As the image in front of her froze on a depressing shot of her family and company in tears at her funeral, Joyce snapped out of her stupor.

“Wait, wait, wait...”, she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Where am I?”, she asked, gesturing at the near limitless void and dancing lights around her.

“What is this..?”, she shook her hands at the large monitor in front of her, despair creeping into her voice.

“Who are you..?!”, she further shook her hands in the direction of the very laid-back, naked woman beside her. “And what is happening!!”

With a slight grin, the naked woman sighed and rolled her eyes. “Settle down, alright? One question at a time... not that I really want to answer any of them.”

She pulled her finger out of her ear, thereafter flicking away a piece of earwax, “...but I suppose you deserve some answers.”

The woman’s grin grew larger upon seeing the veins in Joyce’s head pop.

“Just try and relax, it’ll all be OK,” the woman tried to speak in a soft, soothing voice but a snicker escaped her composure. “However, you’re dead. Just like my narrated synopsis of your final moments showed you.”

In a puff of purple ethereal smoke, the woman went from lying down a few feet behind Joyce to appearing right in front of her, her weight against the large monitor. Despite being fully nude, her long silver locks magically, almost mechanically, swayed with her every movement to fully shield Joyce’s eyes from seeing anything untoward.

“And do you know how hard it was to actually set up this giant CRT monitor to show what is essentially your last moments, akin to your life flashing before your eyes?” She seemed to go off on a self-righteous tangent. “Bluetooth and radio waves be damned, this is next-level stuff!”

Flabbergasted, Joyce let out a nervous chuckle. Her eyes darted from side to side and she started to mutter to herself, “Oh, I see what’s happening here. I must’ve been shot in the head and taken to hospital. This is all one big, coma-induced, fever dream...”

The naked woman held her head in her palm and lightly shook it. After another puff of smoke, the woman appeared beside Joyce.

“I’m afraid not, darling,” she vaguely comforted Joyce, caressing her head. “This is as real as it gets.”

Joyce lifted her empty, terrified expression and faced the woman whose, by contrast, was glimmering with an almost unhinged smile. The woman then placed both hands on Joyce’s shoulders and remarked, “As for where you are and who I am, well...”

“My name... isn’t really important, but a goddess, and this is,” she again disappeared and reappeared on the opposite side of the monitor. “Not exactly heaven, but it’s more like... ‘my domain’.” She gestured the last bit with air quotes.

A vast emptiness surrounded them both, with clouds stretching as far as the eye could see. The occasional light leak shining white light peeked out amidst the otherwise pleasant blue sky. The surreal environment contrasted fully against the two women, the large monitor, and a small coffee table near them.

“...So I died?” Joyce said in a whisper, the gravity of her predicament settling in.

“Yeah, kind of,” the goddess lightly tapped on the CRT monitor and got lost in thought again while staring at the screen. “Then again, you didn’t really get a ‘life flashing before your eyes’ moment. There was definitely a flash though, or more of a bang? And then that sick cave-in.”

She again turned towards Joyce, who seemed shocked by the goddess’ nonchalance.

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Unfazed by her endlessly puzzled stare, the goddess shrugged and continued, “My bad, by the way. I mean, not really, but you know what I mean. It wasn’t the most sophisticated, ceremonious work I’ve done.”

Joyce did a double take. “Your bad...?” She stuttered, “What do you mean, ‘your bad’?”

“Your death,” the goddess slapped the CRT monitor’s screen. “It technically wasn’t supposed to happen yet... but I pulled a few strings, greased a few elbows, licked a few—er, better not mention that last one.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

The goddess darted her eyes, once to the left and once to the right, like a child who knew she’d done something wrong. Except she grinned with no remorse. “See? Look here,” she pointed to the screen.

It started to “rewind the tape”, to the moment just before the fatal cave-in. However, instead of the “camera” showing Joyce’s point of view, it showed a frantic conversation between members of the enemy force. They spoke in a foreign tongue Joyce didn’t understand, but the situation was clear. They were preparing to keep fighting, even as gunshots rang out across the cave. Then, just as one of the men ran to fetch his weapon, he tripped on a loose pebble and fell on the detonator causing it all to blow up.

Mouth agape, Joyce exclaimed, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, in case you didn’t catch it,” the goddess pointed a remote control she pulled out of thin air at the monitor. With a few presses of a button, the screen slowed to a frame-by-frame crawl. She paused it on the moment the fated officer tripped and zoomed in at his boots. In front of them was the culprit.

“See that pebble? That was me!” The goddess joyfully exclaimed. “Or did you really think such a cartoony thing could actually happen? Guess again. I slipped it in front of him and tweaked the pebble’s weight a bit.”

The madness of the being in front of her made Joyce shut her eyes and slap her face three times before holding her head in her hands. Her breathing grew long and deep before transitioning into quick, shallow breaths.

“You can hyperventilate all you want — you won’t die twice.”

At the goddess’ remark, Joyce’s rapid breathing halted and she shot up, staring her down.

“OK, so we’ve established you had me killed. That’s fine,” Joyce shook her head. “Why am I here?”

“Ah, and so we’ve reached the meat of the conversation!” The goddess pointed at Joyce, “You’re here because I needed you. I have a little something that needs to be done and it just so happens that you are the perfect candidate for the job!”

Joyce threw her arms in the air, “All those people on our planet, and I was your only choice? What kind of goddess are you?”

“I’m hurt by that statement,” the goddess retorted, scrunching her face in visible pain. “It’s not like I did this on a whim. I had plenty of choices!”

Out of nowhere, the goddess pulled out a bowler hat with several crumpled pieces of paper on the inside. She shook it as to prove her point.

“There were several choices and you were picked,” the goddess’ expression turned relaxed again. “It was a lottery, but you were always my first choice.”

Disbelieving the mischievous goddess before her, Joyce pulled out one crumpled piece of paper from the hat and opened it up to reveal the name. Then she pulled another, and another, and another, and on all the papers it only ever showed one name: Captain Joyce Blythe-Gomez.

A yell turned into manic laughter as Joyce fell to her hands and knees.

‘My life ended on the whims of a fickle goddess. What a bad joke! This is why I never had any women in my company, only men can comport themselves seriously in dire situations...’, she thought.

The goddess stood over her, “I can hear what you’re thinking, you know.”

The sudden retort caused Joyce to choke on her saliva. Defeated, and without looking up to face the goddess, she asked, “Why was I chosen? What do you need me for?”

“I chose you for your bravado, I chose you for your tomboyish nature, I chose you for your skills, and also I chose you because of how you tend to handle encounters with enemies.”

With a finger, the goddess tapped twice at her temple, as if looking for the right words.

“As for the little details, don’t sweat it! You’re capable, you’ll figure it out! You’re adaptable and strong! Chin up, buttercup! You’ll get the gist of it as soon as you arrive, I promise!”

The goddess’ empty words of encouragement rang hollow in Joyce’s ears.

“But I won’t leave you totally stranded. You may see or hear me from time to time, and I promise everything will be made clear in just a few moments,” she knelt and caressed Joyce’s hunched back.

The goddess stood and a bell sounded. She motioned to look at her bear wrist and further exclaimed, “But would you look at the time, we’re all out of it! You’ve got places to be, I’ve got... nothing much to do really, and in about five seconds you’ll forget we even conversed!”

With a snap of her fingers, the goddess opened a fissure beneath where Joyce lay in defeat, causing her to plunge into an infinitely long crevice. The further Joyce fell, the darker it got. As all light slowly faded from Joyce’s sight, she heard the goddess’ voice echoing around her.

“There’s just one~ little caveat, but it’s better if you experience that one for yourself. Enjoy your new life!”

After falling for what seemed like an eternity, Joyce was greeted by a flash of blinding light.