"I'm so glad he's dead..."
"Serves you right asshole!"
"I hope you rot in hell, you piece of shit!!"
Not quite the words you'd expect to hear on your deathbed... but then again, can 'YOU' blame them?
In the hollow recesses of Johann's psyche, curses levied against him swirled—and with each passing utterance of displeasure, of pure rage and fury, the weight of the emotions those who cussed at him felt grew heavy, tangible even.
But just as the intensity of these words seemed to peak, a faint tap pulled Johann from his trance—a sound resemblant to that of a knock on wood.
"Uhhh... sorry, you were saying?", he asked meekly into the nothingness. As he tilted his head upward and the scenery 'he' witnessed unfolded unto 'us', the 'spectator', with a sought of... unassuming, minimalist splendour.
From what we could perceive, Johann sat reserved, like an antsy child at the dentist's.
His dark locs sprawled the length of his body, spilling over the bloodied hospital gown he donned and onto the floor, as the pristinely white room in which he sat appeared almost impossibly unblemished. Lest we forget a pair of pesky stains that is.
The two stains from which we speak dirtied this vibrant, 'pure', white. And while nothing stood out in this speckless enclosure, these two were apparent from any distance or angle you gazed upon this room from. Of course, the stains i narrate to you about were none other than those of Johann's very presence, and another...
Sat opposite Johann was a towering figure, much to wide and tall to belong to any human i know. It had a voluptuous body, one crafted against the most curvaceous of women and it wore a suit. Dark as the night sky and fitting tighter than a pig in a blanket.
If you looked past the towering height and wide figure you could assume this creature was human... until you made contact with its eyes of course.
A dark hollow emptiness stared back at Johann from an edifice, a shape, that was that of a deer's head doing its best impression of a human smile with perfect teeth.
The creature opposite him tilted her head uncomfortably to the side, her long winding horns nearly grazing the low ceiling as she never broke eye contact or lost that unnerving Cheshire cat grin.
"You died."
Her response, when it came, didn't feel like it came out of her mouth. And if it wasn't for the uncanny lip flaps her deer head made Johann could've sworn he heard the voice like a whisper. Like the tricks your mind played on you when you were walking home at night on your own.
As the deer head spoke she grabbed a heap of papers in between her hooves and slightly tapped them on her desk. The scenery, uncanny as it was, looked like what you'd expect to see when dealing with your insurance company or that one uncomfortably long chat with the doctor in his office.
Bizarrely though, Johann felt no accompanying emotion to the strange world he was experiencing. If anything, he was calm, and the temperate of the room felt more serene than when he was a baby in his mother's arms.
The sharply dressed deer took a pregnant pause to observe Johann, and when she realized he was an unfazed by her comment, she slid her documents across the desk to face him. And begun to speak in a calming monotone manner.
Much of what she said, Johann struggled to understand. From what he gathered though, it sounded like the corporate babble you hear when being swindled by your favourite capitalist corp. Through all the chatter though, one thing in particular did grab his attention.
The documents, unassuming and irreverent as they were, had peculiar wording at the top were it asked for his signature.
"Imagine.Inc will not be held liable for any crimes or atrocities the pilot of the vessel commits henceforth."
Odd, Johann thought... But before he could begin to dissect why this particular wording turned his stomach, the deer had the answers he was looking for.
And with another uncomfortable pause that heightened the feeling of her soulless gaze, which peered straight through him, she grinned, "So basically, you'll be signing ownership of your soul over to us. But don't worry, you'll still have autonomy over whatever decisions and choices you make in your new life. Just remember, when all's said and done. We. Own. 'You'...."
...surely not, right?
"Sell... my soul?" Johann thought.
A fairy tail. I mean, it had to be. Who hasn't heard the tale at this point? The tale older than time itself. A tale of unfathomable gain from a deal so, so 'simple'...
But of course nothing could explain the bizarreness Johann was experiencing or perhaps more significantly, the calm with which he experienced it all.
"So... i just, hand it over?" Johann asked in a daze, his mind still struggling to understand why this encounter didn't faze him.
"You could say that," was the deer's response, a smile on her face that pretended to show emotion.
Johann, expectedly so, was beside himself with the whole ordeal. But a rational mind wins it all. And even though this could've been just one hell of a trippy dream, it occurred to him that perhaps the only way to move past the current scenery was to sign the documents.
So, with half a mind on hoping he wakes up from this acid trip soon, Johann reached forward and leaned on the desk as the deer handed him a pen to sign the document.
"Red," he thought, noting the colour of ink that the pen squeezed out its tip in bounds. "How fitting."
The deer's gaze remained strained on him as he signed his name on the document. And the moment he was done, and reclining into his seat, he could see her grin widen to impossible lengths, ear to ear to be specific.
The lights flickered twice, and the deer stood gesturing him to a single door behind him, "We appreciate your cooperation, good luck with your new life."
"...right," Johann responded with a calm and investigative nonchalance as he read the social queue and begun to stand.
There was no need however, for the moment Johann got to his feet and turned around the door was right there. Close enough to leave a subtle peck on his nose.
Of course, he was taken aback by this blatant defiance of natural laws. But Johann had no time to speak on the matter. For just as he turned to confirm the next steps of this acid trip, the door swung open. And a pair of hooves firmly planted themselves on his shoulder blades before he found himself being suddenly pushed through the open door.
Whatever Johann was expecting it wasn't this, because as Johann stumbled through the open doorway the white that seemed to encompass everything around him seemed to disperse in an instant.
Making way for an inky black that absorbed his whole vision and colour.
Johann was now falling... or rising? He couldn't tell, such was the disorientation of his body in this space.
From his periphery though he saw multiple shining doors, doors that lined the space at every conceivable angle. But as he rose... fell, these doors in the inky black seemed to grow distant. Further and further away until they appeared like stars in the night sky. Their shine being the only thing that kept them visible, a twinkle in the sky.
It was at this moment, at this point of euphoric descent, that Johann felt his travel end.
An inky black seemed to absorb his fall. And as he struggled to breath he felt his weight return under him and sunk in the ink until his feet made contact with a wet surface.
Suddenly, Johann could breath again. And as he steadied himself in the space his eyes caught sight of a distant red.
One step toward it turned to two, and before he realized, the space around him contorted in a manner he didn't yet understand. Distance wasn't a law in this here space.
What felt like eons of walking and only seconds of a single step led Johann to a red stool in the inky blackness.
His instinct made him sit. And once he did, there was sudden cheering. Applause for one who had made the right choice.
"SO, bOy... wHaT WilL iT Be?"
A voice thundered from all around him. As bright white smiles begun to form in the space above him, a colosseum of ancient beings that gazed upon his pitiful, feeble, structure perched on a stool clearly meant to demean him. To show a difference in stature.
"woUlD YoU RaThEr ReTurN To YoUr OlD LiFe KnOwInG WhAt YoU KnOw NoW?" the disembodied voice thundered, "Or A wOrLd oF fAnTasY, oF drEaM aNd VaLouR,"
"Of KnIgHts, aNd Bunny-girls."
Tough question... except, it wasn't.
Johann knew what life he led, and what choices he made that drove him to this particular place and he'd be damned if he was going to walk among 'our' kind ever again.
For the first time since this acid trip begun Johann felt emotion. And that once similar Cheshire cat grin he saw grew on his face. The edges of his smile literally touching the corners either side of his eyes.
"I've achieved everything i could ever dream of in that world. Maybe, its time for a new challenge." He said with frightening ease, the calm in his voice representative of a cocky arrogance.
"Bunny girls iT Is ThEn." The voice thundered with a cheeky chuckle, and in that instant all the mouths faded into the nothingness, all but one.
The mouth of the being he spoke to then appeared to grow in size and manifest itself right in front of him. His hospital gown was replaced with a dark tux, that housed a single red rose in his upper left pocket.
An unfazed Johann reached for it, as the mouth, now uncomfortably close to him, opened and a pair blood red arms came forth from it. They twisted around each other before settling in a beggars pose before him. Cups, the pair of hands formed, asking Johann to offer his sacrifice.
Johann picked up the rose from his pocket, took out a petal and placed it into the hands.
It was then that... that he found himself drowning?