There's only one thing on my mind now that I know I will die. It's not a convoluted thought, my death isn't slow, it doesn't creep up on me. I will not die in a hospital bed, waiting. I have no time for long winded self reflection, none for imagining how things could have been different, none at all for if onlys.
There is only one regret on my mind as my body shuts down.
I regret that I didn't stack more paper! I've been flat broke my entire life. I was born broke, I lived broke, and I will die broke. I never experienced what it's like to have financial freedom.
I cough out blood, my lung collapsing, broken ribs penetrating my organs.
No, fuck financial freedom, I never even experienced financial security. I was forced to live a life where the hustle never stopped and the grind never slowed.
If reincarnation is real, my only wish is to be born the son of a rich family. Or in a society where life doesn't depend on wealth. Either or, really.
I don't cling on to this life. There's really nothing to cling on to, I'd be scraping my nails and burning my palms to retain a life of constant arbitrary struggle.
I scoff. Bad idea. It hurts.
People say struggling builds character, but my suffering did nothing for me apart from teach me how to lie, scrape, and survive on scraps. It's a ridiculous notion. All that character building to die over not checking both ways before crossing the road.
Whatever. I'm done. It's been a good run. Even as I die in a pool of my own blood, I don't care. I tried, and I failed, and given my circumstances, I don't blame myself. There is no big miracle, no big break, life is just a constant stream of bullshit you have to handle until you die. At least I'll die before I'm eighty and in adult diapers struggling to take myself to the bathroom.
Not that I'd have lived that long.
Whatever.
The light fades, the pain fades, and I know it's over. There's sirens, hurried footsteps approaching me, but they're too late. A paramedic leans over me. I struggle to breathe, and I know this will be my last breath.
Better make it count.
But there are no last words, only a last thought.
Just let me die.
Then there is nothing as the long silence swallows me whole.
*
"Vincent, yes?"
The transition is almost instant. Pain, fade to black, then light again. Only, this time, I'm not dying in the middle of the road, I'm sitting across a table from a strikingly beautiful woman.
I nod. "That's my name."
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, to realize where I am. There is no heavenly light, no pearly gates, no pits of fire or screams of infinite torment. No, this is an office, an especially bare one, a soft light seeping in through the half closed shutters off to my right.
The woman takes a drag from her cigarette before twisting it down into an ash tray. She doesn't ash it properly, and the smoke curls up through the room, given form by the jagged light coming from the window.
"Let's see…" Her fingers flick through a dossier. She only occasionally acknowledges my presence, taking a brief moment to look up from the files in front of her and to me.
I try to bore holes into her skull with my gaze but she doesn't flinch. When that doesn't work, I scoff and turn my attention to her office. It's plain, undecorated, the walls covered in that crusty 80s office wallpaper that's turned yellow from all the cigarette smoke and is one quiet whisper away from peeling off. It's something I'd expect to see from a middle aged hiring manager juggling between a nasty divorce and a soul crushing job, not a woman like her.
Why is she working here? Or better yet, where is 'here'? I probably should have led with that.
The woman studies the dossier wordlessly. Doubt I'm gonna get a chance to ask now.
The only thing that sparks even a little bit of life into the otherwise dreary office is a half dead, sad excuse for an office plant and a faded poster of an anime character. Midoriya. So she's a fan of MHA. That gets a chuckle from me.
"You're probably wondering where you are," she says, closing the file, her long fingers tapping on the desk to get my attention.
I lean back in my chair. "Do I get anything for guessing correctly? And how many guesses do I get?"
"Playing coy won't win you any favors," she says, not a trace of a smile on her soft lips. Her gaze doesn't falter, not for a moment. "This is a place where you leave all of your repulsive habits behind and act with humility."
I scoff. "I don't have repulsive habits."
"You scoff too much, it makes you appear dismissive and pompous." There's no humor behind her eyes, she's not even slightly joking. "I find it hard to believe you managed to pick up such a habit given your circumstances in life. I'm used to seeing such traits in souls that have had at least a modicum of success in order to back up their attitude."
"You don't know me," I say.
"Oh, but I know you very well." She slides the dossier across the desk toward me. "Everything you have done, everything you are, everything that was and is and could have been. It's all in there."
I frown as I pick it up. "Even the-"
"Everything."
Flipping through the pages, I can immediately tell that she's not lying. These files are my entire life. Every event, every statistic, everything I've ever done, all neatly summarized in five pages or less.
I close the dossier, my heart racing, my cheeks flushing red. It's such an invasion of privacy. The very knowledge that something with this much information on my life exists is enough to send a shiver down my spine.
I try to compose myself, to sit straight in my chair, but it only makes me feel smaller. "Great, so you know everything about me. You've seen all the embarrassing shit I did for money. You know it all, right?. So, what now? Is there a point to this, or is this just an elaborate humiliation ritual?"
I get my answer before she opens her mouth. As I close the dossier to slide it back across the desk, I see it, written in bold italics, in size 30 Helvetica. Right on the cover.
'Considerations for Reincarnation. Subject n#2817368210. Vincent.'
"Now you see," she says, tapping her pack of cigarettes against the back of her hand until one pops up. She offers it to me. I take it, and she takes one herself. "You understand why humility is important now, child? Who do you think you are talking to right now?"
The cigarette lights itself between my lips. It tastes like a glass-clear spring in the midst of an alpine forest.
She leans forward, resting her head on her hands. "I am the one in charge of your fate."
I choke on the smoke. "You'll… reincarnate me?" I ask, coughing.
"Depending on if I like you or not. It says here that you broke several laws in your time on earth. Taking LSATs for other students under their name, completing assignments for other students, faking attendance for other students, amidst a host of other assorted academic fraud. I would normally overlook this, I understand your situation better than anyone apart from yourself."
"And the reason you're not overlooking this is…? Did I manage to piss off your managerial pantheon?" I say, a smirk tugging at my lips even though I know I probably shouldn't.
Her look makes me choke again. It's something about her sharp eyes. "No. While academic fraud of this degree could be excusable, I don't understand your other instances of fraud. Scamming and lying to vulnerable people. After reading your files, it seems to me you leveled up your game only because you could."
I scoff again. "It's because I had to, not because I wanted to. Everything I did was for the sake of paying off that debt."
She takes a drag of her cigarette. "Really? To me, it looks like you enjoyed being an asshole. You were good at it too. I bet that was fun, wasn't it? Discovering you're good at something. It's too bad you applied your talent in the wrong field, and it's too bad you died before you could see it blossom."
"You don't un-"
A landline telephone rings, cutting me off. She doesn't let me finish, picking up the phone and having an animated conversation with the person on the other end.
I move to speak, but she puts a finger up, silencing me. "You can't be serious," she whispers.
I roll my eyes, mocking her. "You can't be serious."
When she hangs up with a frustrated huff, she ashes her cigarette with more aggression than it deserved. It's only a cigarette.
"Boss get mad?" I ask teasingly.
She sighs. "Consider yourself lucky. I was just told to speed things along."
"So you don't have time to play games with me? You sadden me."
"You know, I could reincarnate you as a tadpole."
"That's a bit excessive, don't you think?"
Her gaze is impassive, but I can see a little twitch at the corner of her mouth. She's annoyed, maybe. Amused.
She snaps her fingers, a pack of cards materializing in her hand. "These will decide your fate."
I tilt my head. "I thought you were judging me? Now you're leaving it up to luck?"
"Your misdeeds have been factored in. Everything is factored in. None of these cards can lead you to paradise, none can make you a god."
"Those were options?" I ask, somewhat incredulous. The idea of becoming a god doesn't appeal to me, after all, what if I become someone like her? A god stuck in an office. Divine comedy.
"Yes. All that's left is normal worlds."
"Meaning what? Worlds like my last one?"
"In a way. A normal world simply refers to any world that is home to suffering and misfortune. Some more than others. Your last world is one of them, but you won't have the opportunity to go back," she says, shuffling the deck of cards.
"So no world of infinite happiness."
She lays down five cards. "If you believe in that sort of thing," she says cryptically. "Now, flip over the cards. The first one will be your world. The second will be a boon related to that world, and the last three are auxiliary benefits, or curses. It all depends on how lucky you are."
I look up to the MHA poster above her desk. "Can I assume that fictional worlds are included?"
She frowns. "You can. And you'd be correct. But don't get your hopes up. The chances are one to infinity."
"And the boons?"
"Every world has something unique to itself, a boon is just something that will help you live a good life in accordance with that. It has been determined that you deserve a chance at a 'good life' after the tragic misfortune that was your last life. The benefits are smaller things, the curses also small."
The cards laid out in front of me are featureless, just blank white pieces of cardboard facing down. The office is quiet, and the only sound is my breathing and the rhythmic beating of my heart against my chest.
I flip the first card over.
I breathe a sigh of relief. The woman clicks her tongue. She doesn't like the world I will be sent to, or more likely, she doesn't like that I am the one to go there.
"The world of My Hero Academia," I say with a smirk. "Wooow. Wow. Aren't you a fan of this? I mean, you even have that poster. You pissed that I'm going when I don't even care about it? You are, aren't you?"
Of course, I'd watched the show. When you're flat broke, you don't have many opportunities to have fun besides staying in your room and reading. It's either that, walk around aimlessly, beg friends for a spot, or con dates into paying for dinner. Consuming media is the least annoying one choice.
It's not that I don't like MHA, I do, but it's been a while since I watched it. Still, the prospect of actually living in the world does unsettle me. One hand, yes, powers and heroes and other cool shit, but on the other, villains and death and other bad shit.
"You…" The woman's hands clench into fists. For once, her expression cracks into something other than frustration. Indignation. "How? Why? You're such an asshole! This is my comfort show, how dare you try to hijack it! Do you know how much I work, the hours I put into this stupid fucking job? Why would you sully the one thing that comforts me? You asshole! I hate you!"
I stare at her, trying not to laugh. That was probably millennia of frustration all dumped out into one wall of text. "Whyre you mad at me?" I say. "It's all in the cards."
She slams the desk. "No. No. I won't have this. I won't let the likes of you ruin this for me! I'll reincarnate you as a mouse, even if I get fired. Anything but watching you ruin my favorite characters!"
"I'm not ruining anything," I say. "Now, can I flip the other cards?"
"No. I know you. I read your file. You're gonna do something, break the plot, ruin relationships between these people! I'd be fine if it was someone sweet and soft or strong and heroic, but you're… you're… a sleazy, pompous, pretentious asshole!"
I chuckle, dry and sarcastic. "You're insane."
"And you're going to be reborn as a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of someone's shoe!"
The light outside grows brighter. Something shifts. Oh my god she's actually gonna reincarnate me as a rat. I'm going to be a rat. The sobering realization washes over me, clearing my mind of any snarky retort I had prepared.
"Wait! Wait! Hear me out! Please," I beg. The room stills, the light dims.
When the woman speaks, her voice drips with malice. "Speak your last words, trash. You'll be squeaking from now on."
"What if I promise to be good? I'll swear it on anything. Anything you want."
She freezes. "You liar. You've never kept a promise in your life."
My throat is dry as I talk. "What reason would I have to lie? You're a divine being. I'm a liar, but not an idiot, you've read the file."
Her eyes narrow, but she leans forward. "You swear to not kill any of the characters. You swear to not ruin their relationships. You swear you won't try to steal their light. I couldn't bear to watch it. I am their maker."
I nod furiously. "On my soul."
She scoffs and leans back. "Then that's all I can ask. If you break this promise, I can guarantee you that the next time you die and come here, I'll make you into a mollusk."
I shudder. Why did I have to get stuck with the crazy lady?
"Now, flip the cards."
The rest of the cards, she seems to have no problem with. Neither do I.
The Boon card, as she called it, is meant to be the ability that will help me live a good life in the next world. And yet, when I flip it, I can't understand how that's meant to be true.
"The bomb devil?" I ask. "What, I become the actual bomb devil? From Chainsaw Man?"
She shakes her head. "These boons are only positives, keep that in mind. You won't be a hybrid, you'll just have Reze's abilities. Pin on your neck, transformation, explosions."
"So much for a boon. This is kinda grim," I say.
She says nothing, so I flip over the remaining cards.
[Ricochet: Toss coins. Hitting these coins with any projectile will make that projectile home onto your target.]
[Shivers: A fragment of the world spirit. Raise the hairs on your neck, tune into the world.]
I look at these abilities, she looks, and we're both unimpressed. I thought it would be something cooler, but I guess that's out of the budget. Not that I mind. They're useful abilities.
"Now draw one." She presents a set of Tarot cards. "This will represent your beginning."
I do as she says, picking a card from her hands.
"Death," I say. "Is that bad?"
I have never interacted with tarot cards, not even in passing, so I have no idea if the death card is good or bad, let alone what it means for my beginning. Yet, judging by the look on the woman's face, it can't be good.
She lets out a sort of pitiful laugh. "I suppose your soul is marked by misfortune. I'm sorry. Oh, and one more thing."
"What's that?"
"Please…" she starts, surprisingly earnest. "The people you will meet may seem fictional to you, but they're not. They're real. So… please, be kind."
I have no time to respond.
The light brightens, the room shifts. I feel it again. The long silence. It fills me, fills the space around me until I am nothing.
Until there is nothing.