Jake sat up slowly, feeling the ground beneath him, and looked around.
A dead, desolate wasteland stretching in every direction as far as he could see.
…I'm in fucking Hell.
And then, something caught his attention.
In front of him, a few hundred meters away, a structure rose.
No, "structure" was an understatement.
It was a colossal building, a tower of black metal and dark glass rising in the distance. And from its base, there was a line.
A huge line of figures of every imaginable shape and size.
Some looked human, others were creatures he couldn't even begin to describe.
Jake got to his feet and watched the scene with a mix of disbelief and resignation.
Countless people to enter a giant building in the middle of nowhere.
Yup... I'm definitely in Hell.
Jake walked toward the colossal building with the same energy someone walks toward the tax office on a Monday morning.
Meaning, he wanted to be anywhere else.
From far away, the line already looked long, but up close it was ridiculous.
Endless figures formed in a line from the building's main entrance and disappearing into the dead wasteland as far as the eye could see.
Jake stopped for a moment to observe them.
There was everything.
A guy with the body of a giant lizard wearing what looked like an office suit three sizes too small. An amorphous mass of something like purple gelatin leaving a slimy trail on the ground.
A being that was basically a pair of legs with eyes walking in circles. A woman with completely blue skin and four arms, using two of them to fold her arms and the other two to scratch her head at the same time.
This is... weird.
The line wasn't moving.
Or if it was, it was moving at the speed of a depressed turtle.
No... no fucking way I'm doing that line.
The decision was almost instinctive. The same instinct that had made him cut the cafeteria line in middle school, ignore turns at the supermarket when he only had one thing, and slip onto the bus through the back door.
If I play dumb and walk with enough confidence, nobody's going to say anything… That works everywhere… or at least it worked on Earth, and therefore it has to work here too.
Universal rule number one: if you walk like you know where you're going, nobody questions you.
Jake straightened his back, shoved his hands into his pants pockets, and started walking straight toward the entrance, passing right by the line with an attitude of "I have a very important appointment and all of you are in my way."
He passed the humanoid lizard, then what looked like a robot, and then all kinds of creatures, all different from one another.
Great, it's working… Nobody's—
"HEY!"
Shit.
"YOU! SKULL-FACE! THE LINE IS BACK THERE!"
The voice came from a creature that looked like a bipedal boar with crooked teeth and a Hawaiian shirt. It pointed toward the end of the line with a thick, hairy finger.
Jake kept walking.
If you don't see it, it's not there... that's a universal rule too.
"ARE YOU IGNORING ME, BONES?!"
"He's right!" another voice joined in, this time from a figure that looked like a normal man except for the fact that his head was a wall clock. "I'VE BEEN IN THIS LINE FOR FORTY HOURS! FORTY! AND THIS IMBECILE THINKS HE CAN JUST WALK IN LIKE NOTHING!"
"I've been here sixty!" someone farther back shouted, a creature that was basically a bunch of arms stacked on top of each other.
"I've been here eighty!" another voice roared from somewhere far down the line.
Suddenly, a chorus of protests erupted around him.
"Get back in line, bastard!"
"No cutting here!"
"Even dead, nobody respects turns!"
Jake felt the stares drilled into him, the weight of collective indignation from an infinite line of creatures who were already in a bad mood before he arrived.
Well... I guess universal rule number one doesn't apply in Hell.
Who would've thought.
Jake was about to turn around, hands raised in surrender and a made-up excuse forming in his mouth, when something interrupted him.
"BONE SACK!"
The voice was sharp, shrill, and came from above.
Jake looked up.
Floating about two meters over his head was a black sphere the size of a basketball. It was completely smooth except for two eyes.
Two huge yellow eyes, with vertical pupils like a cat's, staring at him with a mix of annoyance and impatience Jake recognized immediately.
It was the same look cashiers gave him when he spent five minutes digging for coins in his pockets.
"Are you the one called Jake?" the sphere asked, its voice ringing with a metallic echo that made it sound like it was speaking from inside a can.
"…Depends who's asking?"
"I don't have time for this!" the sphere spun in place, its yellow eyes narrowing with irritation. "Are you Jake, yes or no? Human. Recently dead. Arrived by... tripping?"
"It was an accident," Jake corrected automatically.
"I don't care if it was an accident, a suicide, or if a piano fell on you! ARE YOU JAKE OR NOT?!"
"…Yes, I am."
"THEN MOVE YOUR BONY ASS, BONE SACK! You've got a scheduled appointment inside and I'm not waiting all eternity because Your Highness decided to go sightseeing in the line!"
The creatures who had been yelling at him fell silent instantly.
Everyone stared at the floating sphere with a mix of recognition and subtle fear that Jake didn't miss.
"An appointment?" Jake repeated, confused. "An appointment with who? I just got here, I don't even know exactly where I am."
"You're at the Bank, genius!" the sphere barked, spinning toward the building's entrance. "Where else would you be? At a spa? Now follow me and stop asking stupid questions!"
The Bank, of course… of course the biggest and scariest building in Hell is a bank.
Why would it be anything else? An amusement park? A library? No, obviously it has to be a bank.
Because even in death, financial institutions are the ones in charge.
The sphere was already floating away toward the entrance at a considerable speed, not bothering to check whether Jake was following.
And before anyone else could insult him, he took off running after the sphere.
As he crossed the building's main door, Jake felt something strange.A subtle but unmistakable sensation, like passing through an invisible curtain of water. He looked back on instinct, and where the huge windows should have been showing the wasteland outside, there was only darkness.
Cozy.
The interior was a bank.
Literally a normal, everyday bank.
Marble floors, screens with numbers, and seats.
And behind a reception counter, a young woman.
Short white hair, dark skin, and a bored expression on her face.
But what stood out the most was a huge wind-up key protruding from her back, turning slowly with a faint, barely audible tick-tock.
On her chest, a red badge that read: "Reception."
Next to her, a giant screen showed an endless list of numbers.The one at the top was so high he didn't even try to read it. Beside it, in parentheses: "Estimated wait time: 347 hours."
And I thought the supermarket line was bad.
Jake barely had time to process the absurdity of the situation when the black sphere, which had stopped in front of him, snapped. It had no fingers, no hands, no body, but somehow it produced a sound that was unmistakably a snap.
And in front of Jake, on the wall that seconds earlier had been completely smooth, a door appeared.
It didn't open. It didn't slide. It wasn't hidden.
It simply wasn't there and then it was there, as if it had always existed but the world had just remembered it had to render it.
It was a more elegant door than the rest of the building, with a gold sign nailed in the center.
Jake read it.
"HIRING DEPARTMENT"
...Hiring?
I've been in Hell for literally minutes.
And they're already forcing me to work again?
The sphere turned toward him.
"Get in already, bone sack. I don't have all day."
"Technically we're in Hell, right? Aren't all days eternal here?"
"GET IN!"
Jake pushed the door.
The interior was a cubicle—minimalist and cold.
A desk and two chairs.No more, no less.
And behind the desk, sitting with the perfect posture of a department-store mannequin, was a woman.
Short white hair. Dark skin. A chronically bored expression. Wind-up key on her back. Red badge.
"Customer Service"
Jake blinked.
She's identical to the one at reception.
Do they clone them here or what?
The employee looked up at Jake with the same emotion someone gives a stain on a wall.
"Good afternoon. Please, take a seat."
Jake, not knowing what else to do, obeyed. He sat in the chair in front of the desk, feeling the cold metal through his clothes.
"The job interview is about to begin."
Jake looked at her, confused.
"…Excuse me?"
"The job interview," she repeated, with the same tone someone uses when repeating the time. "It's about to begin."
"No, no, I heard you. It's just that…" Jake leaned back in the chair. "I'm a little confused."
"About what?"
"About EVERYTHING."
Silence.
The employee stared at him without blinking.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
Jake opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it, swallowing his complaints.
You know what? Screw it. My life was already absurd before I died. Why would my death be any different?
"…It's a yes... I guess."
"Excellent," the employee said, pulling out a stack of papers from somewhere Jake didn't see. "Then let's begin."