Charleston anthem, died. He was asphyxiated by carbon monoxide fumes coming from is newly installed second hand cooktop. Charles cursed his inept friend who installed it, he knew they couldn’t be trusted.

Charles was sitting in an upscale waiting room and had been for the past while, he assumed he was waiting to be processed into the afterlife or something like that. Charles was now bored he had discovered the only fun thing on his chair hours ago (a small inscription that read Don’t panic) and didn’t really want to disturb the other depressed looking people waiting with him. For the tenth time this minute he shifted in his seat and hoped he’d be processed soon.

At some point he must have fallen asleep, most of the other people that had been waiting before him were now gone, he looked around briefly and prepared himself to go back to the sweet abyss of sleep. When a brief message appeared before him, he took a moment to process that before reading it, it read ‘you will be processed shortly prepare for transport’. Charles wasn’t freaked out, he had experienced similar floating text bits when he first tried vr and figured heaven had the technology to make it happen in real life.

The next time he blinked his eyes he was in a high class looking office sitting across from a minimalist desk, behind the desk sat a normal looking man in a suit framed by a sunset coming from massive windows behind him. He cleared his throat and opened a simple looking file with an ornate logo on the cover.

“Charleston anthem, right”

Charles nodded.

“Sweet, so unfortunately you were an atheist and had no particular attachment to any gods during your childhood so you don’t have any particular afterlife to go to.”

A quiet cloud of existential dread settled over Charles.

“Usually we just send you back and erase your memories, but!” he said raising a finger “we have a new process just for atheists” The man looked particularly excited now “You get to choose some gifts and we send you to another world” He smiled proudly.

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Charles raised an eyebrow.

“Like a shity lite novel” he asked.

The man pouted a bit.

“Sort of, it’s like your own isekai”

Charles settled back in his chair and considered it, it could be terrible as he could be sent to a shitty world covered in lava or something but it also sounded fun, charles had always liked exploring as a kid and as an adult.

“What kind of gifts can I choose”

The man waved his hand in the shape of a rainbow “anything the possibilities are endless”

“Can I…”

“Wait, wait, wait” the man interrupted him turning to his computer and opening a form before looking back at charles.

“Can I have some magic”

The man smiled scarily “you’ll have to be more specific”

“Runes I guess”

The man waved his hand prompting him for more.

“On my body” Charles grew less and less certain with each comment but the man’s smile only grew.

“That’s one charles you get two more”

“Can I have really powerful control over my magic” Charles didn’t really want to put anything in his body that he didn’t have control over.

“That’s two one more”

“A um.. Giant inventory”

The man’s smile turned back to normal “great i'll send you to another waiting area while I sort out your transport have fun”

Charles blinked and found himself in a small apartment sitting at a coffee table across from a woman in casual clothing. The apartment was sparsely decorated and appeared to be of a minimalist design, the colour pallet was mostly greys with a bit of green giving it a nature theme.

The woman leaned across the table and shook his hand “Hi, charles right, my name is Wanda and i'm here to give you a tour of your apartment today, you'll probably be staying here a few days before they decide what planet to send you to”

Charles nodded and the woman proceed with the tour.

The apartment was quite magical, not in the sense that it looked magical no in fact it looked quite normal. The apartment was quite magical because all of the cupboards worked the same you just say what you want and when you open it up it will be there along with a few other recommended products. Other than that the apartment was pretty normal apart from the lack of T.V. Wanda left a few moments later telling him to call out her name if he needed some help, as soon as she left Charles ran over to the couch and took a nap. He did have to stay here for a couple days after all and being awake for all of it would be boring even though Wanda assured him he didn’t have to sleep here.

Charles didn’t dream.