Again.
First thing I notice—like the
universe booted up, hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete, and forgot to install
textures. Just vibes and void.
Then—music.
That same warped, underwater
lounge jazz from before. Slow and syrupy, drifting through the air
like Miles Davis took a nap in a fish tank. Faint, fuzzy, and
unmistakably retro—like someone pressed play on a cursed record
player behind a drywall purgatory.
Is that... The
Girl from Ipanema?
Yeah. The analog version. Real vintage.
Full of crackle and hiss, like it’s broadcasting straight from a
1970s dentist’s office in the fourth dimension. And it's looping. A
cosmic lullaby for the recently expired and existentially
inconvenienced.
I open my eyes—though that’s
probably a metaphor at this point. Hard to say. My whole head feels
like it’s been submerged in expired jello, and the idea of having
"eyeballs" is more of a courtesy than an anatomical fact
right now.
Glass.
Everywhere.
Floor, walls, ceiling—assuming
those concepts still apply in this architectural fever dream. All of
it glowing faintly, pulsing with a rhythm that’s less "alive"
and more "softly panicking." The whole room feels like it
was dipped in moonlight, then sprayed down with aerosolized anxiety.
Outside?
Yeah, no, that’s
not a view. That’s a drug trip someone painted across the void.
Nebulae churn like finger paint
dumped into an aquarium. Crimson, amethyst, radioactive mint—all
swirling in lazy spirals, like God got bored mid-brushstroke. Stars
blink in and out like they’re in on the joke, little bastards.
Whole galaxies flicker across the void like screensavers on a
billion-dollar acid binge.
And me?
I’m just… floating. Sort
of.
There’s no gravity. No
direction. No helpful UI or respawn beacon. Just me, loosely tethered
to this... meat puppet I think is still mine. Every move feels like
trying to stir molasses with a toothpick. My limbs trail behind,
sluggish and detached, like I’m the ghost of someone mid-swim in a
bottle of cough syrup last FDA-approved in the late ‘90s.
I lift a hand—it lags like my
body’s buffering.
“Not this shit again,” I
mutter.
Voice is dulled, like it’s
being played through wet socks. Even the sound feels reluctant.
I try rubbing my face.
Or, well—what used to be
my face. Here, “touch” is more of a suggestion. There’s no
heat, no pressure, just the vague implication of motion. Like my
body’s pantomiming muscle memory without bothering to inform the
muscles.
Feels like petting air. Really
convincing air. The kind of air that might start charging
you rent if you loiter long enough.
How many times has this
happened now? Three? Four? Enough that it’s starting to feel like a
subscription service I forgot to cancel. My brain’s replaying the
whole thing on a busted VHS—static-laced images, jump cuts, flashes
of light, and that weird strobing migraine aura that says,
“Congratulations, you’re either ascending or seizing.”
I remember pain. Not the
stub-your-toe-and-swear-at-God kind. No, this was bone-snapping,
air-punching, gut-screaming agony. The kind of hurt that makes your
whole system go full blue screen of death—Critical Error: Soul
Not Found.
Then movement.
A
snarl.
Teeth—way too many teeth. Claws like surgical
instruments. Eyes that weren’t just looking at me—they were
evaluating. Calculating. Like they were measuring me for a coffin.
Demi-human women.
Right. That happened. Still
emotionally buffering from that little adventure.
Then—bam. Blackout. Lights
cut. Back to square one.
At this point, I think my death
count qualifies as statistically alarming. Possibly even grounds to
file a celestial class-action lawsuit. Do they make ghost lawyers?
I try pacing. Because that’s
what people do when they’re buzzing with leftover adrenaline and
nowhere to put it. But it’s useless. Like trying to jog through a
screensaver. My legs move, sure, but there’s no weight. No
friction. No floor. Just inertia on life support.
Even my arms swing wrong—jerky,
out of sync. Like they’re testing out a new update and the patch
notes forgot elbows were a thing.
The elevator hums around me.
Soft and sheepish, like it’s apologizing for existing. There’s no
panel, no buttons, no friendly little floor number blinking in the
corner. Just a steady, abstract sense of up. I think. Hard
to say. There’s no visual anchor—just vibes and directional hope.
It’s like eternity decided to
install a lobby and forgot to furnish it.
Then—
A flicker.
The walls ripple.
Not metaphorically—like,
actual ripples. Like someone chucked a rock into the fabric
of reality and the water’s still sloshing. Space itself quivers at
first, like it’s ticklish. Then it deepens. Shudders. Starts
convulsing like the whole dimension’s about five seconds from an
emotional breakdown.
And yeah—sure enough, it
sobs.
Or something like it.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Shadows bleed in around the
seams, stretching long and slow, curling like smoke that forgot which
way is up. Then they snap—like pulled rubberbands—into jagged,
twitchy forms. Not just shadows anymore.
Images.
Memories.
Wounds.
First up: a courtroom. Cold.
Bleached. Too damn bright. Like someone turned the contrast all the
way up on judgment.
And there she is—my ex.
Carved from ice and bulletproof glass. Lips tight, eyes hollow with
disappointment so sharp it could etch steel. She doesn’t say a
word. Doesn’t have to. That look does the heavy lifting.
Cool. Clinical. Surgical
disappointment.
God, that still stings. Maybe always will.
Another twitch in the dark, and
suddenly it’s firelight. Orange and wild. Smoke threading into a
black sky with no stars to catch it. My kids—God, my kids—their
faces lit up like paper lanterns, flickering between memory and
maybe. Their laughter slices straight through the silence like a hot
knife through my ribcage.
Too bright.
Too real.
Too
alive.
And absolutely, one hundred percent,
not supposed to be here.
Then—her.
My sister.
Arms folded. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowed like she’s reading a report
card and already knows I failed. That look—half concern, half
seriously, Grant?—is more effective than a slap. No voice, no
scolding, just that expression saying, You’re better than this.
So why the hell aren’t you?
I want to answer, but—
The
scene shifts.
The farm.
My farm.
Sunlight spills across the
fields like melted amber. Wheat rolls in lazy waves under the wind.
The barn creaks open, all familiar and alive, breathing deep with
morning. The smell hits me like a freight train of nostalgia—cut
grass, warm soil, sweat soaked into cotton. Honest smells. Things you
don’t notice until they’re gone.
It’s so close I can feel
it.
Taste it.
I reach. Hand out,
trembling—heart lurching behind my ribs like maybe if I grab fast
enough, hard enough—
Gone.
Erased.
Like breath on a windowpane.
Like someone wiped the memory clean and forgot to ask if I was done
with it.
My gut folds in on itself,
tight and twisting. Cold panic settles in. Not loud. Not screaming.
Just final.
Was that it?
A cosmic
highlight reel?
The universe’s way of saying, “Thanks for
playing, here’s your trauma montage before we hit DELETE”?
What happens if I don’t make
it back next time?
Do they disappear
too?
Do they get overwritten, repurposed, reformatted like
outdated save files?
What if I am the
glitch?
No.
No.
My hands ball into fists. Jaw
clenched so hard my teeth ache. Heart hammering like it's trying to
punch through bone.
The jazz skips.
Just for a second. A blip. A
hiccup in the background groove. But that’s all it takes. One
off-beat and suddenly, yeah—this space-between-spaces? Not just a
vibe.
Something's here.
A low buzz kicks in. Static
crawling up the walls. The glass groans, slow and reluctant, like
it's under pressure—like something's leaning on it from the other
side.
Something big.
Something
patient.
And then—yeah. I feel
it.
That kind of pressure you don’t
hear so much as register in your bones. Not pain
exactly—more like the feeling of being watched by something that
doesn’t blink.
My breath catches. Instinct
screams run.
Which would be hilarious if it
weren’t so tragic. Run where, exactly? Into the existential
wallpaper? Back to the jazz?
The void outside
ripples—shivering in waves, distortion washing over it like bad VHS
tape tracking. Heat shimmer meets mid-render fail.
Something wants in.
Then the whisper starts.
Low. Soft. Not even sound,
really—just... presence. Like memory playing on loop underwater.
But it’s personal. Familiar
in a way that shouldn’t be possible.
My heart spikes. Just—bam.
All systems go.
I know that voice.
But the words scatter the
moment I reach for them. Like trying to catch fog with your bare
hands. The second you notice it, it’s already gone.
I press a hand to the glass.
Cold. Thin as breath. “Who’s there?”
No answer.
Just silence. Thick, clinging
silence. But the whisper doesn’t leave. It sinks.
Burrows down. Past skin. Past
muscle. Nesting somewhere in the ribs like it belongs there.
Then—jolt.
The elevator kicks like it just
hit a pothole in spacetime. Shudders. Lurches. One second of
mechanical panic before it catches and keeps going, humming like
nothing ever happened.
Outside? The stars smear. Long
streaks of white chaos. Like somebody took a paintbrush to the
universe mid-scroll.
Whatever was out there?
It saw where I was headed.
And
it really didn’t like it.
I don’t have to be a genius
to figure it out—something out there really doesn’t want
me reaching the next stop on this existential elevator ride.
So I brace. Because clearly,
flexing my core muscles will protect me from whatever metaphysical
nonsense is about to jump me.
And then—ding.
The softest little chime. Like
an elevator in a hotel lobby, not a cosmic void-glider possibly
powered by jazz and spite.
The doors hiss open.
And I get hit with light.
Bright, sterile, full-on eye-murder. Pure and cold, like someone took
a surgical lamp and cranked it to divine interrogation mode. I throw
up a hand, squinting through the glare like I’m trying to stare
down God with a hangover.
That whisper?
Yeah, it’s back. Louder now.
Urgent. Less a gentle nudge and more of a mental fire alarm someone’s
duct-taped to my skull.
Whatever had been dragging
nails across the glass—watching, pressing, waiting—it’s
gone.
Let go?
Got bored?
Lost
connection?
Not sure. Not asking. Not
thrilled that I kind of miss it.
But here I am. On my feet.
New world. New rules.
And judging by the pressure
still vibrating in my spine, new problems.
But hey—at least I’m…
“Shit.”
That’s right… I’m dead.