I stood in the middle of an old log cabin, long since abandoned. Sunlight broke through the sod and twig roof in multiple places, revealing a dingy home around me as dust specks danced in the shafts of light. Mud-coated leaves covered the floor and gray muck covered everything else. There was a bureau that seemed solid enough, but the iron stove on the other wall was rusted open and filled with leaves, and the bed in the corner was probably a bit uncomfortable to sleep on since a tree was growing through it.

"Where am I?" I said to nobody in particular, but then noticed that my voice had a hollow, airy quality. Wait. Am I a ghost now?

"Oooooooooooh!" I said out loud while lifting my arms in the air with my hands bent downwards. Oh, yeah…that's a zombie pose. Wait. Why can I remember zombies, but not my own name? Well, I still know it's not "Mr. Thomas".

There wasn't much to this home. Just a one room dwelling. I walked over to a chair that looked as if it still might support weight, when I noticed that I was actually coasting over the floor, hovering an inch above it. My legs dragged weightlessly behind me. Each time I passed through a sunbeam, that part of my body disappeared. I stopped to examine the effect, passing my hand through the shaft of sunlight, only to see parts of it disappear.

I'm so faint, I can't be seen in the light. I definitely need to sit down.

The chair was filthy, covered in years and years of rot and gray silt. I reached out to clean off the seat, and my hand passed through everything: leaves, silt, and seat. In fact, my hand passed through everything else that I tried to touch. As I zipped around the room desperately trying to take ahold of something, I started to get frustrated.

So this is what it means to be a ghost. No body. No touching. No holding. How weird.

I reached my hand up to scratch my head and discovered that I could feel myself. There was hair there. I could feel it move, but the sensation was disconnected. It was like using static electricity to move my hair instead of touching it.

A sound to my right caught my attention. A chipmunk-looking creature came up from under the bureau. It had red and black stripes, unlike the chipmunks that I remembered, and a red, Mohawk-like mane. I dubbed it "chippunk", then waved my arm at it, but it didn't see me. Can it hear me?

"Hey! Get outta here!" I shouted, but the chippunk didn't react to my voice. It sniffed the air, then bounded forward a few steps towards my right as if I wasn't there at all.

So. I can hear me, but nothing else can. Maybe I wasn't loud enough?

I was having what could be called "a bad day". I didn't like being intangible. I wanted to touch and hold things. Being ignored by a chippunk was too insulting. I moved over to the critter and crouched down to its level, hovering above the floor. It still didn't notice me. Then I shouted "BOO!" right into its face. It noticed that. The stupid thing launched towards the ceiling with its feet running in the air like a cartoon I remember seeing. When it hit the floor, it ran in place for a moment, tumbled over itself, and scrambled across the floor back to the underneath the bureau from where it came.

I laughed loud and plenty, maybe too much so. I felt a little bad for the critter, but I felt better about making something notice I was here. I was starting to get depressed being in a world, but not being able to interact with it. At that moment, I noticed a tingle running down what used to be my spine. That's odd…

"Scaring harmless animals for entertainment? You really are a terrible person."

Standing behind me was an angelic dude, clothed in a white business jacket with white tie over robes like my other tormentor. He gave off a subtle but steady glow, illuminating the entire room. I looked down at myself and noticed that I was just wearing a robe of gray material now, though it was hard to tell because I was transparent. I looked back up at the visitor. He seemed plenty solid to me. I rose to a standing position to meet him at eye level.

"I didn't know if it could hear me or not. It didn't the first time. I wasn't necessarily trying to scare it. Are there penalties for scaring critters?"

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"There are penalties for many such behaviors. It's my job to explain the rules to you."

"Sounds dull."

The angel dude made an ugly face, then pulled a stone tablet out of his jacket pocket as he replied, "Such is your lot in the after life, Mr. Thomas."

"I don't like that name. I'll choose one for myself."

"A name has been already chosen for you."

"I won't answer to it." I tried to move through the front door, which was missing, but I was stopped at the threshold. "Why can't I pass through the door?"

"There is a world in the cosmos where the rules are applied a little differently. This world. For some reason not explained to most of us in administration, the veil is thinner here, which allows the spectral to coexist to some degree with the living."

"Yeah, OK, but what does that have to…Wait. You mean ghosts?"

"Exactly as you say. Ghosts. Although we prefer to call them Disembodied Transgressors."

"Oof. I prefer 'ghosts'."

"It doesn't really matter what you prefer, Mr. Thomas," the angel dude said a bit peevishly. "The point is that Disembodied Transgressors sent to this world are provided with a unique opportunity. Their sole task here is get somebody to have faith in them, then they can get their right to a body back and manifest into the living realm. To be born again, as it were, into this very world. You performed one act of charity that earned you access to this world. It convinced the Heavens that you might be redeemable. Your sister's life was spared all because you gave her your last loaf of bread."

"My last loaf of bread?"

"Yes, verily, the last."

"That must have been by accident."

"We can schedule you for immediate erasure if you'd like." The angel dude lifted two fingers to his stone tablet.

"No, no! It's all coming back to me now," I said while forcing a nervous laugh. "Yes, I was feeling, uh, extremely benevolent that day. Ah, my poor sister. So glad I could help out." I didn’t remember any of it.

The angel looked at me with a dubious expression. I had to improve the mood fast.

"Um, so if I understand what you’re saying, the past me was supposedly so terrible that my right to a body has been revoked? But if I can get somebody to have faith in me here, I can not only regain my right to a body, but have it returned to me?"

"Oh, you were terrible, I assure you. You wracked up so much debt buying luxury pens that you turned to crime to afford your habit. You robbed everyone and anyone—including your own family members—to pay off old debts and accrue shiny new ones. However, your concise summary is correct."

I looked back at the angel dude and realized something. I only had his word that any of these things he or that other guy claimed about me were true. I did know that I died, however. I could vaguely remember feeling rage, a phenomenal pain in my chest, then nothing before waking up in that white room. I had a hard time believing I could get murderously upset over fountain pens, though. Nobody was that stupid.

"You asked why you couldn't pass through the door," said the angel dude, interrupting my reverie.

"Go on."

"Here on Verdant, Disembodied Transgressors…"

"Wait a minute. Verdant? This planet is called, like, 'Green and Lush'?"

"No, it's called 'Verdant', and you're one to talk. You came from a planet called 'Dirt'."

"No, it was called…"

"Stop interrupting." The angel dude looked down at his tablet, then typed a note while keeping me dangling in the air, as it were. "I don't see the point of going into more detail. Despite your one aberrant act of kindness, you aren't going to clear this challenge. All you need to know is that you are in your Redemption Zone." He gestured to the room around us. "Build the faith of the inhabitants in your extremely humble abode to earn your body back and get a second chance on life.

"You can take the easy way and use fear for quick results—but also gain the attention of the Daughters of God who will exorcize you into oblivion—or you can take the harder, slower way through service by doing good deeds for the inhabitants until you manifest with a body. Your time limit is when your Redemption Zone is destroyed or rots away into nothing. Any questions?"

"Daughters of God? Not sons?"

The angel sighed and replied, "Well, there was once a Sons of God religion several hundred years ago, but they lost out to the daughters."

"Because they preached false doctrine?"

"No, on the contrary, it was because the priestesses had more attractive outfits."

"Wha?"

The angel dude looked pained for a moment, then said, "They organized the priestesses into singing groups and performed while dancing. They swept the continent with spectacular concerts and the Sons of God faded away into obscurity as many of them preferred hanging out at the concerts. It's a slight setback for this planet, though some doctrine is better than none. Look, is this really what you want to be talking about before I leave?"

"Oh, right!" The Daughters of God thing was a distraction. I looked around the room of this log cabin that was one wind storm away from collapsing, and asked, "I only have until this cabin falls apart?"

"Yes."

"And I can't leave this dump because it's my Reception Zone?"

"ReDEMPtion Zone. This is where you rehabilitate yourself." The angel was starting to look a bit like Mr. Prim Smugly.

"But where are the inhabitants?" I really couldn't follow this guy.

"I believe I told you a moment ago that you weren't going to clear this challenge. Now you know why."

With that that angel dude gave me a big, mocking smile. The light in the roomed gathered around him, then drew into his chest until there was nothing but a brilliant point of searing whiteness hanging in the air, before winking out. I was left alone and half blinded with my impending doom.