The start of this story is just like many others. Unappreciated, abused, tormented, and deeply distressed, a main character found himself on a late night walk. There was no moon, with even the stars hidden by clouds, and the mist lay thick and curling on the ground.

A truck driver was finishing his run. Nearly done, he thought to himself, relief warming his weary breast. It had been a long haul, and all he wanted to do was go to his warm home and his loving family.

And then the young man stepped blindly into the road, eyes fixed on his phone. The truck swerved, the driver desperately spinning the wheel, but in vain. There’s a crash, and the phone went flying onto the road. It shattered outright, broken beyond repair.

“Wait… hold on just a moment… let me get this straight…” Death managed to stutter out. They were at a nearby bar, having decided that crouching in the abandoned attic of an inn was probably an unideal spot for such crucial discussions. Death had taken out a private booth - apparently she did in fact have cash, something which conveniently came out after possession was off the table - and they were conversing over, well, a drink. The shade, after all, could not drink, and Art wasn’t sure if he could or if it would slide out awkwardly all over the floor.

Consequently only Death had a drink, though the others had ordered water, and all three had appetisers (Death assured them she had a big stomach, which prompted wide looks from the shade and an appreciative thumbs up from Art).

But I return to Death’s question.

“Wait… hold on just a moment… let me get this straight… you were a cellphone?”

“To be slightly more specific, I was a uPhone 12 - the latest and greatest model. For about six months,” the shade conceded. “Then they designed a new, improved model, and I was phased out after being made obsolete. My owner was planning to by the latest uPhone (the uPhone Pi) on the day that he… you know… was truck-kunned.”

He pantomimed moving the fork, to create the semblance of his eating (it felt more companionable), then continued with his story. “It was a hard first few years. As a phone, I had no real basis for emotional activity, and-”

“Wait, no, give me a moment. What’s a cellphone?” Death asked. The shade blinked.

“My apologies. Given the ubiquity of transmigrators and their societal, technological, and civilisational practices, I figured one of them had already tried to introduce a cellphone to your world. This appears to have been an error on my part.”

“No, it was a reasonable enough assumption,” Death admitted. Her face contorted in a strange expression that the shade couldn’t altogether understand, as she seemed to consider something about him and their relationship thus far.

“There are all sorts of forms of devices going under the names of cellphones, phones, telephones, smartphones, etcetera etcetera. Most of them are various sorts of spirit phones, or convoluted bits of scrap metal powered with qi. They’re used to capture a record of people’s activities and send messages ethereally, to those who can’t hear you and who would otherwise be out of your reach. So I knew about them, but I’d also heard from transmigrators - for all their pronouncements can be trusted - that the phones and cellphones and telephones and smartphones and etcetera etcetera of our world were nothing like the phones from whence they came, which were hunks of plastic powered by electricity and satellite networks.”

The shade scratched under his chin, and eyed Death as she sat there, nervously facing him. It had been a sudden adventure - her offer, his acceptance, their journey to the surface, their chase of the now dead demonic cultivator - and it occurred to him that in all that time he had never properly gazed at her who had done so much for him. For the first time he took her in.

She had black hair and liquid black eyes, which stood out all the more on her pale skin. Over her thin, hawkish frame she wore a leather jacket, white shirt, and denim pants. Her lips were pursed as she sipped the beer - which he was fairly certain was the wrong way to do it. She had a small, upturned nose. The only splotch of colour in her otherwise gothic appearance was her purse, which stood out brightly in brilliant pink.

The shade did not trust many people. This was not, to be clear, because he actively distrusted them; rather, it was merely because he was stingy in giving his trust, unwilling to open up unless he had first confirmed that the other was reliable, and would not betray his vulnerability. Yet as he looked at Death, really looked, he decided to trust her.

“That’s correct. A cellphone is no living being, nor even a construct of spiritual energy. It’s a hunk of plastic, powered by electricity, which can be used to contact others, do basic research, watch videos - moving pictures of other people - check the time, and so on and so forth and suchlike and whatnot. A versatile device, but not, strictly speaking, a living one.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yet you are alive,” Death replied.

“So I am. Err, was. Why, however, is beyond me.”

She looked at him sympathetically, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Fair enough. We can learn about that as we go. At any rate, there’s still one thing I don’t understand. Why did you not tell me you were a cellphone?”

“Why would I? Did you not tell me you had my file? There is no way it didn’t mention that there,” the shade pointed out. Death pulled the file out of her purse and quickly scanned through it.

“Oh yeah, here we go. It’s on line two, after your name.”

There was silence for an entire minute after this pronouncement, the shade staring at Death in complete and utter stupefaction, his jaw halfway to the floor. Death just shifted uncomfortably, pretending she was somewhere else. At last the silence became unbearable, and she forced herself to speak.

“So,” she enquired, “if you were used for research, you must know a great deal about transmigrator customs. Your knowledge must be very in-depth.”

The shade smiled ruefully. “I wish, but, alas, it is not particularly so. I had access to all the knowledge of transmigrator civilisation - their works of philosophy, art, literature, music, theology, poetry, history, etcetera. Yet my owner was a man of limited interests, and used me only for such sites as Slickipedia and Breaddit.”

He smiled at her confusion. “I know naught but miscellaneous factoids.”

Death sighed. “Ah. I suppose it was too much to hope for.”

This time it was the shade’s turn to give her a pat on the shoulder. She perked up at this.

“And is it true that the form of prophetic transmission that transmigrators call a ‘web novel,’ and which they use to get so many of their prophecies as to what will happen to their new body, is in fact stored on the cellphone?” Death said, pulling out a notebook and beginning to write at speed.

“Sure. Hence why it’s called a web novel - it’s a novel hosted on the web - that is to say, the collection of pages people do their research on.” The shade replied, vaguely confused as to why this should even be a question.

“I see, I see. Fascinating. And to think, millennia of transmigrator historians - those specialising the science, exegesis, and history of transmigrator thought - had decided that it was in fact the pages of a novel, separated from the binding of a book and hung instead from a giant spider’s web, so that they were all out of order and the resulting picture was a confused and and indeterminate mess - thus explaining why so many of your prophecies should go entirely sideways from how you expected the ‘plot’ to proceed. This revelation, however, changes everything.”

“Indeed? At least someone benefits.” The shade jested.

“So, this world knows of transmigrators,” Art observed, eating a french fry. It fell with a plop through an unfinished hole in his chest. The shade and Death looked at him, then back at each other, and shrugged. Some things were better left undiscussed.

“But as I was saying,” the shade observed, pretending to sip his water, “as a phone, I had a hard first few years, when first I reincarnated into a demon, emotionally understanding my parents and sister. It didn’t help matters that your world apparently uses a System for everyday activities, such that the technological basis of my former life remained part of my experience.”

“Wait, back up just a moment, you have a System?” Death practically cried.

The shade looked at her, slowly, face expressionless. “You didn’t open the file at all, did you?”

Death flushed, and coughed a couple times to try and distract the two pairs of eyes staring at her. The shade sighed, closing his eyes once and rubbing his forehead.

“Forget it. Not only do I have a System; I have two, neither of them of any great account. I received the first upon my birth and hence entry into this world, and the second upon my entry into the afterlife. Both, as I earlier mentioned, are all but useless, though I confess that the Invincible Tree Growth System has some gratitude from me for having given me indomitable toes through my Rank 5 Roots. Why, is it uncommon to have a System?”

“No one has Systems, not unless you’re a transmigrator - and even they only ever have one, not two.”

“Hmm. Do you think, when you begin practising the Body Regeneration Technique, you’ll get a third System? It technically counts as a re-entry to the world,” Art observed, slurping his water loudly.

“Nahhh, no way. Two Systems is already ridiculous enough; no way he gets a third.” Said Death confidently.

She would rue those words when, two days later, the shade - who had at last introduced himself as one ‘Connor Crinkle’ - began the development of his body, and did in fact unlock a third System.

“Hmmm. The Ultimate Obscure Sports System. I wonder what I can do with this,” Connor murmured, scrolling through a screen only he could see.

Death facepalmed, her rudimentary plan fragmenting and reforming in convoluted, serpentine channels about her. Finally she uttered a small cry.

“You know what? Something’s weird about this - too weird - unacceptably weird.”

“Oh? I suppose so. After the second System was unlocked the two floated about separately, but now that I have a third they seem to be integrating into one cohesive super System. That is rather odd. However, the stats are-”

“Oh, it’s not the particulars that are odd; it’s the entire affair. You shouldn’t have more than one System, nevermind three, and they certainly shouldn’t be intermingling like… however they are.”

She cut off an attempted explanation of his Systems on the part of Connor. “There’s only one thing to do here - contact the Heavenly Bureaucracy, and demand an answer.”