“Wow, congratulations on beating the odds,” a voice said, stirring Natalia from her painful rest.

“What was any of that?” Natalia asked before slowly lifting a hand to her chest. She didn’t know why she had such a terrible dream, but she couldn’t help being thankful it was over. Her hand felt something wet and looked down, only to scream when she saw the gaping wound in her chest, blood pooled around it. It also didn’t help that she seemed to be floating in some big, empty void.

“Will you please calm down? Having ear drums is rough enough without you bursting them,” a voice said, making her look up and finally realize there was someone standing there. Maybe floating would be the better term, she didn’t know right now.

“Where am I? What’s going on? Why am I here? Wait, sis?” Natalia asked, before looking back down at the wound. She reached a hand up to touch it, but she didn’t feel anything. Even when she poked her finger into it, there wasn’t any pain. All she could feel was the dampness on her fingers. “It doesn’t hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt? Is this some kind of weird hospital?”

“Well, this whole process wouldn’t work very well if you were in agony, now would it?” the voice asked. Natalia glanced up again and narrowed her eyes.

“Rachel? What are you doing here? Where are we? What ‘process’?” Natalia asked, trying to suppress the urge to start screaming again.

“I’m not Rachel,” her sister said.

“I think I’d know my big sister,” Natalia said.

“No, listen, I’m not your sister,” Rachel said before rolling her eyes. “I just take the form of the person who you trust the most and are probably going to freak out the least on. Now, will you calm down already? It has been a really busy year for us and we’ve got a lot of work to do. I just wanted to say congratulations, you really beat the odds.”

“What? Beat the odds? Why doesn’t this hurt? The last thing I remember was those people running at me and then the man grabbing me--”

“Yes, yes, then stabbing. As I said, congratulations, that’ll really help,” her sister said. “Right, what do you use now? Here, hold out your hand.”

Natalia gave a small nod before holding out her right hand. This had to just be a dream. No matter how she looked at it, it had to be a dream. It just felt real was all. Or didn’t feel real. Some parts of it felt real. A tablet computer appeared in her hands a moment later. “Err, what am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.

“Make your choices, go onto a bit of an afterlife, then reincarnate and try again,” her sister said.

“Uh huh,” Natalia said. Maybe this wasn’t just a dream, maybe some kind of fever dream. “And if you’re not my sister, who are you?”

“Death.”

Natalia stared at the woman, looking her up and down for a few moments. Jeans, an old faded t-shirt with a falcon on the front and curly hair that really needed a good brushing. “You’re supposed to be Death? The Death?”

“Well, a death,” the woman said. “There’s a lot of you people who die, it’s a big job. Speaking of which, I’ve really got to get this going. You people are really multiplying down there and it really eats up a lot of time explaining all this every time.”

Natalia just sighed and shook her head. This had to be a fever dream of some sort. Maybe she drank a little too much.

“Yeah, denial often is the first step,” the woman said. “You never made it to the party, anyway.”

“What?” Natalia asked.

“Nothing. Listen, just call me Death. I’m the only one of us who will be handling you anyway, so it’s easier that way.”

“Riiiiiight,” Natalia said before looking down at the tablet. “What game is this?” she asked.

“Life,” Death said.

The tablet had a circled number at the top and a long list of different things that seemed to add and subtract to make the total. Her eyes narrowed when she saw a circled on that read ‘Predicted: Murdered’ with a multiplication symbol next to it. “What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s why I said congratulations, obviously,” Death said with a roll of her eyes. “See, when you reincarnated last time, you decided to gamble on what you thought your next death would be. Good job on murder, by the way. The rate really was down and between that plague going on over there and the whole mass of other issues you had going for you, I really suspected medical death or suicide. So congratulations for beating the odds. You should be proud. Not too proud, though.”

Natalia’s eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth for a moment to snap at the figure, but honestly she couldn’t really come up with a proper response. Finally she sighed. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Eh, I caught the highlights,” Death said with a shrug. “It could have been worse. You were kind of a masochist to yourself this time, though. I mean, really? I get that the penalties give bonuses, but they only multiply your final score. They don’t really do much if you die before you can really get going.”

“You keep saying that,” Natalia said before she flicked a finger on the screen, making it scroll through. “So, what, it’s all just a game? Everyone who dies just comes here and gets this tablet and can read everything? Wait, is this the tablet I had when I was a kid?”

“Dear heavens, no,” Death said with a shake of her head. “You got the tablet because that’s what you know and could identify. It depends on where you’re from, when you’re from, all that. Let me tell you, it’s always a pain when we get someone who has to have everything on stone tablets. Those things get heavy, fast. Are you almost done?”

Natalia blinked a few more times before looking at the screen. “Is this a big score?” she finally asked.

“Ehhhh, I’ve seen bigger,” Death said with a shrug. “Not terrible, not great. Just kind of there. It’s better than last time, though. Going positive is always good. I’ve seen a few people who ended up entirely wiping out their score and starting from scratch, now that was rough.”

“So you’re saying the entirety of my life can be summed up on a five inch wide tablet?” Natalia asked. “Good to know my life was so easily managed.”

“Annnnd there’s anger. Can we go ahead and just skip to bargaining?” Death asked. “Listen, I get it, you’re dead. It sucks, oh well, get over it. Everyone you ever knew died and everyone they knew will die and so on and so forth,” Death said, waving her hand dismissively. “Just be thankful. There are a lot worse things than death.”

“I’m not angry,” Natalia said, though she couldn’t suppress the growing anger and resentment towards this woman. She may have shared her sister’s face, but she certainly didn’t have the personality.

“Because I’m not your big sister, Natalia,” Death said with a shake of her head. “It’s just easier to hear it from a loved one. You’re dead. It sucks. Moving on. So let’s decide what to do with you.”

Natalia’s eyes widened and she started to feel a little nervous. “Do with me? What are you--”

“Where you go, obviously,” Death said before motioning down to the tablet.

The screen had changed, now displaying her score in the top left with a bunch of different menus under it. “So, what? I just choose things?” Natalie asked.

“Yes,” Death said. “Don’t expect to understands it all, no one ever does. We’ll start small. Universe.”

Natalia nodded slowly before pushing one of the menus that now read ‘Universe’. She wanted to scream when she saw just how many that appeared. “There’s got to be a thousand of them here!”

“Oh, no, a lot more of them than that,” Death said with a laugh. “Those are just the ones you could understand. See, with so many different options it’s really hard for you to be expected to get everything, so if we tried to let you choose from all of them then you’d more or less be picking things randomly. Which you can, if you like. But I wouldn’t recommend it unless you want to completely wreck your score. Most just choose a package, far easier.”

Natalia sighed and fell back, hitting… well, nothing. Laying on an empty void was one of the strangest sensations she’d ever felt. “This is the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.”

“And right back to denial,” Death said. “I really am busy, so if we could move this along, I may be timeless but that doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed by the tedium.”

“Can I be a death?” Natalia asked.

“Eh, if you want. It’s a good, safe way to get points. It gets boring, though,” Death said with a shrug before lifting her hands up. “So, we can--”

“WAIT!” Natalia said quickly, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean that. I was just curious! Can’t I just redo it all? Go back as Natalia?”

Death gave a small smile and nodded. “If you want to go back to that world, sure. You’ll be born there again and, while your birth is decided, past that nothing is guaranteed. Different parents, different time. But your last selections will stay the same. I’ll just need to clear your memories and everything first.”

Natalia gave a shudder and shrunk down a little bit. “I meant as Natalia. Come back to life. I didn’t really get much of a chance to enjoy things before. I’d like another chance to, you know, try it out.”

Death sighed and shook her head. “Ah. No, that universe doesn’t allow that. Listen, all of the universes have certain rules. Yours doesn’t allow that kind of stuff. Now, if you wanted to try another world as yourself, you could. But it’s not going to be what you’re hoping.”

“What? Why?” Natalia asked.

“We used to offer that. Be reborn in another world, because we need you to fix some issue. Re-establish balance and what not. They’d almost always die. Turns out, throwing someone into a world without any idea how it works just kind of gets them killed. So we let them start taking things too. Kind of like your point selection system, but better. We’d let them use things they’d invented in their world, or all kinds of weird things. Had one girl who used her character sheet from some tabletop game. It was adorable. That, mostly, worked better.”

“Mostly?” Natalia asked.

“Yeah, mostly,” Death said before shaking her head. “But, it turns out if you give someone the ability to kill gods and becoming ageless? Some of them may go insane or worse. Suddenly instead of having an ancient god who’s trying to enslave the world, you now have an even more dangerous person who can kill gods and it really just gets out of hand after a while. Then you have the ones who end up falling in love with the thing they were sent to destroy, or decide to finish whatever they started and it all just becomes this big, huge mess.”

“Oh,” Natalia said, lowering her eyes. “So you don’t do it anymore?”

“Of course we do,” Death said, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Some universes are absolutely insane and on the verge of collapse. If we DON’T fix them, then every soul in that universe is likely gone forever. But there are limits. Namely, you’d have to do it entirely by that world’s rules. You might be rare or a bit above average, but you wouldn’t be anything world crushing.” Death pointed to the score on her tablet. “More importantly though, about your home.”

“What about it?” Natalia asked.

“You were on an easy world.”

“EASY? How was that EASY?” Natalia asked.

“Ow, yelling again?” Death asked, putting her hands over her ears. “Ugh, this is why I hate eardrums. And yes, easy. You can’t damage the soul there. You get shot, stabbed, pierced, blown up? You still have a soul and come here. Even if you ruin your score entirely, you can always start over. Most of these worlds? Not so much. That’s the main reason we need people to take the risks to go fix them. Your soul can get shredded to pieces and then you’re gone for good. Maybe, if you’re lucky, it can be fixed eventually. But that’s a big if,” Death said before giving a smile. “So, want in?”

Natalia slowly lowered her eyes to the tablet. “You know, I think--”

“You’ll be able to do magic,” Death said.

“You should have led with that,” Natalia said.

“I am required to give you all the risks first,” Death said dismissively. “Besides, it’s not guaranteed that your soul will be shredded. It’s really not that big a risk, but it is possible. Or worse. The way I see it is you should treat this like a vacation of sorts. One where you either die a grisly, terrible death or, if you succeed, become a world saving hero who probably goes down in legend before dying of old age. If you’re lucky, you get parades in your honor and a life of luxury. And, since you’d be continuing from your last score,” Death said before lightly tapping the tablet. “It’ll only make things better going forward. It’s part of why it’s so popular.”

“I don’t even know what my score really does,” Natalia said softly before clicking on more of the menus. “I never really have been the best at making decisions.”

“Nobody ever is. How about this? Tell me what you want and I’ll set it up for you. Part of my task IS to help you through this process.”

Natalia nodded before she looked down at her chest. “Err, about this, though. The blood?”

“Oh, don’t worry, that’ll go away when you get a new body,” Death said before holding out her hand and another tablet appeared in her hand which she began to click on. “Right, so you want to help people, right?”

“I mean, yes. That’d be nice,” Natalia said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“You’d be surprised. So, you want to save the world? Be the big gosh darn hero who gets parades in the street?” Death asked. “Adoring fans, maybe a few dozen, what did your world have? Kings vying for your hand?”

Natalia’s cheeks turned a bit red, but she nodded. “I guess that all sounds nice. I mean if I’m going to a new world, I’d really like to be able to make friends where ever I go. I don’t really need parades or anything. I guess I’d just kind of like to be able to draw them to me?”

“Mmm hmm, seems easy enough,” Death said. “Don’t want parades, want to be able to make friends where ever you go, draw them to you. Bit weird, but who am I to judge? Anything else?”

“Well, err, I guess if I had the choice, anything?” Natalia asked.

“Obviously not. That’s the whole point of sending you to begin with, isn’t it? But reasonable stuff is simple if you have the points for it. Don’t be shy, after all, I’ll take this secret to your grave. Death’s honor.”

Natalia just stared at Death with an unamused look.

“Bah, I see your sense of humor met an untimely demise as well. What do you want?” Death said.

“I guess I’d like to be cute too? If that’s okay? I mean, if you’re making me a new body and all.”

Death paused for a moment before looking down at herself and then looking over to her. “Ahhhh, I get it. You were the ugly little sister.”

Natalia cringed and shook her head. “I wasn’t ugly! I just, you know. I figure--”

“Right. Unpopular little sister. Got it, want to be popular and cute, yeah, easy enough,” Death said with a wave of her hand. “Want to have awesome magic, able to make friends, really draw them to you. Sound good?”

Natalia nodded. “I guess. Though the whole having kings and queens vying for my hand part doesn’t actually sound bad either. You really don’t seem to have a lot of faith in me about this.”

“I mean, you’re probably going to die again. You already got killed once, after all. Just try to remember things won’t necessarily be perfect. You’re going into a world that is or recently was on the verge of total destruction. They might not even know it yet, either,” Death said before snapping her fingers and the tablet disappeared. “So just remember, have some fun with it. Try not to get entirely purged and, who knows? Maybe you’ll have ‘savior of a world’ on next score. I’d offer some advice but I doubt you’ll remember much of this anyway. Oh, but one thing. Even if you’re a necromancer try not to make too many friends, okay? It’ll just get sad. Good luck!”

Natalia paused for a moment, trying to process that. Wait, make friends? Her eyes went wide with alarm when she realized what Death meant. She didn’t want to literally MAKE her friends! “Wait, I--”

But, before she could object, Death and the void disappeared.

MelodyAvant

As the story will progress with every completed vote cycle, this weeks number of votes are either 5 at either of the posts of this story, or 7 across both. I hope everyone enjoys.

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