Drake blinked. She could feel something was wrong, but when analyzing herself mentally, nothing registered as damaged or injured.

What bothered her even more was why she felt the need to check on herself, not having had felt the need to do such a thing since she’d broken her arm at thirteen years old.

She continued to blink up at the ceiling, until she heard a very familiar clicking noise next to where she lay. Looking over, she noticed a long haired young man, playing a very familiar game on a laptop that’s cracked screen told Drake, that she was looking at her own computer being played.

I haven’t had that gaming rig in years… Didn’t I give that away?

She sat up in bed, slowly looking around the room, coming to realize she was in a hospital suite. Her memory told her she’d been there before, and after a moment of thought Drake remembered that it was the room she’d woken up in when she’d fallen off her roof, after thinking the best training to improve her leaps would be to increase the pressure of each jump. She’d even pictured Neo from the matrix preparing himself before she tried to jump the gap between her and her neighbors roof.

Idiot, Neo even fell when he tried to make that jump, had been the first thought she’d had when she had been woken up by her mother in the hospital.

“What am I doing here?”

The young man didn’t answer, continuing to play world of warcraft on her laptop as she took herself in. Surprisingly enough she found that her hair was shorter, as were her legs and herself as a whole, realizing that her cast was on her left forearm again as if she’d been returned to her own past.

No way all that was a dream… right?

Finally flashes of her morning flooded her mind as if she was suddenly given the ability to look through her memories in picture perfect quality. Every aspect of the memories enough to tell her that they were far too lifelike to be that of simple dreams.

“Son of a bitch,” said the young man with a sigh, finally closing her laptop and turning to face her.

“Oh, your awake.”

He stood and smiled. Drake shocked to see the young man that changed the world as she knew it.

“Your him, your that terrorist that can fucking fly!”

The starry eyed young man chuckled, shaking his head as he approached her bedside, leaning over the rails and resting his chin in his palm; his free hand patting her casted arm.

“Nope, but for whatever reason you feel more comfortable receiving bad news from strangers, so I picked the form of one of my many descendants,” said the young man.

“What, your many descendants, what the hell are you talking about?”

The young man smirked.

“I don’t have very much time and explaining exactly who I am is a story that is legitimately older than time itself child, so rather than try and keep you here long enough to sate your curiosity, I’m going to make you a simple proposal.”

Child, who does this dude think he is, he doesn’t look a day older than me?

“What kind of proposal?“

She couldn’t help but be interested. She honestly had no clue as to what was occurring, and couldn’t help but wonder why everything she was currently experiencing felt slightly… off.

“As I said before, I am the barer of bad news,” prefaced the young man, straightening before he continued.

“Can you guess what I am about to tell you?”

“No not really—“

Drake’s words cut off, her memories seamlessly continuing to play out in her mind, until her eyes widened and her mental epiphany fell from her lips as if she couldn’t help but admit her truth aloud to herself, and the stranger in that moment.

“I died…”

the young man nodded.

“Problem with that is that you weren’t supposed to die yet, survive a plane crash, yes, but to be effected by the event brought on by the rebirth of magic forced onto your realm, or planet as you mortals call it, was not supposed to happen at all.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“What was supposed to happen?”

She couldn’t help but ask, even though she truly didn’t even want to know if she was being honest with herself. She somehow knew she wouldn’t like the answer, no matter how it was presented.

“So many things dearest, you were supposed to become a world renowned doctor, marry the most beautiful woman you’d ever met, and even cure cancer…”

“What…?”

She knew that she wouldn’t like the answer. She couldn’t have guessed that it would make her outright furious, but the pain she felt immediately was worse than how she’d felt during her first ever heartbreak.

She’d been younger, dumber and far to inexperienced with understanding herself, yet the news she’d just recieved eclipsed everything she thought she could have possibly been told.

“I cured it, I can’t believe it.”

“I know how much that bothers you child, solving an issue that took your mother from you after she was already gone effected you to the point that you nearly lost your marriage in the despair of that realization, which is why I feel obligated to make you this offer.”

“I see.”

The young man waited a moment before speaking, and Drake was glad to be given a minute to let her mind wander, taking a few breaths to explore the explosion of thoughts that unsettled her mind. Truly feeling as if a wrecking ball was breaking down a normalcy of peace she usually experienced mentally, which should be expected with the fragility brought on by being told she’d just died.

She believed anyone who expected their brain to work correctly in this type of situation was unrealistic, which made her oddly enough appreciate many of her favorite anime characters that much more Being able to face such harsh realities with a smile on their faces was incredible.

Eh, not like I feel like crying or anything, thought Drake smirking to herself.

“So what is it, am I one of the lucky souls that gets to be reborn in a magical world,” said Drake, realizing the young man wasn’t going to push her until she showed any sign of being ready for what he had to offer, waiting on her to speak first after the hard news.

“What, no, I was going to say you could restart your life, land on another building for maiden’s sake,” said the young man with a laugh.

Drake slowly nodded, looking away, feeling strange about how disappointed she felt that she wasn’t going to leave Earth and learn magic somewhere else.

“Wait, don’t tell me you’d prefer that, would you?”

“I mean yeah, kinda, don’t see why solving cancer would even be all that big of a deal on my own planet, isn’t magic going to take care of most of those kind of things?”

The young man nodded, seeming to think a moment, looking down momentarily before returning his gaze to Drake.

“Hmm, I’d be lying if I said solving the issue of cancer wouldn’t be made easier with the system being used, however, in the timeline that you cured cancer, the system wasn’t integrated, Earth is a forbidden dominion and is no longer allowed to have such things as magic and Ki, also known as the Cultivator’s life forces, if it weren’t for my despicable grandchild doing as he pleased during his dead year, none of this would have ever happened, with the exception of your plane crash that is, that event was one of many constants within your lifeline,” said the young man explaining the matters in a way that only filled Drake’s mind with more questions, even as it made her feel comfort.

Why can’t I seem to put a finger on this dude. Its like my mind is screaming at me, but I can’t exactly tell what it is… Haven’t felt this thrown off since dad had me play poker with those world champions…

Drake was intuitive within her intelligence, and knew that she was missing details, feeling as if the environment she was in was causing her to think less, and feel more.

Am I being tricked somehow? What would be the motive, I’m a nobody. If this person is a god or a being as powerful as one, they could more than likely get anyone to do what they needed, so why do I feel like I’m being guided toward a specific choice?

By this point however, Drake began to sense that something wasn’t right with this person. She was entirely convinced of it in fact. Their delicate movements weren’t that of an effeminate man, but entirely motherly.

The young man wore a smile that felt as if she was being looked at by someone who knew the struggles of womanhood, and even being wise within their right brained mentalities. She felt she stared into the eyes of her grandmother rather than a young man. A sense that grew further tangible the more the young man spoke.

“Would you truly want to live in another realm, a place of magic I mean,” asked the young man, making Drake’s eyes narrow.

Is that it, but why would a god want me to live in another realm?

The question rang in her mind, and Drake wanted to say that she didn’t know what she wanted, attempting to gain as much information as possible before she truly gave an answer. Yet she couldn’t, no matter how much she tried to force the words from her lips, she could not, eventually only able to nod slowly.

“Are you sure, there are quite a few different realms of magic, some middling, while others grand in scale, which would you prefer?”

Drake again tried to speak in timidity, presenting a subtle falsehood to gain more information about what she’d be getting herself into; finding herself only able to speak what her soul felt to her core.

“I want it all…”

The young man nodded, and smiled.

“Well then, you have chosen the second option it seems…”

“Why do I feel like I truly didn’t have an option then,” said Drake more mumbling than speaking aloud.

“Because of where we are child,” said the young man, spinning in a slow twirl with his arms out, gesturing toward the rest of the room.

“No desire but your hearts deepest wants can be shared here, it is something we needed to set in place, so that the souls of those we chose to send abroad, couldn’t state that they were forced to do anything that they didn’t feel comfortable with…”

Drake nodded, looking around at the hospital room, and couldn’t help but note that though she remembered the room from her past, there were substantial differences, significant changes in fact. Oddities that couldn’t be ignored.

The drapes seemed to be made from spun gold. The pure white carpet seemed to rustle like grass just tall enough to be caught in a summer breeze even though it was but an inch or two tall. The biggest difference Drake noticed simply took her breath away.

She looked out the window and caught a glimpse of heaven itself.

Holy…!

beyond the window was a kingdom of seamless white stone. Paradise laid bare, as if it was formed in an instant, rather than carved piece by piece, sitting just beyond the walls of the room she was in like the lands of dreams yet to be explored an instant before waking up.

Her view gave her a portrait into a world of light that spoke of a lack of understanding of what darkness was, leaving Drake to believe nightfall didn’t exist there.

The place was a balance of gardens and water, caught in endless movement and growth that seemed to serve countless men and women with wings flying in every direction.

“Am I in heaven, should I have just chosen to stay here?”

“This is what mortals perceive as heaven yes, but your soul is new darling, you would be restless here in a matter of days and join the rebirth cycle, at least in this situation you are being given an opportunity to keep your knowledge and start with a bit of an advantage in your new life.”

Drake nodded.

“So what do I need to do?”

“Nothing but close your eyes and take a deep breath my child, everything else, I will handle.”

Drake smiled wanting to keep her eyes open and thank the young man, only then realizing as her heavy lidded eyes were closing, that the voice of the young man had been completely feminine when speaking her final words to Drake. The fact that it was a very familiar voice escaped Drake as her mind grew foggy.

I knew it, that was a chick in a dudes body…, thought Drake chuckling mentally.

Drake took a deep breath, only to feel an incredible pain in her ankles a moment later, opening her eyes to see something she couldn’t quite believe.

She stood in front of a cavern so deep that its bottom couldn’t be seen. Blinking, she wasn’t able to tare her eyes from the terrifying sight until she heard a violent scream come from her right.

“What in the fuck!”

She was in a line of chained individuals, all of which stood before the very same hole she stood in front of. The scream she’d heard was that of a woman falling into the hole, twenty places down the line.

This chain reaction caused another scream as the next,, and the next person was pulled in to the darkness before her. Her eyes widened, and in that moment she realized, she’d been had.

“Mother Fucker!”