I was standing in a seemingly empty field, there was grass and a few bushens with various berries and some clusters of trees stood intermittently across the field.
It was peaceful and beautiful, but also incredibly boring.
Where was the chirping birds? The buzzing insects? Where were all the people?
It was disturbing to suddenly appear in the middle of nowhere, alone and with no one to ask for directions; how was I supposed to get home?
I don't usually allow myself to wallow, but for just a moment, I allowed all my emotions free reign; I sat down on the soft grass and looked up into the blue sky above. It was beautiful but way too blue. No clouds in sight. And no sun.
"Fuck!" I blurt as I sit up, hurriedly rubbing my eyes before once again looking up at the sky, still, no sun.
And that's when I recall the accident; the pain upon impact must have been so horrible I'd subconsciously blocked the memory out, but now it was all coming back with a vengeance.
It had been a late morning; I'd overslept, and I'd been running to catch the next train to work when suddenly a truck came bulldozing down the street. I'd been crossing the crosswalk stuck in my own thoughts and only realized it when I heard the sound of the tires squealing on the pavement as the driver tried to stop the truck. Then came the pain.
I shiver, suddenly chilled to the bone; I was probably.. dead.
People didn't miraculously survive car accidents without even the slightest injury.
Yet I remember the pain. And have no wounds.
I looked around, trying to spot a camera or sign that said, 'Just kidding, we got you!'
No such luck.
Then I'd have to face it: my life had ended, cut short at the young age of 21, on the very first day of my new job. I should have known things were getting too good to be true.
My hard work, working part-time to pay for my college degree, had paid off, and I'd gotten my dream job as a librarian at the world's most prominent and oldest library. Okay, I was technically a temporary employee until the spot was filled. Still, I'd planned to convince my superiors that I should have the position by showing my excellent work ethic and responsible nature.
The apartment I owned, paid for in full by my parent's insurance, which was admittedly located in the older part of town, was about to be torn down and replaced with new apartment buildings. I'd already signed off on the apartment sale and received my payment of almost 2 million for the place, more than enough to buy another apartment closer to the city center.
So how come everything had to go *BOOM* right as my life was finally making a turn for the better?!
If only I hadn't been so stupid.
If only I'd spent less time in my head and more time observing the road as I should have instead of assuming I was in the clear just because I'd had a green light. I should've known better; you're always supposed to double-check!
But now it was too late. There was no pill for regret.
As I was just about to start wailing, something I'd never done before in my entire life, a woman's voice interrupted me, "Excuse me, are you? Let me see… ah yes, of course, are you Erica Timothy?" The woman, a blonde in white robes with her arms filled with old-looking scrolls of various sizes, tries to ask while simultaneously pulling out, holding, grabbing, and reading multiple scrolls in rapid succession.
"No, i'm not," I answer, halfway distracted by the way she was attempting to juggle the various scrolls; that was just not a functioning system; how was she even supposed to be able to find anything in those scrolls? They aren't even labeled.
I was obsessed with organization and labeling, so I recognized a poor organization system when I saw one.
She seemed to nod at my response as if expecting it until she suddenly froze, finally looking up at me.
"*BLEEEP, BLEEEEP, BLEEEEP...." The sudden real-life censorship of the woman's curses made my toes curl, and I had to block my ears with my hands to avoid losing my hearing; it was just that loud.
"Sorry," the woman in white finally says ending her spree of censored curses, "angels aren't allowed to curse; it's an old rule, never mind that, you claim you aren't in fact, Erica Timothy, is that correct?" She continued before pausing to hear my answer".
"That's correct, " I answer, trying to stand a little straighter now, knowing I was standing before a real-life angel.
Her head lowered, and she made an audible sigh, then pulled out another scroll, attempting to read through it before shaking her head and reaching for another; it was awe-inspiring how she managed to calmly read one scroll while not losing hold of the countless others. But, not finding what she was looking for, she then made an even louder sigh before looking back up at me; her eyes had changed slightly as If she'd come to a conclusion and didn't want to believe it, instead of straight up telling me whatever it was she instead asked a final question. "No one else was supposed to die at this exact moment; who are you, and why did you die?" Her face looked like she'd given up hope on whatever I was about to say next, but since she'd been polite thus far, aside from the cursing, and hadn't thrown the blame at me as I'd known some would do, I decided to give her the whole story.
My name, age, background, and finally, the final hours of my life; recapped.
As I'd expected, she looked crestfallen as if even with every other explanation having been thwarted, she'd still held out the tiniest specks of hope that she'd been wrong about whatever she'd concluded.
Now seemingly drained of energy, she finally let go of all the scrolls, letting them fall to the ground, where they turned to dust upon impact. Stepping over them, seemingly unconcerned, she pulled a small scroll from a pocket in her white robe and handed it to me. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said before disappearing. I didn't know what to think. Had she died and turned into dust like her scrolls? Or had she transferred to another spot?
Looking down at the miniature scroll with confusion, I slowly opened it and instantly disappeared into a dust cloud.
I opened my eyes, shocked at the sudden change; I was no longer in the field. But I also didn't see the woman in white anywhere; instead, I was standing in a blank white space, another much older-looking woman standing in front of me. "Hello?" I tried attempting to get some guidance. "Hello, young lady. I'm being told you weren't scheduled for death yet, yet here you are. Do you see the problem?" She answers rapidly in a talkative though slightly accusatory manner.
Great, the first woman spoke little and didn't explain anything.
The second woman speaks too much and expects me to understand without her needing to explain.
This is beyond ridiculous.
I declined my innermost response, which was getting angry. It had been a long day, and I just wanted answers, but I held my tongue, determined to stay polite.
"Earnestly, I'm not sure what's going on; I was wondering whether you could fill me in on it," I reply in the most earnest tone I could muster.
Set back by my response, the woman seemed to study me for a while before pointing behind me where a soft-looking armchair had appeared. Without waiting for permission, I sat down, letting out a deep sigh; when I looked up, I was relieved to find that the woman hadn't taken offense at my presumptive actions. Instead, she had materialized a chair for herself and taken a seat; then now, in a much calmer tone, she started to explain.
"The universe as you know it is only one among many, and amongst them lives an infinite amount of souls which keep increasing in number day by day. These souls, as well as the universe, live in a balance. Whatever you give is given back, and whatever is taken must be returned. That's the balance. Souls from their beginning throughout eternity will go through this balance. Current, past, and future actions balance out their individual lives—an endless cycle of reincarnation. But imagine somebody was accidentally brought out of this balance; they didn't do what they were supposed to do and didn't get what they were supposed to get, so what was supposed to happen didn't, and the soul cannot continue its reincarnation. That's what's happening to you. Your soul has ceased to be balanced, and that, young lady, is a very terrifying thing. We simply have no idea how to continue from here on out. We have no power over your destiny, and you have no reason to exist anymore."
That's when I had a panic attack; I was pretty sure I couldn't breathe, not even sure if I needed air at all, but not having it suddenly physically hurt, and I was gasping, attempting to drag air into my lungs while whimpering and letting out whatever air I had left. I was a mess. I wasn't proud of it, but I was.
Flash forward several minutes, and I'd finally, thanks to the woman offering me a calming tea and cinnamon cookies, managed to calm somewhat down.
Yet I still couldn't entirely stop the quivering as I rasped out, "So what happens to me now?".
The woman looked up and down my body skeptically before pulling yet another scroll out of thin air; seriously, how do they do that?!
"We don't have methods to deal with souls such as yourself 'cause there has never been, nor was there ever supposed to be a precedence. But, we do have some souls who essentially die and are reborn in a new world wherein they manage to re-establish a connection to the new world and thereby slightly modify their balance. I say modify, but they essentially take the balance they have, and then by virtue of their own effort in changing their destiny, they slightly change their life trajectory without unbalancing the balance. I gather we could do something similar with you, glue you into the balance, so to say; it's a very primitive solution, but the only other option would be to stick around up here for all of eternity. No dying, no living, just existing for all of eternity, which isn't bad; if you have some way to spend all that time, you wouldn't have anything to do, so it would probably become a living hell, eventually".
Her grave expressions told me what she thought about that idea. Clearly, she was leaning towards the first option, but I wouldn't say I liked how casually she talked about 'gluing' me into the balance, that was a bandage solution; it wasn't very well thought out, and the logic was flawed on so many levels, but I also didn't have a better solution. That being said, I wasn't alright with just being dropped into a random world with no say in where or how, not to mention the fact that I would be powerless to resist if something were to threaten my life immediately after arrival; my old world had been relatively peaceful. Still, I wasn't naive enough to think every world would be like my old one; if what this woman said was true, then others had traveled between worlds before and managed to succeed; at worst, they'd died and returned to the balanced reincarnation cycle. I didn't have that option; if something were to kill me immediately upon arrival, who was to say that my soul wouldn't be overwhelmed and splinter into a million pieces before I could ever let myself be 'glued' back into the balance?
No, I needed assurance.
"I agree to take the risk to rejoin the balance; in exchange, I'll need something in return, something to assure my success."
I attempted to say this calmly, but I knew I was essentially asking for the impossible; under no circumstance did these so-called angels seem to interfere with the balance, that is, under ordinary circumstances.
Now, this Angel was attempting to persuade me to rejoin the balance; why? Why is it so important to her that I rejoin the balance? And can I use it in my favor?
I'd soon get my answer.