I came to in a room that wasn’t a room.

  White stretched in every direction. Not sterile, not blinding—just endless. Still. Like the world had been erased.

  I blinked. The air didn’t hum or move or breathe. It just existed, like a paused screen on a broken monitor.

  Then I heard the voice.

  “Ah. Maxwell Price,” it said. Male, flat, like someone who practiced sounding unimpressed.

  A man in a charcoal suit stood nearby, reading a pamphlet titled So You’re Dead: Now What? His tie was perfect. His face wasn’t.

  “Excuse me?” I managed.

  “Creator of the Silence Filter,” he said, flipping the pamphlet to page two. “Destabilized digital advertising, contributed to multiple regime collapses, and caused a measurable shift in global attention patterns. Qualified for ascension. Cause of death: food poisoning. Ironically mundane. You’ve been selected for Godhood Candidacy. One-time offer.”

  There was a sudden flicker above his shoulder—an enormous golden triangle spinning in and out of existence, covered in what looked like complaint forms and hazard signs. It vanished before I could say anything.

  “Wait, wait, back up—”

  “You have five seconds to accept. If you decline, you will be erased. No afterlife. No reboot. No memory. Gone.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. I raised my hand instinctively.

  “I have questions.”

  A red exclamation mark appeared mid-air with a flat chime: UNAUTHORIZED INQUIRY.

  “Five sec—”

  “Are you serious?!”

  “Four.”

  I looked around. Blankness. No door. No way out. A low sound began to build beneath the silence, like a power grid groaning to life—or maybe reality warming up.

  “Three.”

  Regret clawed up my throat. Not about the filter. Not even about the wrap.

  Just that I didn’t do more. I thought I’d have time.

  “Two.”

  “Okay, fine!” I blurted. “Yes. Whatever. Sure.”

  The man snapped the pamphlet shut. “Godhood confirmed.”

  Then he shimmered. No—dissolved. His whole body collapsed into a twisting strand of bright, electric blue energy. Before I could run or scream or even blink, it launched itself across the empty space and slammed directly into my forehead.

  I choked on light.

  A new screen blinked into existence, hovering inches from my eyes in glowing gold letters:

  RALPH THE ADMINISTRATOR HAS BONDED.

  Then it vanished.

  There was a low click, like a switch being thrown.

  The floor vanished.

  I fell.

  Screaming, flailing, flipping like a dropped action figure as the white world cracked open and the cosmos yanked me downward.

  As I plummeted, a flash of something tore across my vision: a shattered rock floating in space, scorched black and leaking mist. One crooked obelisk. A single crooked mailbox. And a sign that read:

  WELCOME, NEW MANAGEMENT.

  ***

  I landed face-first in soot.

  Not metaphorical soot. Real, dry, cling-to-your-lips soot that filled my mouth and nose like I’d just been exhaled by a volcano. My knees buckled, my palms slapped down, and I hacked a cough so hard I nearly dislocated something.

  I staggered upright, half-expecting to see a hospital room. A prank crew. Some guy in a bathrobe yelling "Gotcha!"

  Nope.

  I was on a cracked grey surface that looked like the moon's underfed cousin. The sky above me was a sheet of black velvet—no stars, no sun, just a dim red glow flickering like a dying ember somewhere far away.

  Gravity felt wrong. Like I was wearing invisible stilts and a weighted vest at the same time. I took a step and floated a little too long before hitting ground. My stomach flipped.

  I turned in a slow, panicked circle. There was nothing but jagged black rock, twisted spires, and—yes—a crooked mailbox.

  The mailbox had a small brass plaque bolted to it.

  MAXWELL PRICE: GOD-IN-TRAINING

  I blinked. Nope, still there.

  My hands were shaking. This wasn’t some lucid dream. It was too specific, too weirdly textured. I could smell the ash. Taste metal in the air. Feel the grit under my fingernails. No dream I’d ever had included nasal soot.

  And then the air spoke again.

  "Hello, Maxwell." The voice echoed in my skull like someone dropping pebbles into a well. "You are currently experiencing post-bonding disorientation. Please remain calm while I initiate realm orientation protocol."

  “No. No, no, no,” I muttered, backing away from the mailbox like it might catch fire. “Someone drugged me. Someone laced that wrap. I’m hallucinating. This is a bad trip. A really, really bad trip.”

  "This is not a hallucination. Your brain is now partially integrated with divine architecture. Side effects may include confusion, nausea, and the occasional philosophical unraveling."

  I spun around, scanning the shadows. Then, with a pop like someone opening Tupperware in space, a figure shimmered into existence.

  It looked exactly like the humanoid in the charcoal suit from before—down to the perfect tie and uncanny valley face—except this version flickered slightly, as if it were being projected from a bureaucratic fever dream.

  Above his head hovered text: RALPH THE ADMINISTRATOR

  He clasped his hands behind his back and gave a shallow, unnecessary bow.

  "I take the form your cognitive limitations find least offensive," he said, voice proper to the point of parody. "For legal reasons, I must inform you that my true appearance would liquefy your sense of linear time."

  I stumbled back a step. "What the hell are you? What is this? Who puts a tie on a hallucination?"

  "Hello," the thing said, completely unfazed. "I am your administrative bond. Your guide, registrar, and ongoing performance evaluator. You are now the acting overseer of Realm 47-C.R.A.P.—that’s Celestial Reclamation and Assignment Parcel—part of the wider Oversight Orientation Program—O.O.P. for short. Congratulations, Mister Price. You're a minor god. Small G."

  I stared at him.

  "...Did you just congratulate me on becoming a minor god?" I asked. "On C.R.A.P.?"

  Ralph nodded solemnly, as if he’d just knighted me.

  "You join a proud lineage of underqualified entities managing barely habitable micro-realms. It is a position of great marginal importance."

  I blinked at him. My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

  "You're congratulating me? On becoming a—" I stopped. Laughed once, dry and breathless. "This isn't real. I'm not a god. I'm not even middle management."

  “Realm? Overseer? No. I sell ad data. I make spreadsheets. I’m not even a team lead. I have plantar fasciitis and a fridge full of expired yogurt. I am in no way qualified for—”

  Ralph held up one finger, like an overly polite librarian.

  "Apologies, but I must interrupt. We do not evaluate qualifications. Only impact."

  He pulled a glowing clipboard from thin air and adjusted nonexistent glasses that weren’t there. "The Ascension Pathway Initiative began four hundred and twenty-three thousand years ago, give or take a paradox. All eligible sentient beings who meet the Impact Threshold are offered candidacy. Few accept. Fewer survive."

  “What is this? Some kind of... god Hunger Games?”

  Ralph gave a single, offended cough. "Certainly not. That term is both trademarked and inaccurate. We prefer Ascension Pathway Initiative, or API for short. It is neither a competition nor a game. It is a structured and highly dignified multidimensional performance metric framework."

  I stared at him. At it. At the broken moon and the plaque and the fact that I was still tasting ash. I couldn't feel my fingers. My brain had folded itself into a paper swan and flown away, screaming.

  I very nearly sat down in the soot and just waited to die again.

  Ralph took out a handkerchief and polished his already spotless cufflink.

  "Shall we begin orientation?"