In the depth of a deep darkness, a single soul floated through the endless universe. This soul once belonged to a man, but now it was the soul of a woman.

The soul didn’t care anymore about such superficial things. The shadows parted like giant black curtains, and a white blinking ball appeared, floating in the darkness.

The soul awakened and looked around herself… With a silent scrutiny, then it fluttered, its ethereal material, blinking with dim light, as if it was sighing or mimicking the larger, much sharper energy condensation. The being that called itself a god so many years ago…

‘It wasn’t a dream after all… and I wasn’t completely nuts.’

Said the soul, belonging to the dark elf woman known as Ash. The meta dimensional being finally called out to the soul.

‘It is good to see you back, Carl.’

‘Ugh… I never thought that I would hear that name once again… It was over twenty years now? Right? Since I came to Arda, that is…’

The godly being hummed, then blinked sharply and said.

‘It was exactly twenty years to the last second, Carl, or should I call you Ash now?’

‘It… doesn’t matter. Call me whatever you want, but what do you mean by exactly twenty years?’

‘I mean what I said, you spent twenty years on Arda, precisely to the last second.’

There was a moment of silence, then the soul continued in confusion.

‘But how could that be? I mean… I died so randomly, I was shot by a poisoned arrow from a rival orc tribe… and I died from the poison back in my home…’

The angelic being blinked once more, with a sharp presence of light appearing around it. Then spoke again.

‘In this world, nothing happens by accident, Ash.’

‘Yeah… sure, you can literally say anything and I wouldn’t be able to check it, anyway..’

The strange creature laughed lightly.

‘Sceptical to the last moment, and beyond. I see.’

The soul would roll her eyes if she had any to begin with.

‘Okay, so, assume that I believe you, and I died exactly as it was meant to be, and everything happened for a reason…’

‘Yes.’

Answered the flickering ball of light.

‘Then, you should begin explaining yourself, you floating bastard! I was raped because of you, for multiple times! This was a hellish life to begin with! Do you know how terrified I was to give birth to children? And you even made them to be twins for the first time. It hurt like a bitch! I was sure that I will die in childbirth!’

‘But you did not and gave birth to so many beautiful kids.’

‘What else could I do? That damn orc was chewing off my ears that I promised to give him as many kids as he wanted! The bastard wanted twenty, I only got to nine though…’

‘Was it truly necessary to name the first boy, Todd?’

The soul of the woman spluttered as she heard the question.

‘I had to vent somewhere… I meant it to be a joke, but Grilguth didn’t know the context, as I wasn’t allowed to share anything meaningful, thanks to you! In the end it stuck… I thought I would die from embarrassment…’

‘I see. It was very surprising that you managed to convince the tribe to go into the mountains and live thereafter the first battle with the Rohirrim.’

‘I mean, they were literally running into their death… I wasn’t really willing to kill pale skins, I mean humans… even after it turned out they had no worries about cutting my throat… Thanks to you once again.‘

‘Sauron lost the war, and Mordor was destroyed without you even seeing a single one of the main characters in the story. I was a bit disappointed with that.’

The soul of the woman would put her hand on her hips in annoyance, if she would have hands, or a hip at the moment.

‘Didn’t you just say that nothing happens by accident?’

‘It is true, but that doesn’t mean that I control everything. You all have a free will, it would be boring otherwise. Think of it like cooperation, similar to the time we created your new body, Carl.’

‘So you mean that I was raped by accident? It was you who put me in a place filled with orcs… and that cursed root I fell over…’

‘Oh, that, the tree you were walking by was an Ent who accidentally knew Legolas. When you cursed at his name, the Ent decided to trip you in its anger.’

‘Wh-what? You are pulling my leg, right?’

The floating, otherworldly light globe flickered jovially.

‘Yes, and no, maybe.’

‘YOU! Sigh… you are impossible… This doesn’t explain why I was raped like that, though! You better spit it out, as it was you who put me in that location… Don’t try to give me that crap, it being an accident and shit like that!’

‘It wasn’t an accident.’

The being admitted at last, changing its tone to a more serious one.

The soul of Ash felt betrayed suddenly, as if a long foreseen and dire possibility had become true. The white mist forming its ethereal body wavered as if in pain when she asked the next question.

‘Why?’

There was a moment of heavy silence as the two floated slowly in the midst of unending darkness. Finally, the being answered.

‘Carl, you don’t remember how you died on Earth, right?’

The soul of the woman dimmed for a moment, as she answered in confusion.

‘I don’t, and that is good with me… anyway, what does that have to do with anything? I don’t understan-’

The angelic being interrupted the soul as he stated in an emotionless tone.

‘You read the messages on your girlfriend's phone, Carl. You misunderstood a poor joke and ended up thinking that she was cheating on you. In your blind rage, you raped her, then when the truth came out, you killed yourself to escape the consequences.’

‘Wha-what!? That… that must be another bad joke, right? Please tell me that it is…’

‘Look into yourself, Carl… I have never hidden your memories of that night… it was you who wanted to forget them.’

‘No-no! It cannot be!’

‘It seems that I will have to help you remember to them, after all.’

‘No! Stay away from me!’

A series of flashing images burst into the soul’s mind as she began to scream under the assault of traumatizing images. A moment passed, and the soul slowly floated down to the ground of condensed light which served as the floor for this conversation.

The soul has turned into a sobbing mess. As it repeated the pitiful sentence times and times again.

‘I am sorry… ‘

After a few minutes of this, the chaotically blinking soul of the woman, once a man, stopped pleading and straightened up somewhat…

‘You… I think, I understand now… I guess, I deserved it… ‘

There was another minute of heavy silence. As the once again lost soul, felt waves and waves of misery and self loathing. It thought that everything she suffered on Arda was an injustice… and that belief gave her the strength to push on.

Alas, it turned out to be the exact opposite. She deserved all of it… to the very last moment.

The silence was unbearable to the soul. She couldn’t endure it any longer, as she said, almost hopefully.

‘It is time.. for me to visit purgatory, right? Twenty years of burning, might just be enough to forget this…’

The ancient being finally spoke up once more, as it said.

‘One would think that you had enough of that place… After all, you just left it a few minutes ago.’

The lost soul was confused, as he/she looked at the holy presence…

‘What are you talking about?’

She asked.

‘You just spent twenty years in purgatory. You served your time and died while protecting one of your children, your youngest daughter, called Ashryn from a rival orc tribe, raiding the outskirts of your village.’

There was a moment of silence. Then the white orb continued.

‘You got hit in her place with that poisoned arrow. The funniest thing is that if you were really an orc, that poison wouldn’t have killed you.’

There was a long silence falling over the endless halls. Finally, the lost soul asked in a whisper.

‘Then… what now?’

There was a powerful burst of light, illuminating the hall, chasing away the darkness, and coloring it with a white, holy aura.

A deep rumbling sound shook the world, as everything seemed to resonate with spoken words filled with power.

‘Those who wish to save their life shall eventually lose it. While those who give it away willingly for the sake of my creation, which is part of me, will live.’

Then the light retreated and the omnipotent presence slowly disappeared while the darkness crawled back to fill the halls.

The light globe, as if humbled by the presence that just visited, stated.

‘There is still a place for you, sinner, there always was. And I believe someone is waiting to give you an earful on the other side. She has watched your trial over the years… I don’t think making her wait any longer would be a good idea.’

‘She… watched it… is she?’

‘Yes… it is she… ’

‘But when did she die?’

‘Oh, it has been more than two hundred years on Earth since you died… there was a long line you had to wait… you essentially floated in the darkness in slumber for one-hundred and eighty years.’

‘Why? Why would she even watch it?’

‘I believe… that eternity can be quite dull at times… many likes to watch the purgatory trials as a pass time. Come to think of it, you made a small fanbase for yourself…’

‘… I can’t believe this…’

‘You can’t help it, angels still love to read Tolkien stories… you might have to get on track with the new Ring books though...’

‘Wait… what?’

‘It’s a never-ending story… if angels are the ones who write it. Then again, the release of new books is a pretty slow process… it could take a few hundred years each… ’

The soul of the woman was left stupefied hearing that.

‘Didn’t you say that you were God?’

‘I am part of god, yes. I am an angel created to judge the souls among many others.’

‘You lied!’

‘Off you go…’

‘Wait.. you lying bas-’

Meanwhile, a collum of light surrounded the lost soul, as it was spirited away to a place no mortal eyes could ever see.

In his place, another soul appeared, as the angelic being told it the same thing as it told Carl twenty years ago. The conversation went along nicely, and the angel finally got to its favorite question.

‘Where would you like to be reborn?’

‘In Arda…’

‘Hold my beer…’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Nothing… you want to be a dark elf, right?’

‘No way, everyone would mistake me with an orc…’

‘You are quite right about that, cough… Actually, is this your first time?’

‘What are you talking about? You are weird…’

‘I guess I was wrong…’

‘I want to be a warg!’

‘… Are you a furry?’

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The End.