In a supermarket on Earth, a college student was working to help pay his college tuition, his family wasn´t very well off, so he tried to help where he could.
"That will be 23$, sir"
"Did you apply the discount coupons?"
"Yes, sir, however, these two have passed the validation date, so they can't be applied"
Kevin looked at the middle-aged man, hoping that he didn't start making a fuss. It doesn't happen that frequently but his shift was about to end and he didn´t want to deal with bullshit.
"Ok, thank you, son, here's the money."
Fortunately, today's last customer was reasonable.
"Here's the change, thank you for shopping here, come again!"
The man nodded, took his bag, and left and Kevin's shift was over.
"Kevin, give me a hand!"
Or not.
"Yes, manager."
Kevin went over to where the voice came from, the storage, and navigated between the shelves until he saw the owner of the voice, a little fat man in his late thirties, he had a mean face, with his thick lips and scrunched up eyebrows, but Kevin knew better, the manager understood his difficulties with consolidating college, study and work and helped him a lot, arranging shifts in his favor or giving the pay in advancement, he was very grateful for the manager, so he didn´t mind helping him little after the end of his shift.
"What do you need me for, manager."
"Kevin, could you climb this ladder and reach for the cables, I could do it myself but my knees aren´t what they used to be".
Speechlessly, Kevin looked at the small ladder and then at the small manager, imagining him on top of the ladder reaching for the cables, it wouldn't be enough, but Kevin, to not embarrass him, didn´t point it out and only nodded.
He climbed the ladder and was disgusted at how much dust had settled. He reached for the cables and took them in his hands.
"ACHOO" *Clang* *Rattle*
The dust caused him to sneeze and involuntarily bang against the shelf, causing a bottle of lubricant in the lower shelves to drop and spill it all over the floor, without Kevin's knowledge, he only heard the manager curse and thinking it was because of him hitting the shelf, apologized.
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The ladder was small, so Kevin jumped to the floor.
"OH, SHIT!" *Clang* *Rattle*Rattle*
He slipped on the lubricant and fell against the shelf again, causing it to shake so much, that he thought the shelf was going to dismantle itself, but it remained standing.
Kevin, noticed the dirty floor and looked embarrassed at the manager, and was about to apologize and take responsibility AKA cleaning the floor when an impact against his head made it the last thought he ever had.
---
Kevin felt like he was gently floating down a river but he wasn´t in full possession of his mental faculties, it was like a groggy state of mind where you can think but can´t make logical assumptions but he somehow had the feeling he was dead, he sensed other like him, floating next to him.
He felt his thought process becoming slower and simpler like his ego was being washed away, but he wasn´t panicking, no, he was peaceful instead, he felt like he was returning to his mother embrace.
*bang*
*Bang*
As he started hearing muffled banging sounds, he felt like his thought process was returning to him, he felt more and more awake.
*BAng*
The sound was becoming louder and he started noticing where he was, a galaxy full of stars and uncountable little blue will-o-wisps like him floating like an unending twisting river.
*BANg*
*BANG*
At that moment Kevin felt a premonition, whatever was making this noise was coming.
*CRASH*
Space shattered and splintered like glass, the splintered space tore the soul river into pieces, and the souls in its path simply disappeared, he looked at the culprit and didn't know what to think.
A fist of gigantic proportions had appeared from the shattered space and reached into a place he couldn't see.
The movement of the arm created so much turbulence, that the soul clusters that were the remnants of the river were scattered and a lot were simply snuffed out, and Kevin wasn´t any luckier, he was being battered by the force created by the arm and was also being sucked to the void between the space crevices, he was afraid, very much so, he could only strengthen his determination to resist the crushing force but couldn´t resist the pull from the void.
As he approached the space crevice he felt that he was losing his mental faculties again, but this time he didn't feel like he was returning to his mother's embrace, instead, he only felt terror.
He couldn't do anything, only one thought stubbornly remained, refusing to be erased.
'I have to resist! I have to resist!'
Endlessly looping, and protecting him from being totally gone.
From an outside perspective, Kevin's blue will-o-wisp like soul, chaotically roaming the eternal turbulence in the void, was slowly turning into a golden orb, as the result of the horribly dangerous tempering it was going through.
No one knows how much time passed, after all, in the void, time doesn't mean much, but a tear appeared in it, a passage to the material world, and luck has it, a golden resplendent orb passing by fell on it and appeared in a world very much like its past one and as soon it appeared, like it was attracted by something, it shot out with incredible speed.
No obstacle could stop it, he passed through them like a ghost until he reached his goal, a hospital room where a mother was clutching to her stillborn baby, ugly crying and screaming, but the golden soul didn´t stop, to be more precise the soul's target has always been the baby, he shot into it and the baby gasped and began trembling and crying.
The mother, not believing what happened cried even harder, but this time with a smile on her face, a smile that became present in the nurse, doctor, and father of the baby that were present in the room.