Voting results

A: Hello and welcome to ‘Everybody’s Gonna Die’, the talk show for dead people, by dead people! For our penultimate show, I’m Alexa Despacito, I got more rhymes than a river’s got flow (thank you for asking). Here with me tonight is Saheel Bhosle! How are you feeling, Saheel?

S: I’m okay, sister. Is this heaven or hell?

A: It depends what kind of person you are! What would you call it?

S: I wouldn’t call it either. I would call it the end.

A: Or is it the beginning? Psyche!

S: Can I ask you about what happened to Sean? Is he here as well?

A: As much as I’d like to say ‘and he’s here with us tonight’, Sean was playing double or nothing. You’re the first and only person to turn the tables on one of your enemies!

S: By that logic… we’re not in heaven or hell, nor double or nothing, nor end or beginning, but ‘single’.

A: You’re the boss, king – call it whatever you like! How do you feel about being made recently single? Sean might be out of the game, but Asha’s still alive. A widow, even.

S: I’m not about to forgive her, but I don’t pity her. She’ll lose the vicarage. We didn’t have much in the way of savings, and she has a few year’s gap on her CV. Life’s about to get doubly as hard.

A: Will you speak to her, when she finally makes her way here?

S: With the end of life came the end of marriage. There’s nothing more to link us except painful memories.

A: What will you do now, in the afterlife? I don’t exactly see a guy like you going around and preaching the gospel.

S: Maybe I’ll finally go into financial auditing. I don’t know. Something quiet.

A: Are you going to look up any of your recently deceased co-players?

S: I wouldn’t mind bumping into Eirlys, but I’m not going out of my way to look for her. Do people who die in the same bus crash meet up with their alumni? What do they have in common, exactly, other than sharing the same unlucky moment? What’s there to say? We knew each other for barely forty-eight hours.

A: Let’s talk votes, then. First, it seems a significant faction of readers withheld their vote in protest – probably more than those who voted! Do you have a message to those people who didn’t vote in order to try and keep you alive?

S: Thank you, brothers and sisters. I know what it’s like to try really hard to get something done but fail anyway, so I forgive you. What I won’t forgive is those who did vote. You are the Seans of the world, the wolves in sheepskin, and the reason a human will never be able to trust another human. Your behaviour is the reason behind divorce, behind wealth inequality, and the destruction of our natural environment. But I’ll say no more, because I know my words will fall on deaf ears. Know only that you are beyond forgiveness.

A: Preach! You know what I think?

S: What?

A: By the time they’ve learnt to trust one another, they’ll all be dead. That’s what I think. Alright, back to the voting. Thanks to the low voting turnout, you actually had the highest voting percentage yet (although this isn’t surprising given it was split between three characters), at a whopping 78%! What’s more, the author sent me a little note just to tell me you were the character that they struggled the most to write throughout the game, and they never expected you to get this far! Are you used to being so unpopular?

S: I used to only care what the lord thought. Now, I just don’t care. In a world without morals, I have just as much right to kill Sean as you have right to kill me.

A: Kill Sean? Buddy, you didn’t just kill him. His consciousness is gone. Wiped out. Forever. He can’t reincarnate, he can’t repent, he can’t beg your forgiveness.

AUDIENCE: Shudder!

S: Good. I wouldn’t be happy with anything less.

A: Time for what little reader mail we have. These guys weren’t after anything more than a penny for their thoughts, I guess. #4 wrote: “Sorry, brother. Even though your fallen water pistol is funny”.

S: After everything you know about me, you still have the nerve to ask for forgiveness? I’m not forgiving you, #4. Own up to what you’ve done. As for the weapon – I don’t see why everybody else got swords and nets while I had to make do with a super soaker. I could have executed Sean by cutting his head off, or garrotting him, or bludgeoning him, but instead I splashed him with a shot of water and he died. What a moment of power! But life is absurd, and I got what I wanted.

A: On the flipside, you were 90% less thirsty than the other characters for the majority of your run. Response #6 wrote: “completely consumed by revenge is kinda boring ngl,” and their comma is leaving me in suspense.

S: If I have to choose between doing what I want and dying – I choose doing what I want, sister. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way and only put into practice the final moments of my life.

A: Response #8 wrote: “:(“

S: Same.

A: Response #9 wrote: “go to hell”

S: As a long-time theologian, it pains me to admit hell doesn’t exist. There’s double, single, or nothing. I suppose I could publish some papers about it, but the only people who’d be interested in such a revelation are alive. Are you alive? You can spread the word for me. I don’t mind if you take the credit.

A: If they can convince people about this place, then they deserve all the credit they can get! Alright, we’re down to the final stretch. Who are you going to place your bets on, Saheel? Connie or Faust?

S: I’ve been around them for about five minutes, sister. All I can say is they both want the other to win. Maybe they’ll sabotage themselves to try and make the other look more appealing – but I still don’t trust Faust’s relationship to the flesh mound. It’s pretty suspicious that he made it to the final two.

A: What do I know? I’m just a foetus.

S: Well that settles the old abortion debate. Who’d have known the Catholics were right…

A: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all we’ve got time for tonight! I’ve been Alexa Despacito, this was my guest Saheel Bhosle, and this has been ‘Everybody’s Gonna Die!’ Join me next time for our final episode of the season, and a conversation with our runner-up!