The sound that follows me out is whiplash incarnate—somewhere between a Nintendo startup jingle and the world’s most passive-aggressive elevator chime.
I turn back.
No elevator. No doors. No chasm of void-space trailing off into forever. Just—gone. Like it never existed.
There’s no direction here. Not up, not down—just everywhere.
Imagine Queer Eye got blackout drunk with Yosemite, then both of them got talked into a collaboration by a manic production assistant from MTV Cribs: God Edition.
Insane, all of it.
The whole place looks like the Fey-wilds and Tanaan Jungle went on a spiritual bender, conceived a glitter-coated chaos baby, then left it unsupervised with a cheat-coded copy of The Sims: Divine Edition.
And floating smack in the middle of this cosmic art therapy experiment?
An office building.
Boxy. Beige. Bureaucratic.
Just… hovering there. Not perched on anything. No foundation. No floating island. Just chilling midair like a cubicle UFO that got summoned from a divine intern’s PowerPoint presentation titled Heaven But Make It Corporate.
Mystical jungle rave pulsing off to the left. Glowing light-fountain off to the right, where actual sentient scrolls drift past like haunted PDFs. A vaguely seductive whisper-scroll flirting with my shoulder like it wants to slide into my metaphysical DMs.
The architecture?
Stardust vomit.
Walls shimmer and pulse like reality’s still buffering, stalling at 83% complete. Like someone hit “render” on the universe and just… walked away mid-process.
That fountain I mentioned? It’s made of light. Not water, not mist. Actual radiant beams, flowing like liquid, then evaporating midair like hydration is just a cute suggestion. No splash. No noise. Just quiet un-being.
The whole place hums. Not threatening—just constant. Like a machine too big to see, groaning somewhere in the bones of the world. A reminder that something enormous is running under the floorboards, and you’re not authorized to ask what.
My chest tightens anyway. Not from fear—more like a growing sense of wrong. Like the world’s off-center. Not broken. Just... unfinished. Like somebody started building a dreamworld and got distracted halfway through by a new recipe for sourdough.
Nothing—nothing—prepares you for the moment you wake up and realize the afterlife looks like the HR department of the multiverse.
No angels.
No golden gates.
No Saint Peter with a clipboard and a condescending smile.
If this is the afterlife, then somebody really dropped the ball on the orientation packet.
I rub the back of my neck. Glance back at the nothing. Then up at the floating bureaucratic monolith above me.
I take another step forward—just one, like I'm toeing the edge of a pool I know damn well isn’t filled with water. Or sanity. It’s got that Cooties-on-sugar energy. Tag, you’re it. Except the tagger’s invisible and possibly a bug in the code.
No sound. No resistance. Just that uncanny off feeling. Like walking on high-res liquid glass someone started texturing in Photoshop and rage-quit halfway through.
There’s no wind, no breeze, and yet something brushes my cheek—soft, brief, and cold, like a whisper from a memory that doesn’t belong to me. A breeze? A ghost? A glitch in the damn simulation?
And then it hits me—the silence. Not calm. Not peaceful. Dead. The kind of hush that presses on your skin, sinks into your lungs, and makes your heartbeat sound like a war drum. Somewhere in the static distance, I swear I hear... a copier? Like an old office printer trying to come back from the grave.
Dead? Dreaming? Uploading into some half-baked afterlife MMO alpha test? No idea. But wherever this is, it’s not Kansas—and Toto probably rage-quit the tutorial.
“Well, well…”
The voice drips in—lazy, velvety, like it just rolled off a couch, nursing a hangover, and couldn’t decide whether to seduce me or file a complaint with HR.
I pivot—and yeah. That tracks.
He’s draped over a crystalline desk like spilled laundry, sunk so deep into his chair he’s basically furniture now. Doesn’t bother standing. Doesn’t wave. Just lounges like gravity’s more of a suggestion and he’s got absolutely nowhere better to be.
The outfit’s a war crime: tie-dye hoodie, clashing plaid pajama pants, one sandal. Just the one. Hair looks like it lost a fight with a leaf blower, and those half-lidded gold eyes? Distant. Bored. Possibly high. Maybe spiritually allergic to effort.
He’s giving “god of beanbag chairs” energy. Divine slacker chic.
“Welcome to the office,” he drawls, like I’m late for a 2PM meeting we both plan to ignore.
I blink. “Office?”
Even to me, my voice sounds flat. Burnt-toast bland. “Didn’t think death came with cubicles and coffee stains.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He shrugs, lazy. “We tried the harps and halos thing. Didn’t take. This felt more honest.”
There’s a flicker of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Or a gas bubble. Honestly, hard to tell.
I glance around again.
Everything feels... temporary. Not fake, just unfinished. Like some celestial intern got halfway through building a dream and got distracted by a reality show about sentient sourdough.
“So,” I say slowly, eyes flicking back to him. “This is it? My grand cosmic encore?”
He shrugs again, the universal gesture for don’t ask me, I just work here.
“Technically? Sure. Depends on how you define ended.”
Right. Vague metaphysics from a cosmic burnout. Absolutely comforting.
Then, as if things weren’t already riding the line between surreal and Monty Python’s lost episode, she shows up.
No footsteps. No doors. Just smoke—golden and slow—twisting down from the ceiling like somebody broke open a bottle of diva fog. It folds into a woman. Not just any woman.
She’s tall. Statuesque. Wears intimidation like perfume. Her gown’s made of shadow—actual drifting darkness, like someone dipped silk in midnight and let it float through water. Her hair? Black, smooth, unbothered by physics. Commercial-ready. The kind of hair that makes shampoo companies weep.
But it’s her eyes that nail me in place. Sharp. Knowing. Patient. Like a blade waiting for permission to move.
She studies me with that look—the one people give junk mail before tossing it or setting it on fire. Then she smiles. It’s not warm. It’s not cold. It’s dangerous. A smile that knows exactly what you are and hasn’t decided if that’s amusing or disappointing.
“Well…” she says, voice made of silk and static. “There you are, darling.”
There it is. That word. Darling.
My mouth goes dry. “It’s... you.” The words crawl out of me like they’re not sure it’s safe. “The woman in my head.”
Her smile deepens. Not wider. Deeper. Like it found a new setting.
And I don’t like it.
Every instinct I have is screaming Stranger Danger. If Spider-Man or Luke Skywalker were here, they’d both be tingling like they just walked into a Sith-witch’s Tinder trap. Then again, those guys always had a thing for emotionally compromised women with murder in their eyes.
“A pleasure,” she purrs. Like the word’s wearing lingerie. “To finally meet you... in person.”
“And you are?” I ask, tone flat. Even. Like I’m not already calculating which direction is the least likely to get me soul-nuked.
Her smile deepens—still charming, now predatory. Not in the growly, fangs-out kind of way. More like a cat watching a fly. Lazy, but committed to the kill.
“Ishtar,” she says, like it should mean something. Like the syllables are heavy with myth and menace. “I am… watching over you.”
I open my mouth to reply—probably something along the lines of ‘Okay, stalker goddess, pump the brakes’—but she waves a hand and cuts me off.
“I know, I know. ‘Not buying it, lady,’ right?”
“…Uh. Yeah.” Nailed it.
Her gaze lands on me like a weighted blanket that’s developed sentience and a slightly inappropriate sense of curiosity. There’s interest there. And threat. And amusement. And something else. Something warm and wrong and sticky in a way that makes my spine vote "no" but my blood get real confused.
“Well then,” she purrs, stepping closer, smooth as silk over a razor. “Allow me to explain. You and I… we’re kindred spirits. Naturally, I am”—a pause, theatrical, smug—“your patron.”
I blink. Open my mouth. Close it. Open it again, ready to unleash a very respectful, extremely rational ‘what the hell does that even mean?’—but I don’t get the chance.
A sharp clatter derails my righteous confusion.
I flinch. Something just appeared beside me. No footsteps. No warning. Just... presence.
She’s tall. Statuesque. Half-naked. With the head of a deer.
Yep. Deer. Full rack. Big, obsidian eyes. No facial expression, because—again—deer. But somehow, she’s still judging me.
She holds out a cup, steam curling from the rim.
“I thought you might be thirsty,” she says, voice gentle in a way that suggests she’s either being polite or preparing to eviscerate me.
I look at the cup. Then her. Then the cup again. Steam drifts in lazy spirals, and the smell hits me like a flashback—dark roast, smooth, grounded in something real.
“…Coffee?” My voice comes out dry. “Really? That’s what we’re doing now?” I gesture vaguely at the eldritch IKEA nightmare we’re standing in. “This is the afterlife, right?”
She nods.
I eye the cup. Whatever this is, it smells like home. Like mornings on the farm. Like burnt toast and sunrise and things that existed before gods started assigning patrons like gym memberships.
“Sure,” I mutter, and take the cup. Warmth seeps into my palms like memory. Like gravity.
Ishtar watches, smiling like she just pulled off a perfectly timed con. “A little normalcy goes a long way, Darling.” she says, and the way she says it makes me feel like she invented the phrase.
Normalcy. Yeah. Totally normal. Coffee with a deer-headed barista while an immortal art hoe monologues about spiritual alignment.
Behind the desk, the guy lets out a long, pointed yawn.
“I’m sure it’s a lot to process,” he drawls, not looking up. “But you’ll get used to it. Oh, and by the way—I’m Zen. Not that you asked. Or care.”
“Get used to it?” I echo, brow raised. “I wake up in a divine DMV with coffee-drinking cryptids and soul admin paperwork, and your advice is ‘deal with it’?”
Zen shrugs. It’s impressive, the apathy. Olympic-level.
“More or less.”
I turn back to Ishtar, who hasn’t stopped watching me like I’m an episode she’s already seen but enjoys for the reactions.
“And what exactly happens now?” I ask. “Am I supposed to do something? Is there a mission? A purpose? Fate? Or am I just here for the vibes?”
She leans in. Close enough for the air to tighten.
“Fate?” she echoes, tasting the word. Her smile sharpens. All teeth and velvet. “Oh, darling. You’re thinking too small.” She steps even closer. “You’re not here to do anything.”
Beat. Silence. Stillness.
“You’re here to play.”
The words settle over me like fog—soft, cold, and carrying the sharp stink of something hiding inside it.
My pulse picks up. Fight or flight kicking in, only to realize both are probably off the table.
I force a smirk.
“Play,” I repeat. “And what exactly am I supposed to be playing?”
Zen stretches, cracking his neck like this is all just another Thursday.
Ishtar’s smile shifts. No more teasing. Just hunger.
“A game.” Her voice drops, silk and steel. “And whether you win or lose…” she tilts her head. “…depends entirely on you.”
I take another sip of coffee, because honestly, it's the only solid thing in this dreamscape circus of cosmic nonsense.
It’s bitter. Hot. Comforting.
And it tastes exactly like something I’m not going to be able to drink again.