I got back home from watching that wine-cult literally drink themselves to death,... and into states worse than death. Then I found a guy wandering through my house, holding a toilet brush like a club. It took me a few nanoseconds to even remember who the guy was. Eyes wild and bloodshot. Green skin flushed and covered with cold sweat.

I eventually realized that this was the dead guy I’d found on my moon a few weeks ago. I’d decided to heal his body, and put his soul back where it belonged because the guy technically wasn’t all of the way dead, and I just happened to be there. Then not wanting to let the guy die again after I’d taken the time to save him, I brought him home with me, and set him up in a guest room to convalesce.

“Yo…” I said. Waving in greeting.

The fellow jolted as he saw me, holding up the toilet brush like he was ready to come charging over, but not moving an inch from where he stood. We sort of just stood there. Observing each other. From his perspective, I probably looked like a tall, bearded, mostly-human male, of indeterminate age. And, I’d seen enough of his body’s internal workings to have clocked him as three-quarters orc, with strongly expressed goblin genes.

By reading the young fellows' memories and data, I’d been able to determine that this young man was the native of one of the nearby tribes, from the planet below. Which is why I decided to try and be as chill as possible. Could imagine being attacked by something, almost dying, and then waking up on your planet’s moon. I imagine it’d be quite a shock. Disorientation followed by disorientation.

“H-, hi…” said the youth.

“My name’s Calloway…This is my mountain. This is my moon. Might I ask your name, young fellah?” I said. Plopping myself down near a decorated, plush, stool that happened to be near the door.

“Ah…I am…I am Johan…Johan of the Bladetusk family…Of the Fangpsear Tribe,” said the man.

“Nice to meet you, Johan,” I said.

“I…Yes…Nice to meet you, too?” said the young man.

“Lovely isn’t it?” I said. Pointing over my shoulder at the darling view of the massive planet of purple, blue, and green that one could see from my front porch.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I…Um….Yes,” said Johan.

All life was engineering. All people were machines. Sapience and personality were largely a type of advanced programming created by the interactions of the spirit, soul, and body. Thus, though it wouldn’t always work, you could often force a hard reset, by running an entirely different script from the one that the other party was expecting to run.

“So…Er, I’m pretty sure I died?” said Johan.

“Oh, you did indeed die, Johan my boy….When I stumbled across you, what I stumbled upon was a corpse, with your spirit floating halfway out of it,” I said.

“R-, really?” said Johan. Sounding like he half wanted me to just say I was kidding.

“Sorry, lad…There are few folks in this cosmos scary enough for me to consider lying to, and you’re not anywhere near attractive to be one of my wives in disguise,” I said. Chuckling.

“So…Is…is this afterlife?” said Johan.

“Nah, lad…I think by now it should be clear that you’re very alive ‘now’...” I said.

“Uh, uh-huh…I thought so, but well, I’ve never died before so, I didn’t know for sure,” said Johan.

“Understandable,” I said. With a sympathetic nod.

“Um, I don’t suppose you can tell me how to get…back down there?” said Johan. Pointing at the purple, blue, and green planet with a lost expression.

“Oh, sure…In fact, I can show you a shortcut that’ll drop you off right near the valley your tribe lives in,” I said.

“I…Thanks…Thanks for that…and uh, thanks for bringing me back to life?” said Johan. His brows joined in the middle in a look of quizzical anxiety.

“Don’t mention it. T’was all just a whim of this meddlesome old man’s,” I said. Smiling.

I gave the young man instructions that would take him into one of the warded zones that normally were “supposed” to bounce out people who wandered into the part of the strange region that I’d claimed as mine. I’d temporarily turned that warded zone into a teleport gate that would drop the young man off near his home.

Just as Johan was about to wander out through my front door, I called out to him.

“Oi, lad…Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Uh….?” said Johan. Looking absolutely terrified, as if he was expecting that “now” was the point where I exacted whatever terrible price he’d been expecting to pay for having his life returned to him after he’d lost it.

“Mind handing me back my toilet brush before you head back out, lad?” I said.

“Oh…Um, sorry,” said Johan. Deflating, and blushing, as he realized that he was still holding the brush in hand.