Like any healthy human being, I've thought a lot about what happens to us after we die. Perhaps you're greeted by a being made of light? Or maybe a shady figure offers you an equally shady deal? And let's not forget reincarnation, your soul locked in a cycle of death and rebirth.
As it turns out, it's a bit of everything.
That is to say that I am dead, and now I am facing a towering, vaguely humanoid being made of light, that is shrouded in thick fog, offering me to be reincarnated as a . . .
"Sorry, a what now?" I asked.
The being made a motion as if it was rolling a set of eyes on its very much featureless face. "Well, your kind doesn't have a proper word for what we are. The closest analogy you would understand is what you might call a 'System'."
The being, who had named themself Gaia by the way, explained it as if it was obvious. A being with god-like power and abilities, was in fact the plot device of dozens of half baked Isekai webnovels. The worst thing was that it kind of made sense.
Gaia placed their hands on their hips and dropped their head forward, letting out an exaggerated sigh of frustration.
"Fine, I'll go from the top one last time.” Ribbons of fog and light weaved through the space, forming images and silhouettes that moved along with their words.
“My kind do not reproduce as yours do, instead we seek out mortal souls to transform into a newborn "System". We travel throughout the multiverse to disrupt the local flow of time, feeding off the energy said disruption produces.”
A current of rushing fog appeared in between us. “I’m sure you’ve heard time described as a river before. But what determines what shape that river takes? Much like water, time takes the path of least resistance, all things flowing towards their natural conclusion. Much like what you call ‘fate’.”
“We change fate.” they said as they placed one of their massive hands into the flow. The fog crashed against their hand and was diverted, flowing in a completely new direction.
“Hold up." I said. "How does changing fate produce energy? Wouldn’t it take more energy to change the flow of time than you’d get out of it?”
I had managed to get my head around most of the things they had said. But for every answer they gave, a dozen more questions were waiting in the wings.
Gaia pinched the bridge of their, again, nonexistent nose and sighed in defeat. “Listen, I’m not going to spend the next century trying to teach you interdimensional chronodynamics. That’s how it works, just trust me. All you need to know is I'm offering you the chance of countless lifetimes in exchange for just a small portion of whatever energy you collect."
Honestly, it sounded like a good deal. Immortality and the chance for unimaginable power minus whatever Gaia taxed me. But one burning question still lingered at the back of my mind, begging to be asked. “Why me?”
Gaia brushed the fog they’d been using as a visual aid away and seemed to take a moment as they thought over the question. Then they haltingly started to speak.
“. . . The soul is a complicated thing beyond true description. It is also very fragile. When a creature is born, essences in the world gather to create the spark of something greater. Then, when the creature dies, with nothing tying it down anymore, that spark breaks and fades back into the world. That is what would have happened to you without my interference. I did so because I saw in you a rare potential for something beyond your form.”
I . . . I didn’t know how to feel about that. I’d heard the whole “you’ve got so much potential” spiel so many times in my life from family, friends, teachers. . . and now what was basically a god.
I never amounted to much though. I ended up working part-time at the grocery store and living in my parents’ basement. Well, until some asshole decided it was a good idea to take the corner at 50 mph and ran me over. 0 out of 10, would not recommend.
There just never seemed to be something to strive for. People all around me were telling me I could do so much more with my life. Like what? Get an ambiguous job I hate in an office whose interior decorator actively works to drain the happiness and color out of my life? I’ll take the speed freak who crushed my ribs with his bumper over that any day of the week.
But now? With one life behind me and facing the rest of eternity, I could see a spark of hope. Sure the power sounded nice, but as I thought over all those “half baked isekai webnovels” that I’ve read throughout my life, I thought of the adventure. All those heroes and stumbling idiots that managed to scrape through fantastical worlds of mystery and wonder, beating the bad guys and getting the girls, and right behind them would be me. Guiding them and pushing them to ever greater heights.
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I looked into where Gaia’s eyes would’ve been and decided to change my fate. “You’ve got a deal.”
They almost seemed to smile as I answered and the surrounding fog began to gather and circle around me.
"Excellent! Now, let's begin." They said as the fog rose and layered itself over me. Just as the fog was sealing the last gaps in my cloudy cocoon Gaia called out, "Oh, by the by, this is going to hurt A LOT."
Panic bubbled up within me as I watched the fog hide the last views of Gaia waving merrily at me. I felt the fog press against my presence, any semblance of a body having been left behind on Earth.
The fog probed and poked and pushed against me, becoming more aggressive and forceful with each pass. Suddenly I felt deep, sharp pain as the fog pierced my being, coiling and searching through my soul. It was then I realized the mistake I had made in accepting the transformation. They were performing surgery on my soul!
&&&&&&&&&&
The "cocoon" slowly fell around me, unraveling and rejoining the sea of fog. Light returned to the world as Gaia emerged once more.
I barely took notice as I was too busy trying to curl into a fetal position. Something I was finding very difficult to do without a body, but I needed the comfort after crawling out of that hell.
Suddenly I missed having a spine for shivers to run up as I remembered the. . . Procedure.
I flinched as Gaia reached out and cradled my presence in their titanic hands, raising me up to their eye level. “I’m sorry I had to put you through that. If there were any way to ease the process I would have done so. All of our kind know the pain of ascension, of being raised to a higher level of existence.”
Their voice soothed the lingering echoes of pain from the “ascension”, though I still had trouble looking them in the eye. Which I found to be increasingly true as I realized that I couldn’t not see them, no matter where I looked.
Before, my vision had been mostly the same as my human sight, but now I seem to have a complete awareness of my surroundings. I could shift my focus but I remained perfectly aware of everything around me. And, as I looked deeper, I could see what had been hidden from me before.
My new sense was not simply sight, it was a pure “awareness” of everything around me, including Gaia. As I looked beyond what I could before, I saw the flows of energy that covered the being of light and fog and I watched as they fell away. When all the glamour was gone there was simply a presence, much like myself although vastly greater. This was Gaia.
“Congratulations, my child.” Their intent was clear, satisfaction and pride. “You have started on a long and winding path and I hope to see you go far.”
Despite their sudden shift to a parental attitude, the feeling of betrayal and the memories of agonizing soul surgery were still fresh in my mind. Meaning I was not about to let what just happened slip into the past like that.
“You could have given me a little more warning that you were going to cut open my soul! You didn’t even give me a chance to prepare myself!” As I raged at the being’s indifference to my suffering, that rage became infused into my words, literally. It was instinctive, like snarling or scowling, as I sent my intent to my “parent”.
“There is no preparing yourself for ascension. The pain you felt wove itself through the core of your being, no force of will can subdue or resist it, only endure or perish. It is better to enter the abyss blind than delusional, or as you might say ‘ignorance is bliss’.”
A part of me still wanted to shout, to scream out obscenities until the universe itself felt offended, but the rest of me pushed that part to the side for now. I would definitely need to talk to some kind of divine therapist at some point. Death, excruciating pain and a drastic career change, what a day.
After a healthy dose of repression and a very long internal sigh, I turned my focus back to Gaia. “So, what now?”
I felt as Gaia flexed their power and another presence snapped into existence between us. “Now you learn the family business.”
The tiny presence floated over to me as Gaia explained further. “All worlds have a kind of barrier that makes entering very difficult for our kind. Difficult, but not impossible. Though the barrier is not absolute, you are currently too weak to break through it by yourself. But mortal souls don’t have that problem. By bonding with such a soul you can slip through a world’s barrier without much trouble.”
Gently, I stretched out a tendril of my presence to catch the fragile spark. The movement and control over my being seemed natural, as if I’d known how all along and only now had the chance to try.
“I believe in on the job training,” they continued, “so I’ve picked out a suitable host and world for your first experience. When your host . . . passes on, you will be responsible for choosing your next opportunity.”
I had to tear my focus away from the mesmerizing sight of the unbound soul. I could feel that it was in some form of stasis, unaware that their essence of being had just been handed over to the untrained intern.
Right, I was immortal now. Which probably means I’ll be seeing a lot of my “hosts” wither and die over the years. The thought of outliving everyone I would come to know was sombering, but did not shake my resolve. Like grammy always said, “You can be sad that someone is gone, but you should be happy for the time you got to spend with them.”
As I pushed through my grim thoughts, a pressing question presented itself. “Umm, Gaia? How do I do . . . things?”
I had been doing okay so far, as everything had been coming to me naturally, a product of my new incorporeal physiology. But, while basic movement was nice and all, literally anything else was beyond my current understanding of my abilities.
Gaia chuckled at my nervous question, their intent filled with a fond mirth, before flexing their power yet again. This time producing a strange clump of energy which immediately flew towards me and entered me before I could react. I was frozen in terror as I waited for the other shoe to drop, which only made Gaia laugh harder.
When they finally calmed down, they graced me with an explanation as to what I almost shit myself over. “I’ve given you a basic overview of our abilities. You won’t be strong enough to try any of the advanced techniques for a long, long time anyway, so just practice with those this time around. Take your time and find what works for you.”
This surprised me for two reasons, the first being that Gaia was actually almost starting to sound like they were my real parent. I mean I guess for their (my?) kind that would be the nature of our relationship, but it was still weird. The second was if they could just package information like that couldn’t they have used that to explain how the whole “changing fate produces energy” thing?
I was about to ask that exact question when Gaia cut me off. “Now, bond with the soul and we’ll get you on your way.”
I searched my mind for the information they had given me, finding it carefully organized in the back of my memory. I followed the procedure laid out for me as I let my presence seep into the soul like water into a sponge. From there I grew “roots” into the structure of the soul, tying us together so that only the destruction of the soul would release me. It seemed a bit dangerous to me, but according to the information in my head, in the worst case I could just break the soul myself. Not that I’d want to do that.
Despite the soul almost completely encompassing my presence, my awareness of my surroundings was unhindered. So I was completely aware of Gaia’s power as it wrapped around my new shell.
“Well done. Now remember, not all of our kind are going to want to play nice, so I’d recommend keeping a low profile until you’ve toughened up a bit. Other than that, stay safe and have fun!”
I wanted to stay and ask questions about what they meant by that but was interrupted by Gaia reeling me like a pitcher on the mound. I realized too late what was happening as I was suddenly sent careening through the void.
My last thought before I lost sight of Gaia's presence was “AAAAAAAGH!”