The shaking of the train felt like it was lulling me into sleep as I leaned my head against the window. You’d think the bright, sunny, cloudless day outside would keep me awake, but it was days like this that were perfect for napping. The warm sun on my face as I gently drift off to sleep is my favorite feeling.

Anyways, although I do love my naps, that’s not why this story exists, so I’ll get to the point. Staring out the window, I noticed something in the bright blue sky. A distortion. Like that weird effect in movies when someones invisible, or like looking through a glass of water.

I sat up in my seat a little more, no longer slouching, and looked more intently out the window. It looked like thousands of tiny, shimmering, translucent scales were floating in the sky. The more I looked the more it seemed like a giant… snake? 

I almost pissed myself in fear before getting a hold of myself. I’m probably just having a weird nightmare, I did fall asleep like two seconds ago while internally monologuing about how much I love the sun shining down on me while I sleep. Wait, now that I’m aware of it doesn’t that make this one of those lucid dreams where I can do whatever I want? I immediately started laughing evilly and thinking unspeakable thoughts, but nothing happened.

“Wait, this isn’t a dream?” I thought aloud.

“Can you shut the hell up?” The person next to me said, seemingly forgetting that I tolerated them jabbing their elbow into my side for the past five hours.

It took quite a lot of willpower to not tell him to go off himself, but in the end I was able to hold back my words. 

Barely

I turned my head to look back out the window and the weird snake thing in the sky seemed a lot closer than before. One end of it that was somewhat diamond-shaped, I assumed the head, started shaking. It was opening its eyes. 

A deep, golden eye with a slit pupil stared straight at me.

And as the overwhelming fear took over me, I learned my place in the universe.

It was a while before I realized I was still existent. However, as I looked around me, I noticed it was just a dark and empty void.

“Oh, I’m in purgatory, aren’t I? Must be all those pirated video games and movies.” I really have a habit of talking to myself, don’t I?

“You don’t need to worry about that, I’m pretty sure no one cares about stuff like that.” A mysterious voice said, seemingly coming from all around.

“Is that you God? Are you gonna give me anything cool as compensation for being murdered by a space snake you created for some reason?” I inquired, greedy for an archangel position in heaven. Although if you ask me, I’m obviously gonna say demons are cooler, but having those annoying bible-thumpers worship me as Archangel… wait. What’s my name again?

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Uh, also, why can’t I remember my name?” I asked, starting to get very, very concerned.

“Okay, okay one question at a time. To answer the first one, yes, sort of. To answer the second, also yes. And I didn’t create that monster, it’s also a god, like me. And the reason you don’t remember your name is because your soul was shattered into a thousand and one pieces. That’s just what happens when a god looks directly at a human, sorry about that.”

“Ok how am I talking to you if my soul is annihilated then?”

“Not annihilated, broken, very broken. You happen to be the largest piece, so at least you’re sort of lucky.”

“Ok, but all the things I do remember are pretty shitty, do all the other pieces have the rest of my memories, hopefully some of which are good?”

“Yes, they do, and you’ll get to meet them soon. I have prepared a scenario I think we will both find interesting. You know that web novel you have spent way too much time on lately? I decided to recreate that world and put all of you in it as different characters, you’ll get to meet the characters you like and do some cool stuff with the magic that exists there. Some of the others will be conscious as their characters and others will only exist as a light influence or memories on the people they have possessed.” They explained, “If you manage to find one you can get some of your memories back, and if you find all of them, I might consider giving you that Archangel position.”

Oh, they can read my mind. Oh now that I know they can read my mind I really really shouldn’t think about that.

I thought about it.

Please don’t smite me.

“I… I won’t smite you but next time if you have a thought like that about me warn me beforehand so I’m not traumatized.” The god was weirdly accepting of my unacceptable thoughts.

“A-anyways, implant some basic information as memories to help you out, so get to it!” God seemed somewhat flustered as they sent me to another world

It was very cold and wet. My new body, that is.  

“Ah, it’s raining.” I said aloud. Although I have said sunny weather is great for naps, rainy weather is amazing also. Maybe I just really like taking naps.

“So, who am I?” I asked looking through my pockets for my character’s ID. 

Uriel, despite the fantastical name expected of a protagonist, or maybe some sort of super cool, blindingly bright mentor character, he was actually the “best friend” character, always there to give our beloved MC a much needed pep-talk when he was feeling a little lost.

I actually didn’t mind this, as his ability seemed pretty interesting. In the web novel, which I still don’t remember the name of for some reason, characters have something called “Soul Runes,” a single word or phrase that the character has power over the concept of. Generally, the more broad the concept the more powerful it is, but the more training has to be put in. Something like “Creation” would be able to make anything, but even something simple like a pizza or something would require quite a lot of effort. On the other hand, something like “Pizza-Making” would only be able to make pizzas, but would require very little effort. Even if it were something more complex, like a car or something, as long as the Rune is just “Car-Making” it still requires little effort.

Uriel’s ability is “Light.”

I guess I really am going to be an Archangel.

That was probably obvious just from the name though.