Chapter 2
Written by Bayzo Albion.
And then — a faint chime echoed in my head.
An interface flickered into existence before my eyes.
> SYSTEM:
Please enter your name.
"Do they want my real one? Or can I just make something up?" I asked, staring at the glowing letters like they were a gate to another reality.
"Anything," she said with a shrug, her voice calm and teasing at once, laced with the freedom of choice she embodied. "It's your choice. Here, everything depends on you—no judgments, no expectations, just the pure canvas of your will."
Without hesitation, I typed, my fingers moving through the air as if tracing symbols on an invisible keyboard:
Cuddly Boogeyman.
I smirked and said aloud, "From now on, call me the Cuddly Boogeyman. Why not? In a place like this, a name should be as whimsical as the rules—or lack thereof."
The priestess raised one elegant brow, arching it like a crescent moon in the night sky. There was no judgment in her tone, only a flicker of amusement that sparkled in her eyes, as if she had witnessed countless souls reinvent themselves in equally eccentric ways.
"Boogeyman… welcome to the subatomic realm. Here there are no chains, no laws, no obligations binding you like in the mortal world. Do as you will. Indulge yourself. Live without consequence, exploring the depths of your desires without fear of repercussion."
"Seriously?" I swallowed hard, half-expecting a catch to emerge from the shadows, a hidden clause in this contract of eternity. "Everything? No strings attached, no fine print lurking in the background?"
She tilted her head, her voice dropping to a quieter, almost intimate register that sent a subtle thrill through me, like sharing secrets in the dead of night.
"Yes. Only—be careful with your wishes. Sometimes they come true too literally, manifesting in ways that surprise even the wisher, revealing truths hidden in the subconscious."
"In this place," she went on, her words weaving a tapestry of possibility, "nothing is poisonous. Nothing is destructive in the way you knew. The words wrong, sinful, dangerous—they have no meaning here, stripped of their power like leaves in the wind. Because there is no negative energy to give them shape. On the subatomic level, it simply cannot exist—just as a shadow cannot be born in perfect light, where every particle resonates in harmony."
A shiver traced my spine, cold yet exhilarating, as the implications sank in. Freedom without rules, without sin, without rot—the promise thrilled me like a forbidden fruit, sweet and tantalizing. But beneath her calm warning, I thought I glimpsed the faint edge of danger, a whisper that absolute liberty might carry its own perils.
"And the catch?" I narrowed my eyes, suspicion prickling under my skin like thorns from a rosebush I couldn't see. "Where's the trick? There's always a price. Even for paradise, there must be some hidden cost, some balance to the scales."
She smiled the way someone does when they've heard the same doubt a thousand times, her lips curving with patient wisdom, as if reassuring a skeptic on the brink of belief.
"Imagine you want to do harm: to strike, to deceive, to destroy. But your actions pass through a filter… and on the other side, they emerge as good, purified and transformed. A blow turns into a touch of care, gentle and healing. A lie becomes a confession, raw and honest. Destruction turns to creation, building anew from the ashes. It isn't karma, it isn't moral policing—there's simply no medium here in which evil can take root. It's as pointless here as shouting in a vacuum, where sound waves have nothing to propagate through."
"So… evil doesn't exist at all?" I asked slowly, trying to digest her words, turning them over in my mind like puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit. "Because there's nothing to build it from? No foundation for darkness in this sea of light?"
"Exactly." She nodded once, her movement precise and affirming. "This world isn't built on the struggle of opposites, but on a principle of absolute resonant harmony. Everything here is an extension of goodwill, vibrating at frequencies that align perfectly. Even chaos is only order dancing to a different rhythm, a symphony where every note contributes to the whole."
"But if everything becomes good," I pressed, suspicion prickling under my skin anew, mingling with a growing curiosity, "then… what about the immoral? Does that count too? The things society deems taboo, the desires we bury deep—do they transform as well?" An old, half-buried fear stirred beneath the crust of my notions, memories of judgments and repressions from my mortal life bubbling to the surface.
"What you call 'immoral' simply loses its shape," she explained, her voice steady and reassuring, like a lighthouse guiding through fog. "There's no context here for it to carry negativity, no soil for guilt or harm to grow. It transforms—cleansed of pain, of shame, of harm, emerging as pure expression. Everything born of desire becomes light, radiant and fulfilling. And everything born of fear… dissolves into nothingness, released like smoke in the wind."
"That's… unsettling." My voice cracked between awe and doubt, a cocktail of emotions swirling within me like a storm. "I mean, I'm in the afterlife, right? So where's God in all this? The divine overseer, the creator pulling the strings?"
The question slipped out like a thought I'd meant to keep hidden, yet it hung between us, heavier than anything I'd asked before, laden with the weight of existential longing.
"Here they say God is not a being, not a judge sitting on a throne of clouds. God is happiness itself—the state where you no longer fight with yourself, where inner conflicts dissolve into unity. If you are at peace, then you are already in God, embodying the divine essence in every breath, every thought."
I frowned, my brow furrowing as I grappled with the abstraction.
"Sounds poetic… but I don't get a damn thing. It's like trying to grasp mist with bare hands."
She laughed—bright and genuine, with no trace of mockery, the sound bubbling up like a clear stream in a hidden glade.
"That's all right. Paradise isn't a place where you understand everything with the mind's rigid logic. It's a place where you no longer need to, where intuition and feeling guide you beyond the limits of comprehension."
I opened my mouth to argue, words forming on the tip of my tongue… but closed it again. For the first time in ages, my chest was quiet—really, blessedly quiet, free from the constant clamor of anxiety and doubt that had plagued my living days. A profound stillness settled over me, like the calm after a long-fought battle.
"Your voice," I said at last, smiling with reverence as if confessing my love to a symphony that had moved me to tears, "is true delight to my ears, a melody that soothes the frayed edges of my spirit."
"How wonderful to hear that," the priestess replied, her voice as warm as a spring breeze brushing the skin, carrying hints of floral sweetness and distant rain. With a subtle flick of her hand she shook her blessed chest, and it answered with a rich, supple sway, as though it had a life of its own, a rhythmic dance that captivated the eye. Tilting her head, she regarded me with a tender, playful spark in her eyes, a glint that hinted at depths of mischief beneath her serene exterior.
"Would you like… a little milk? A taste of the sustenance this realm offers, pure and invigorating?"
"No, thank you. I've still got a few shreds of shame left to lose in this strange place where morality has been tossed aside like yesterday's news," I said, trying to keep a straight face amid the surreal offer. But my eyes betrayed me, fixed on the graceful curves she offered so casually, a testament to the uninhibited nature of this world.
With effortless poise, the priestess slipped a hand into the neckline of her snow-white robe, her fingers moving with the elegance of a dancer. She drew out a small bottle nestled between her breasts, the frosted glass catching the light in prismatic sparks, and inside sloshed something pale and warm, like the echo of a childhood memory brought to life—comforting, nostalgic, and utterly irresistible.
"If you're shy about drinking it fresh, I can offer you the preserved variety," she said with the solemnity of an apothecary presenting a rare elixir, holding out the vessel with both hands as though it were a relic from a forgotten temple, imbued with sacred power.
"Uh… thank you," I muttered, taking the bottle with the reverence one might show to a goddess's diplomatic gift, my fingers trembling slightly as they closed around the smooth, cool glass, warmed by her touch.
Without hesitation, I popped the cap and downed it in one go, the liquid cascading down my throat like a river of bliss.
The taste didn't just hit my tongue—it struck my soul, enveloping me in a symphony of sensations. It was something between creamy velvet sliding like silk, pearlescent light that seemed to illuminate from within, and a dizzy fit of joy that bubbled up uncontrollably. Like spending your whole life drinking from muddy puddles, tainted by the world's impurities, and then, suddenly, sipping rain straight from heaven, pure and revitalizing, washing away every trace of weariness.
"This… is it some kind of milk cola? No… no, it's something else entirely… a nectar of the gods, perhaps?" I murmured, going slack as if I had, for the first time, allowed myself to be truly happy, my body relaxing into a state of euphoric surrender, every muscle unwinding like coiled springs finally released.