The eyeball flew up to avoid Micah’s hands. After making sure that Micah couldn’t reach it, it started talking.
“Alright, you’re lively. That’s good. But save all that energy for when you get to work. For now, you need to listen since time is running out.”
Those words got Micah to calm down reluctantly. But his sleeves were still rolled up, and it looked like he was ready to grab the eyeball at a moment’s notice, so it stayed close to the ceiling.
“What do you mean time is running out? And before that, explain something to me. How the fuck did Hell lose its balance, to begin with?”
The eyeball sighed loudly before answering.
“Now, I would love to get into the nitty-gritty details of the universe and how it works. Honestly. But as I said, we’re running out of time. This room is a temporary space created to hold you and give you the information and help we’ve prepared for you. If it disappears before you’re sent to Hell, you will disappear along with it, okay? So shut up and listen for a second.”
Micah felt more than a little frustrated with the eyeball’s attitude. But he didn’t want to disappear, so he unwillingly kept his mouth shut as he waited for the eyeball to talk.
“Great. We lost a couple of moments there, so there won’t be any time for questions. Simply put, it would be ridiculous to ask you to go against the imbalance of Hell on your own. You have gotten two gifts to help you. The Hell Restoration Project System and a forced awakening of your innate ability.”
Although he was a little lost, Micah quickly realized that the Hell Restoration Project System was the red holographic screen in front of his eyes.
“Wait a moment…. Hell Rest– H. R. P. S. You gave me her–”
Before Micah could finish his sentence, the eyeball winked. Blinked maybe? And a flashing light enveloped Micah and the eyeball. The last thing he saw was the red walls of the room starting to fade away.
[Congratulations on successfully becoming the Project Manager of the Hell Restoration Project!]
“Oh, shut it.”
Micah sat down on a nearby rock and held his head with both hands.
‘What in the actual fuck is going on?’
He rubbed his temples as he tried to figure out what had happened to him. But no matter how much he thought or how hard he tried, he couldn’t make sense of what kind of psychedelic adventure he had somehow entered.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
But, for some reason, he instinctively knew that he wasn’t kidnapped and put through a drug-induced psychosis or hypnotized to see things that weren’t real.
He had died. It was as simple as that. It wasn’t weird considering how old he had been, but it still felt surreal, especially since he had ended up in the afterlife, the bad one at that. He could also tell that, while being ordered to work like an ant even in the afterlife would be one hell of a punishment, he didn’t become the Project Manager as a punishment. That part was real.
Though, the name of the aid he had been given gave him some doubts. It was possible that the feeling of its veracity was also faked. If he could be teleported around and there were things like flying eyeballs, why couldn’t his perception of reality and his intuition be compromised?
For now, Micah decided to proceed under the assumption that he wasn’t lied to and that he was indeed going to restore balance to Hell. He turned his gaze to the translucent red hologram in front of his face. The eyeball had said that it would help him with his job, but it hadn’t explained how it worked. His system had only displayed congratulatory messages so far. Micah couldn’t understand how that was supposed to help him.
After looking at it for a while without discovering anything, Micah tried touching it. It felt slightly similar to grasping air, but as long as Micah had his finger on the screen’s border, he could move it around. He considered that a partial success since he could move it away and actually see in front of him.
Unfortunately, the view wasn’t amazing. It kind of suited the atmosphere Micah felt that Hell should have.
A red, rocky wasteland. To someone used to Earth, the reddish tint to everything, even the sky, was alarmingly ominous. It wasn’t as scary as the red moon with a horizontal slit through the middle, but everything being so obviously a part of Hell wasn’t good for the psyche of someone who hoped to go to Paradise after death.
The hill off to the side with a grand mansion atop and the village a walk away from it caught Micah’s attention. But he wasn’t going to investigate until he figured out what his system was and how it worked. It would be a useless aid if it were useless, but it would also be useless if Micah couldn’t use it.
Micah doubted the people who put him in charge of restoring Hell would give him something useless to help him.
‘Wait, there was something else as well.’
The eyeball told Micah that he was getting two things. The system, whose acronym Micah refused to even think of, and a forced awakening of his innate ability.
The system was one thing, but since it seemed like it wasn’t as easy to use as a system should be, Micah was almost more interested in the innate ability that the eyeball mentioned. He wondered if maybe he had already had that forced awakening or if it would come later.
He couldn’t sense anything different with himself other than the fact that he was in a youthful body, so he guessed that the forced awakening of his ability or whatever would come later. Until then, the only thing he had to guide himself through the red wasteland was the system congratulating him on becoming the Hell Restoration Project’s Project Manager.
Micah looked at the village for a few more moments before moving the screen back in the way again. He hadn’t wanted to do it before since it was embarrassing, but if he wanted to proceed, he would have to try it at least. It would almost be worth it if he could discover more of the system’s functions.
Micah cringed just thinking about it.