I awoke in a room unlike anyone I had ever seen before. Everything was made out of lush clouds no matter where I looked, if one ignored the strange clocks floating around aimlessly. The last thing I remembered was replacing the oxygen filters with new ones and then – this.

Looking at myself, I was in my usual working uniform which was suspiciously clean despite four hours of hard work before my arrival there.

“Hello? Anyone there?” My words rippled through the invisible ground I was standing on, creating small shockwaves as if someone dropped an object in water. But other than that strange phenomenon, I was given no reaction for several minutes until a middle aged man, smoking on a cigarette appeared out of thin air in front of me.

“Hi, you must be Lars. My name is Cronos. Nice to meet you.” He spoke fast and kept looking around towards the clocks as if he had important matters to attempt. “I´m sure you are confused right now … but the gist of it is that you died.” He flinched as one clock struck twelve and rather looked to other clocks instead of me.

“So … this is heaven?” It was a strange place, but it was still beautiful. The ripple effects in particular was something I could observe for a very long time.

“Not quite, no. You are … in the present of the future and the past. In short, I am the god of time. So let´s make this as short as possible and get you on track for your new life, shall we?” He hurried along and gave me a rather wry smile which didn’t convince me to hurry along as well.

“Wait, the god of time? Then … why don’t we have time for an explanation?” I asked confused. I mean, couldn’t he just stop time and we talked as much as we wanted?

“Because believe it or not, time is linear and its always going away. And since I am time, I always feel my own time running away.”  He really didn’t make much sense to me and I was pretty sure his speed didn’t help with my comprehension.

“I … don’t understand?” I asked bewildered.

“In short, we should hurry because we don’t have all day. End of discussion. So, let´s settle you for your new life. You will be a cleric called Lars Aphistropheles who has a high position in my church on a planet called Solaris. I can´t exactly make you a new body-” He sped along so fast I could barely make out single words, let alone everything he was saying.

“Wait, what?” I asked, but he paid me no heed and continued his confusing explanation.

“- but I can give you the body of someone who has already lived twenty odd years. I´m sure you will adapt just fine. The important part is that you will be the prophet who divines the future on the gods command which means you will need to do a bit of work for us. But rest assured, that also comes with privileges like riches, power, woman, whatever you humans prefer these days. If you want to see your friends, that’s sadly impossible, so please don’t ask for it. Did you understand everything?” He asked and finally breathed in after a whole lot of talking constantly.

“Ehm, n-“ I said, but I was promptly interrupted by an impatient god of time.

“Great, I will contact you when the time comes.” And with that, everything in front of my eyes went dark for several seconds. And then, the information came. A torrent of memories I didn’t make were forcefully put into my head.

The life of Lars Aphistropheles was certainly an uneventful one so far, but even that was too much for me when I saw again. I stared into the eyes of sister Lily, my mouth wide open in confusion.

For several seconds, I struggled to understand what had happened to me and even more importantly who I was. The memories of my old life were there, but I also had new, separate memories now.

"Lars, are you okay?” Lily asked confused, holding a bunch of old books in her hands.

“Yeah, I´m fine … thank you Lily.” A warm smile crept onto my face and stayed there for a little while. I liked this woman I had met a month prior … which was strange because this weren’t my feelings. This crush was something foreign to me and yet it had always been a part of me.

It took me three weeks to understand that I was neither the Lars that lived on Solaris prior to my arrival, nor the Lars that died on a spaceship. I was both. And slowly I came to terms with it.

As I made peace with myself and accepted that this had become my new reality, the crush I had for Lily developed into a blossoming love which was thankfully reciprocated by her. I was happy. My life was a bit repetitive, but I experienced nature, I felt truly free and this world had become my new home.

Everything was developing nicely until the god of time suddenly appeared right beside me when I did our laundry.

“It will rain tomorrow. Write it down and tell others.” He vanished with that, leaving me startled and confused. But strangely enough, I knew that I could trust him. He gave me a second life with a beautiful partner and while we weren’t living extravagantly, we were happy. And so, I wrote it down, went to the town and proclaimed my divination.

At first, the townsfolk were sceptical of my prophecies, but after tenth time of claiming that something would happen with it eventually happening, they believed me and spread the word themselves.

Swiftly, I was given the position of the pope of time and could finally grant Lily a few of her more materialistic wishes. We moved to a nice house in the middle of a larger city and were able to support a lot of people in need this way. We were even expecting a child which made the community, and especially us, overflow with joy.

“I have more for you. Go to a public space where you can say it out loud.” It was a sudden request by the god of time, but I had stopped to question him. He never explained anything either anyways.

Swiftly, I went to the marketplace and jumped on top of a small pedestal. The people around me looked in curiosity, some even taking out some holy scriptures and praying with them.

“In ten years, there will be a small flood in the bay area.” He told me and I reiterated it right away. “In the Worcherster Kingdom, in a sunken place, there will be a Vampire who serves whoever rescues her.” That was also pretty standard stuff, even though it didn’t contain a natural disaster of some kind which were mostly the contents of the prophecies. “And this will be my last divination.”

I stopped. That was new. I looked over to the god of time, but was already gone again. His words didn’t make much sense until I arrived home with an aching chest, looked one last time at my wonderful wife with our son in her arms and fell over.

My face made a ripple in the weird floor as I hit it, strangely without any pain whatsoever.

“Oh, there you are.” The god of time mumbled quickly.

“I … died?” I stuttered, completely confused yet again.

“Heart attack. You had an unnoticed condition which meant you had only a few years left to live.” The god of time told me, staring at a clock which was short before twelve.

“You … put me in a body which would fail me?” I asked in confusion. I truly couldn’t believe it. Everything was nice until … this. Why did it happen to me after all I had done for him?

“Yup. Great combination skills, Sherlock.” He told me quickly.

“… why?” I simply asked flabbergasted. I had done nothing to deserve this treatment and I desperately wanted to go back to my family.

“You are a tool. More specifically, one to settle my debt with death.” He explained while the clock he was looking at struck twelve.

“What? I don’t understand?” I was furious at his nonchalant attitude. He just took everything away from me which Lily and I had achieved in these two years of living together.

“You don’t need to.” He stated and nodded towards a black portal opening a few metres away.

“In fact, you knowing anything is a liability to my plans.” A black cloud entered this dimension and began extending some sort of nebula towards me.

“He is all yours. The debt is settled with this.” The god of time told this cloud and stepped aside.

“Lily… please, let me say goodbye to her.” I pleaded to both of them, but I only got snickering back from the cloud and a completely disinterested god of time. To them, we were truly just tools to be used. It was way too late that I realized this fact.

“I´m sorry, but your love isn´t as important as my daughter. Thank you for helping me.” The black cloud told me and touched my body with its nebula.

Lily. Tim. My family was the last thought I had until my soul was ripped to shreds.