Chapter 2: Core Incarnations

Brent’s eyes fluttered open, his vision slow to adjust. Everything felt wrong—his body was heavy, weighed down as though gravity had doubled, and even the smallest movement required more effort than it should. His limbs felt disconnected, sluggish, like they weren’t responding the way he expected. He attempted to stretch his fingers, but they barely twitched.

The world around him came into focus, though it looked distorted. Colors were muted, washed-out versions of themselves. The once-bright reds, blues, and greens of the world were now replaced with dull, faded tones, as though someone had drained the life out of everything. The vibrancy that should have existed felt like a distant memory, replaced by a bleak, almost grayish palette.

With great effort, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. The motion sent a wave of dizziness through him, and for a moment, the room spun in a nauseating spiral. He closed his eyes, trying to regain control, but the floor beneath him didn’t help—it was rough, a cheap Berber carpet that scratched against his skin. He instinctively pulled his arm away, the fibers irritating him further.

As he blinked, trying to shake the discomfort, Brent noticed the figures around him. People walked past, moving in slow, deliberate strides, as if oblivious to his presence on the floor. No one stopped to help. No one even glanced down. He was just... there, unnoticed, in the middle of the walkway. His heart thudded in his chest as he fought to clear his mind.

"Where the hell am I?" The thought echoed in his head, the confusion tightening like a vice around his chest. The more he took in his surroundings, the less sense any of it made.

To his right and left were sets of chairs, each neatly aligned in rows that made the room feel unsettlingly organized. It resembled a waiting area, but one that felt wrong—too sterile, too mechanical. The chairs were an odd shade of beige, uncomfortable-looking, and functional at best. The air smelled faintly of something antiseptic, adding to the sterile atmosphere. At the far end of the room, a row of counters stretched across the wall, separated from the people standing before them by thick plexiglass panels.

It looked like a cross between a government office and a bank, but the vibe was more clinical, detached. Behind the counters, a few shadowy figures moved back and forth, barely acknowledging the people who approached. The people on this side of the glass waited at the windows, staring ahead blankly. They stood with slumped shoulders and vacant expressions, as if programmed to move only when necessary.

Brent's gaze was drawn to the ticket dispenser near the far wall. One by one, people approached, took a number, and shuffled off to the side, their expressions completely void of life. They clutched their tickets like lifelines but showed no emotion, no anticipation or frustration. Nothing. It was eerie how synchronized they seemed, as though their entire purpose was to follow this routine without question. He watched as they filed into the sitting area, waiting for their numbers to be called.

The only sign of movement above the counter was the glowing red display of a number counter. The digits flickered in and out of focus, and for a moment, Brent thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. But as he squinted, the current number being called was unmistakable: forty-three trillion, nine hundred fifty-four million, two hundred eighty-one thousand, six hundred twenty-two. The absurdity of the figure made his stomach drop.

"What... is this place?" Brent muttered under his breath, the strangeness of the situation finally beginning to overwhelm him.

Shakily, he pushed himself to his feet, his legs wobbling slightly beneath him. He swayed as he stood, the dizziness still lingering in the back of his head like an unwelcome guest. Once steady, he scanned the room again, searching for anything familiar, any clue that might help him figure out what was going on. But every detail, every odd little piece of this place seemed to defy logic.

The people in the chairs sat so still, it was unnerving—like they were mannequins rather than living beings. Their faces were pale, slack, eyes fixed forward, unmoving. He glanced back at the line forming at the ticket dispenser. The same hollow expressions greeted him there. It was as though these people existed, but without any spark of life, as if they were going through the motions of being human.

"Am I dead?" Brent wondered, the question forming in his mind before he could stop it. His thoughts raced, but they all ended in the same void—he had no answers.

Suddenly, as if in response to his rising panic, a translucent window blinked into view, hovering directly in front of his eyes. Brent flinched, startled, and instinctively raised his hand to swipe it away, but it remained solid, blocking his view of the room. The window was strange, futuristic in design, and bore an uncanny resemblance to a heads-up display from a video game.

Words appeared on the screen in plain text:

Please wait your turn for reincarnation assignment

Congratulations! You have died! Please take a number from the dispenser at the center of the room, find a seat, and wait for your number to be called.

Brent blanched at the words on the screen hovering in front of him.

"I'm DEAD!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the sterile walls. He read the text again, then again, as if repetition might somehow change the message. But it didn’t. Five times he reread it, each time growing more incredulous and panicked, his mind refusing to process the enormity of the situation.

"Sir, please don’t shout," came a voice from somewhere in front of him, startling him out of his panic. He hadn’t even noticed the man at the reception desk, a nondescript figure who looked utterly bored. "Take your number, find a seat, and the reincarnation specialists will be with you when it’s your turn."

Brent blinked and tried to look past the translucent screen that still obstructed his vision. No matter how much he twisted his head, shifted his gaze, or even crouched down, the screen remained stubbornly locked in front of his face like some high-tech prison.

"Jesus Christ, if this damn screen would just go away!" he bellowed in frustration. As soon as the words left his mouth, the screen minimized, shrinking into a blinking icon at the edge of his peripheral vision. He stared at it, momentarily dumbfounded. "Huh... okay then."

Feeling a mix of embarrassment and awkward relief, Brent realized everyone around him had turned to stare. He quickly shuffled over to the counter where the man had hushed him, glancing down at the plain, polished desk. There was something so bureaucratic, so mundane about this place that it made the entire experience feel even more surreal.

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"Excuse me," Brent began, forcing himself to sound polite despite the existential storm raging inside him, "I’m having a bit of an existential crisis, and I was wondering if you could help me out?"

The man, whose nametag read Cliff, rolled his eyes with the practiced disdain of someone who had heard the same request a thousand times. He pointed to a sign that Brent hadn’t noticed before, sitting neatly on the desk. It read, "We are not therapists. Figure your problems out on your own time. Take a number, have a seat, and wait for the next available Reincarnation Specialist."

Brent leaned forward, reading the sign twice before muttering, "That’s... oddly specific."

Cliff gave a derisive snort but still didn’t look up from the computer where he was typing—probably filing another report or entry into whatever database ran this twisted operation. "You think you’re the first person to have an existential crisis here? You’re all dead. It’s a lot more common than you’d think," he droned in the same lifeless tone, fingers clacking away on the keyboard without missing a beat.

Just as Brent was about to respond, a man’s voice erupted from the far end of the room, high-pitched and panicked. "I’m fucking dead?!"

Cliff let out a long, exaggerated sigh, his shoulders visibly slumping. "Every time," he muttered under his breath.

Brent turned back to Cliff, his mind still reeling. "Sir, I know this is probably something you hear a lot, but where am I? What’s going on here?"

"You’re dead. Take a number." Cliff’s response was automatic, almost robotic.

"Yes, the message made that pretty clear," Brent said, his patience fraying at the edges. "But where exactly am I? And why is this place like some kind of purgatory DMV?"

"It’s the afterlife," Cliff replied, his tone flat.

Brent moved a little to the side, trying to catch Cliff’s attention by putting himself more in his line of sight. As he did, he noticed the nametag again: Cliff. Feeling more bold, he leaned in. "Cliff, buddy, man, dude," Brent started, his words spilling out in a ramble as he tried to process his situation. "This doesn’t seem like any afterlife I’ve ever heard about. Where are the streets of gold? The pearly gates? Angels? The river fucking Styx?!"

Cliff finally stopped typing, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, as though summoning all his patience from some deep reserve. "All life forms who die come through here before reincarnation. The things you mentioned? Completely unnecessary. You’ll be reincarnated shortly, and anything beyond that would be an expenditure we can’t afford due to budget cuts." He opened his eyes, fixing Brent with a cold stare. "All your questions will be answered by a Reincarnation Specialist. Now, please, take a number, have a seat, and wait for your turn."

Brent’s frustration boiled over. He could feel the heat rising in his chest—the sheer indignity of dying, being treated like a number at the DMV, and now being dismissed by someone who clearly couldn’t care less. He opened his mouth, preparing to unleash a tirade on Cliff, when a man barreled into him, nearly knocking him over.

"You gotta help me, man!" the newcomer yelled, his eyes wild with panic. "I can’t be dead! I have a wife and kids who need me! I don’t have life insurance! My daughter’s dance recital is tomorrow! You gotta let me out of here!"

Cliff remained eerily calm, not even flinching as the man pounded his fists on the desk. "Sir, please. Take a number, have a seat, and a Reincarnation Specialist will be with you shortly," he recited, his tone measured and practiced.

"Fuck your ticket and waiting! I need to get back now!" the man shouted, his face twisted in desperation.

Brent watched as Cliff reached under the desk, subtly pressing something out of sight. "Sir, if you could just be patient, I’m sure we can—"

Cliff’s words were cut off as two enormous, shadowy figures materialized behind the frantic man. They were hulking creatures, vaguely troll-like, with muscular frames that seemed to absorb all the light around them. Without a word, they grabbed the man, easily restraining him as he kicked and thrashed.

"Hey! Get your hands off me! I want to speak to a manager! This is bullshit! You can’t do this!" the man screamed as the creatures dragged him toward a panel on the far wall. The panel slid open silently, revealing a dark void beyond. The man’s voice echoed briefly before being abruptly cut off as the panel slid shut again, leaving an eerie silence in its wake.

Brent swallowed hard. "Where did they take him?" he asked, his voice a little shaky.

Cliff, still typing away as if nothing had happened, replied, "Cooldown room. He’ll be allowed back when he can behave. However long that takes."

Brent’s curiosity got the better of him. "And... what exactly happens in the cooldown room?"

"You don’t want to know," Cliff answered, not even bothering to look up.

Brent hesitated. "So... I should just take a number?"

"Mhm."

"Right. Thanks for the help, Cliff," Brent said, forcing a polite smile as he backed away from the desk.

"Anytime," Cliff replied without glancing up.

Brent walked toward the ticket dispenser, already feeling the weight of this strange, never-ending purgatory settling on his shoulders. He took his ticket, only to discover that the number printed on it was eleven digits long. His eyes darted up to the red digital display on the wall, which showed a number over four hundred thousand lower than his own.

His heart sank as he realized how far off his turn was. "Great. Hell is the DMV," Brent muttered to himself. "We were so close to the truth on Earth." Resigned to his fate, he trudged over to one of the uncomfortable beige chairs and sat down, the realization of his new reality settling in. He glanced up at the screen as the next number was called. It felt like some bizarre, morbid raffle, and he was stuck waiting for his turn to face the inevitable.

After what felt like an eternity, his number was finally called, and Brent rose from his seat with a groan. His legs felt stiff as he made his way to window fifteen, his mind racing with questions he wasn’t even sure he wanted answered.