I stared in a daze at my bed where my corpse used to be.
Hours, no, days ago, I was reluctantly ready to face my next day of work, hoping to work a few extra hours in hopes of receiving extra on paycheck day.
Now, that day would never come.
The screen disappeared a while ago. The voice's owner recognized I had no use for the video.
When was I staring at my legs?
"Do you understand now?" The voice spoke again, but I had no interest in whatever it- they wanted to say next.
I didn't exist on Earth anymore, and I've become an unwilling guest in this weird, white realm. A plaything waiting for whatever godly torment to be unleashed on my existence.
"Just get it over with." I requested god.
Right, I'm second fiddle to a god now.
"That's not why you're here." The god clarified as if clearing a long-held misconception.
"What am I here for then?"
"There's something I'd like to give you."
I didn't buy it.
"What am I here for then?"
The god sighed.
"Very well. If you insist there is a purpose you must fulfill, I can give you one. However, you must prove you're capable of completing it."
"And if I can't?"
"Then you are free to live your life however you wish. I'll simply get someone else to pick up where you've left off."
"In other words, you'll kill me again if I prove useless."
"That's not what-"
The god sighed again.
"Whatever assumptions you're making about me. They're wrong. You are here because you're... lucky." The god reluctantly admitted that last word.
"Fortunate, or unfortunate?"
"You've been given a chance to be reborn in another world. I'm sure you're more than well aware of what I mean."
I got up. Feelings of anticipation and wariness rose within me.
On one hand, if what this god says is true, then I'm being granted the ultimatum of fantasy fulfillment.
On the other, I can't help but wonder if there's more to this "chance" that I'm being given.
What if this second chance I'm being given is an elaborate scheme to torture me when I least expect it? When I'm at my happiest, god finds the most cruel way to take that away from me and has me experience an unimaginable, horrid despair that wouldn't wish on my enemies while reveling in my suffering.
"Suffering is an inevitability of human lives. It'll be up to you whether you overcome, or succumb to it."
I glance up, hoping to meet god's gaze.
"I will not care if you thank me for every success, or blame me for every failure. I'm only interested in how you'll proceed from this point forth."
I looked around the endless realm with jagged formations at the horizon.
"Of course, you can always stay here.It's the least I can do for showing you your death."
Be reborn in a new life, or be stuck here?
What is there to do here?
I remembered the video showcasing my death. The hours that followed afterward. Could they have been watching me my whole life? Possibly, but there are also billions of human lives on Earth.
Then there's the possibility of other worlds. Trillions, quadrillions, quintillions, a countless number of people that are free for this god to witness with a simple... lift of a finger, or something scoffingly easier than that.
Does god have fingers? Any limbs at all?
"Are you sure staying here's an option?"
"Of course. You'll be cursed to be an eternal witness to every soul across many worlds. Like how I am to you right now."
"So you're saying you'd continue to watch me even if I don't make a choice?"
"I know you better than you know yourself. I know what choice you'll make."
Hmm...
Being stuck here, forever damned to an all-seeing observer. Every person's life is no more significant than a story waiting to be told by god's viewing window. Just like how they showed me my death, they likely can go back in time to well before I was born.
"Would you let me view any person's life like how you showed me mine?"
"Do you want to?"
It's certainly an interesting idea. If I'm truly dead, I won't have to worry about hunger, sickness, or fatigue. I'd be above all human limitations, or at the very least far surpassed them if I'm just a soul waiting-
I glance at my hand before finishing that thought.
Like paper to a shredder, my existence was being undone in strips. My index and middle finger already lost their tips. This undoing slowly spread to the rest of my hand.
"What is this?"
"What happens when you haven't made a decision."
"Where will I go? What'll happen to me?" I frantically asked the god.
"The Afterlife? I've never been there before, so I wouldn't know what happens to the others."
My fingers were gone. My wrist was being undone next.
It was then I realized I didn't have forever to deliberate my options. Either make a choice now or await the result of whatever phenomenon was being done to my body. Heaven, hell, limbo? My mind frantically went into overdrive.
"I'm here because I'm lucky, right?"
"That is what I said."
"You said you know me better than myself, so why am I so hesitant to take you up on your offer?"
"Because I haven't presented you with both choices."
"I stay here and become like you, or be born into a world with new possibilities."
"That has always been the case."
"What world will I be born into?"
I flexed my hand. Nothing, this must be how it feels for people who've lost limbs they'd lived a long time with. The unraveling started to reach past my elbow.
An image displayed on the screen I was presented earlier.
A satellite eye view of the world.
"Will my memories be intact?"
"If you wish for them to be."
My first arm was gone and my legs were next. I kneeled, not wanting to fall over from missing feet.
"Do I have free rein over what superpower I get?"
"You will be granted power if you so wish for it."
I was sitting down, now missing both legs below my knees and the unraveling started in my left arm.
"I've made my choice!"
"Speak."
I needed to hurry before my mouth disappeared. Only one shot at this.
I construct the statement in my mind before speaking.
"I wish to be reborn in the world you've chosen with my current state of clarity with the superpower of Imagination Manifestation!"
"Is this your final choice?"
I was a disembodied head now. My mouth was seconds from disappearing.
"This is my choice! Please grant it to me!"
In an instant, my body was whole again. As if the unraveling hadn't happened in the first place.
I never loved my limbs more than when I was alive.
"Are you sure this is what you want?"
Do you think I wanna stay here after doing that?
"Yes. Just leave the power I've chosen unadulterated."
"Very well."
Suddenly, a new feeling enveloped me. Wisps of light danced around me and traveled into the image.
I was going to be reincarnated.
I glance back at the god despite not witnessing any form I can look at. Perhaps it was for the best.
"One last thing."
"Ask away."
"Why me?"
There was an aloof silence as if teasing me by leaving such an important question unanswered.
"Because you are someone's most desired wish."
Huh?
What did that mean?
I wouldn't get a chance to ask what the god meant.
Because I have been sent into another world.