Suddenly, the young detective woke up! Slumped over a reception desk he didn't recognise, in an empty black room he didn't recognise and watching over him, on the opposite side of the counter, was a short haired, angelic looking young woman that you can reasonably assume he also didn't recognise.
He rose to his feet in shock and awe at the glowing, supernatural entity gleefully standing before him. "What!? Who!? Where am I!?" He cried, rubbing the back of his head.
Like an excited teenager meeting her celebrity idol for the first time, the angel could hardly contain her excitement. "You're finally here! I finally get to meet you! I'm, like, you're biggest fan! You've been my favourite human to observe!"
"Hey, I'm asking the questions here!"
She squeed again. "You said the thing! How can one human be so cool!?"
"I... don't... What... are you, exactly...?"
"My name's Tanya!"
"No, I said WHAT are you!?"
"Oh, right! Detectives are so fussy when it comes to their wording, aren't they? I'm was your Guardian Angel!"
"You're my... Guardian Angel? I have a Guardian Angel?"
"Yeah! Everyone has one! Well, except for the really big sinners! We can only tolerate so much evil before we call it quits, but you were super fun to watch! Easily one of my favourites!"
"Why do you keep referring to me in the past tense?"
"Well, doi! It's because you're dead, silly!"
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere... WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M DEAD!?"
"I mean your soul ascended from the mortal realm and has arrived in the afterlife."
"I'm... I'm in the... afterlife...?"
"Well, where did you think you were, the post office?"
"This place does look a little too... abyssal to be a post office."
Looking around, the room was nothing but a pitch black void, with white furniture glowing on what did not appear to be solid ground. There were even white doors attached to non-existent walls that led to god-knows where.
"So, this is it... I'm really dead?"
"Well, I could check your pulse for you." The angelic girl, reached out her petit, snow white hand as she delicately lifted the detective's wrist up, causing the detective to completely lose what little composure he had at the sight of his grey palm.
With a high pitched and very unmanly scream, he immediately pulled his hand away. "What the hell is this!?"
Tanya screamed in response. "What!? Is it a spider!?"
"Wha-!? How could there be spiders in the afterlife!?"
"I don't know! Maybe it died with you! It happens sometimes!"
"Why is my skin grey!?"
"Come on, Detective Hartmut! Surely you can use your flawless deductive reasoning to figure this one out."
"It's... because I'm dead, right...?"
"Yeah...! Huh... that's odd. You usually look way more confident when you figure out the truth of the case."
"I do? Interesting..."
The detective rubbed the back of his head, deep in thought, which made Tanya geek out once again. "Are you deep in thought!? Is there something else you're trying to deduce!?"
"Yeah... You called me 'Detective Hartmut', right? Is that my name?"
"Yep! Harry Hartmut! Even your name sounded cool!"
"I see... so, I'm the detective, Harry Hartmut?"
"Yeah..." Tanya replied, looking slightly concerned now. "That should be pretty obvious by now. You're saying it like this is news to you."
"It is. I don't remember anything prior to waking up here."
"WHAT!?" Tanya screamed, disturbing the other souls sitting around the lobby. "What do you mean you don't remember anything!? That's impossible! Y-you're just in shock! Yeah! It happens all the time when humans suddenly die! You just need a moment to calm down and think about what happened and the details of your death will all come back to you in no time! Just calm down and think for a minute or ten... I SAID CALM DOWN!"
"You're the one who's freaking out! And I already thought about it, but I'm still drawing blanks here!"
"Please tell me you're joking..."
"No. I don't remember anything from before I woke up here."
Tanya looked visibly upset, practically on the verge of tears.
"What's the big deal? You're my Guardian Angel. You said you've been observing me, so why don't you tell me who I am?"
"I... I can't... I don't remember all the details."
"Well, this place looks like an office, so maybe my memories were archived somewhere? You guys are angels, so surely you must have someway of tracking this info, right?"
"I... kinda... sorta... maybe... delivered your file to an... unknown location... that I may, or may not recall..."
"YOU LOST MY FILES!?"
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"I'M SORRY! I didn't think I needed them! You're a super smart detective! I figured you'd remember everything anyway! Most people do! How was I supposed to know you'd get amnesia!? Please don't tell anyone, I don't want to get demoted again! I can't stand working in Mormon Purgatory!"
"This is ridiculous! You're my Guardian Angel! Please tell me you at least know HOW I died, right!?"
Tanya nervously played with her pure white hair, mumbling to herself.
"RIGHT!?"
She looked back at the aggravated man with a skittish smile, sweating bullets. "Y-you know... we're not... obligated... to watch our humans 24/7. We've got things to do, places to be and only so much power to infringe on the free will of others that sometimes we... just... kinda... stop for a little bit... I mean... what are the odds our chosen human will die, while we're.... doing other things...."
"What the hell could you possibly be doing that's more important than me dying!?"
"I was... playing... air hockey..."
"That's it...?"
"Um... it was a really intense game of air hockey? Lily's super good at it! She's like my rival!"
"I don't give a damn about Lily! That's the reason you weren't watching over me!? I died because you were playing air hockey!?"
"Well, it's not HOW you died, but it may loosely play a, very slight, contributing factor into your untimely demise."
"This is unbelievable! So what are we supposed to do now!?"
"Oh well, you're going to love this." She responded with absolutely zero confidence. "See, one of the biggest contributing factors as to whether you go to Heaven or Hell is your cause of death. But, since the information on that is... nebulous... you may be stuck waiting in Purgatory for... a few centuries..."
"WHAT!?"
"D-don't be mad! I'll wait with you! We'll be waiting together forever, in this endless abyss. Th-that sounds okay... I'll tell you stories about your past, you'll listen... I guess... and the eons will just fly by."
"I thought you said: Centuries."
"I say a lot of things."
"I don't want to aimlessly wander the endless void for all eternity! There's got to be another way to figure out how I died!"
In a panic, Tanya grabbed a bunch of loose papers from under the counter, shuffling through them in a flustered frenzy. "Okay, okay! J-just calm down! There's gotta be a way to salvage this! Oh! OH! Here! Look! Look!"
She shoved a paper in Hartmut's face. Swatting it away before grabbing it, he read through the document only to deduce that he couldn't understand a word of it. "What the hell kind of language is this?"
"What? You can't read Enochian?"
"No."
"Fine, I'll just give you the jist. See, three other people actually died at the same time and location as you did. You were the last one of the four to come in. So, all we've got to do is find the other victims of whatever this was and they'll tell us how you died."
Hartmut breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm glad someone around here was doing their job."
"I know, that was some super quick thinking on my part. You're genius must be rubbing off on me."
"Don't push it."
"A-anyway, if we talk to these guys, this whole debacle should be over in a jiffy. A nice simple, easy and straight-forward solution."
Hartmut let out a long, agonised groan. Despite being dead, his ghostly form still remembered all the sensations of being alive, including all the stress and anxiety from being thrust into such a bizarre situation along with the ever present migraine. Now rubbing his entire head in frustration, ruffling his already messy bed-hair, he sighed deeply before he finally recomposed himself.
"Okay... so, where are these three chuckleheads anyway?"
"They definitely haven't moved on yet, so they should be somewhere beyond those doors." Tanya pointed to the floating, ethereal white doors scattered about the abyss.
"Um... there's, like, twenty of these things. Could you give me a hint?"
"Oh, right. You'll need an angel to help guide you around." She then suddenly gasped in excitement. "That means I get to follow you around while you question the suspects! So awesome!"
"Great... my first partner is some overly excited receptionist from the afterlife."
Tanya grabbed Hartmut by the hand, dragging him toward a door. "Just follow me, Detective. Now, let's solve the mystery of you're own death, so I don't lose my job!"
Heading through the door, they entered into another abyss, only now with more doors lined up against non-existent walls, like a hallway. Tanya re-read the document. "Now then, the first departed soul listed here is called: Bernard Boomhauer."
"Does it have any other info on the guy, like how he died?"
"Nope. Just basic profile stuff like: Age, Gender, Species, etc. Personal information about their life is kept in their personal file. Looks like you'll have to get the details from him the old fashioned way. And I get to see you do it all in person!"
"Great... even in death I still have to interrogate people. Fine, just take me to the room he's waiting around in."
Tanya picked a door and escorted her favourite detective through it. They came into another reception desk area, although this one was unattended. "Look! There he is!" She pointed to the furniture in the corner where a bright ball of white light was floating above the chair.
"What, the orb?" Hartmut commented. "How did he get turned into an orb?"
"Let's go and ask him!"
Hartmut and Tanya approached the floating orb and introduced themselves, but the orb seemed displeased. "What are you doing here!?" It whined.
"I'll ask the questions around here." Hartmut replied. "You're Bernard Boomhauer, right? Apparently we both died at the same time. Can you tell me what happened?"
The ball appeared agitated as it fluttered around on the spot. "YOU! Th-this was all your fault! E-everything was going fine until you showed up!"
"What!? What did I do!?"
"Y-you know what you did!"
"No, I really don't. I don't remember anything."
"Well, I-I don't wanna talk about it! Just thinking about what happened makes me want to crawl into a hole and die!"
"But, we're already dead..."
"Yeah, because of you! And what the hell!? Why do you get to keep your body, when we both died form the same explosion!?"
"EXPLOSION!?"
Boomhauer shrivelled as he yelped to himself.
"Oh snap!" Tanya yelled. "He slipped up, Hartmut! Now drill into him!"
"Gladly! There was an explosion!? What happened!? Is that what killed me!?"
"What!?" Boomhauer angrily screamed. "I don't have to tell you anything! I'm dead already, so none of this even matters! I mean, what are you gonna do, threaten me!?"
"If I had a tennis racket I would!"
"Do your worst, but you ain't getting any more info outta me!"
"Why!? We're already dead, what do you have to gain from being so spiteful!?"
"Um..... self-satisfaction?"
"What!? Just tell me how I died!"
"Absolutely not. Goodbye now."
The little floating ball disappeared through the doors of the abyss.
"Hey, he's getting away! Tanya, help me find him!"
Tanya just sighed. "I don't think he'd say anymore even if we did catch up to him. It's like you said, he has nothing to lose or gain from speaking with you."
"But, why? He died from an explosion and now he's too embarrassed and angry to talk about it with me? What does that mean?"
"Oh, I guess that explains why he doesn't have a body!"
"Come again?"
"When you arrive in Purgatory, your soul takes on the appearance of your body at the moment of death. That includes any injuries you may have suffered from as a result of said death."
"So, if Boomhauer doesn't have a body, then does that mean it was completely obliterated in whatever that explosion was?"
"Sounds about right. If your body is destroyed that badly, your soul just appears as a little floating orb. Oh and just to clarify, this only lasts while you're in Purgatory. Once your Guardian Angel clears up all the paperwork for you and you're granted access into Heaven, then you get a shiny new body to enjoy."
"And if you don't get into Heaven?"
"Then you're dropped into Hell, where the Devil will have his way with you."
"Th-that could be interpreted in a... number of ways..."
"As a detective it's your job to consider every possibility. So, have fun thinking all about that!"
"Maybe, we should just forget about Tennis Ball and talk to the next guy on the list."
"Lemme see.... the next guy is: Ainsley Atomizer."
"Lead the way, Tanya."
"Assistant Detective Tanya, at your service!"
Tanya grabbed Hartmut's hand and dragged him off through another door and into another hallway.
"So, which one is Ainsley hiding behind?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter." Tanya answered. "These doors take you to wherever they feel like. Unless you're an Angel, then they behave themselves."
She opened the door into another unattended reception area. Sitting at the back of the room at a table was a tough looking elderly man in a long jacket. "That's the guy, Detective. Now go smother his face with evidence until you wring the truth out of him!"
"I don't really have any evidence yet..."
"Oh... well, this is gonna be awkward."