When Shel stopped feeling sorry for herself and looked up again, Josephine was writing on the blank page in front of her. Shel glanced, sniffling, around the empty room again, still thinking about the girls.
‘This does not make any sense. What the heck is really going on?’ she thought to herself.
Josephine looked up, catching Shel’s eye.
“Better?” She asked.
Shel nodded shakily.
“Now what level of memories would you like to retain?” Josephine asked.
“What do you mean. Level of memories?” asked Shel.
“As an Isekai traveler you are given the option to retain your memories from your previous incarnations, many souls have nothing they wish to retain from their last life, as so many people have mostly regrets from their failed cycle.” Josephine said settling back in her chair.
Shel looked around the empty room thinking about what Josephine was saying, as she considered this, she realized that the room was changing around her, the previously empty walls now had large posters like from the front of a movie theater filled with images of a place that seemed like a dream. Pastoral landscapes, images of striking mountain ranges, glittering seas, and medieval looking towns. She stood up to look at them closer as Josephine continued talking.
“A common request is to vaguely remember positive people and interactions but strongly remember technology and science.” Josephine said gesturing to the walls.
Suddenly more picture frames appeared around the posters and they contained highlight images from Shel’s life, her birthday parties as a child, embarrassing images from high school, her first dates with James, their wedding, and pictures of the girls. A large bookshelf full of science text books from her high school and collage days appeared. She also saw the engineering manuals she had helped James memorize for his testing along with a long shelf dedicated to the battered copy of the encyclopedia set and curriculum they had purchased for the girls because James had wanted to home school them.
Shel paused at an image of the four of them; James, herself, and the girls. She stood and gently removed it from the wall and cradled it to her chest. “I want to remember everything” she said with passion while turning to Josephine.
“Everything?” Josephine asked her eyebrows raising, “even the terrible things? All of that suffering and crying”
“The happy memories will not be the same without the difficult times too.” Shel said firmly. She had lived through, and became stronger because of, the struggles, she would hate to lose all of that personal growth and self confidence that she had painfully developed over the hard times after James’s death.
Josephine pointed to the bookshelf, “Everything?”
“Oh yes, please, I want to be able to remember everything, I am assuming, if what you are saying is true, will wake up on a weird world all by myself and have no support system and know nobody, I will need whatever tools and knowledge I can get to be able to be successful.” Shel said remembering the common plots from those few stories about people waking up in a strange land she had seen.
“Three times has everything has been confirmed” muttered Josephine writing on the paper in front of her. “Your human psyche is not designed to constantly remember everything perfectly, so I will need to place your detailed memories behind a filter or gate.”
Shel looked at the paper Josephine was writing on, trying to read it upside down, it looked … blank?
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“If you focus on a memory or concept and kind of meditate on it you will find that your memory of it will become sharper until you will eventually recall it perfectly. This will prevent you from being continuously overwhelmed. This should allow you to function while still retaining access to all of your previous lives data and concepts. Does this sound acceptable?” Josephine asked looking up from the paper.
“I guess, as long as I can remember the people easily, I would hate to have a memory of loved ones that faded until I forget to look for it, that is the same as having no memories at all.” Shel answered, she did kind of understand what Josephine was saying, she could imagine how cluttered thinking could be if every time she looked at an object she had to sort through every single memory where she saw or touched that object.
“Can I have some kind of way to remember that I have a memory to look at? A memory card catalog? A Memory index? I am unsure how to ask for what I am thinking?” Shel wondered out loud.
“Sure, I think I understand what you mean” Josephine said, marking some more things down into the papers in the folder.
Shel looked again at the framed photo in her hands, Arla was cheesing with a huge smile, baby teeth showing and Kenzie looking at the camera with big wide sparkling eyes. James looked tired but satisfied and ... happy.
“Excellent, now lets talk about your appearance, what kind of being would you like to be, and how old would you like to start out as?” Josephine asked, interrupting Shel’s thoughts.
“Being?” Shel asked feeling confused, again.
“Yes, elves are popular, or dwarves, orc is possible, other humanoids too, and of course human.” Josephine said gesturing to the wall. The images on the wall changed to various bipedal and muti-modal creatures including backgrounds showing their living environments.
Shel looked at the various people shown, there was even a mermaid, they all had her face with only racial features adjusted, like long pointed ears on the elf, or a hint of a beard on the dwarf. The Mermaids chest looked extra impressive behind the sea shells, Shel shook her head.
“I don’t know, I guess surprise me?” Shell answered, she could not imagine successfully narrowing down the possibilities, everything seemed too weird. A random choice seemed easier.
“Alright, I can work with that, I will endeavor to select one that you will find interesting and fulfilling.” Josephine said smiling gently, “and starting age?” The walls changed to show each of the people at different ages, a baby, a toddler, preteen, and young adult.
Shel looked at the images of herself at different ages of awkward development. Her preteen gangling arms a weird contrast to the delicate looking image of her as a fairy with sparkling wings sitting on a mushroom cap. Shaking her head she asked, “Do I have to start over? I am not sure if I can stand growing up again.” The toddler mermaid did look really cute in her chubby stage with her blue green scales sparkling in the sun on a sandy beach.
“You can certainly start as a adult, 18 years old and ready to take on the world.” Josephine said. “I recommend that we limit some of the more esoteric people types if you skip childhood, its kind of hard to learn how to fly as a harpy if you don’t start as a fledgling.”
“Sure, that makes sense” Shel replied. Blinking as many of the images changed, everything with wings disappeared. A few of the bug looking ones did too, it made sense, having six limbs was probably hard to control without starting at birth. This whole situation was starting to seem more and more serious, maybe this was not a joke or scam. The images were changing too quickly and in a manner that was directly related to the answers to her questions. It would be very difficult to anticipate her responses this well in advance and prepare images beforehand.
“Right, so that is all of the normal questions answered,” Josephine said happily, “so what boon would you like? I promised you an extra boon or service as you have surprised me with the unique nature of your death.”
Shel looked back at the picture in her hands and considered the question, what kind of boon would be useful? She was becoming convinced that this was a real situation now, she really had died, and was facing a reincarnation event. All of that pain, struggle, and strife, wiped out! All of the positive potential in her girls gone too.
“My girls are really dead" She gasped a bit and then continued "If they are dead, they did not get much time to grow up on Earth, can I request my family to join me in this new world? If they are also dead and waiting for rebirth why not keep us together?”
Josephine started tapping her lip, obviously thinking, she started to flicker again, her whole body fading in and out as she considered the question. Shel waited quietly, she was a little surprised that Josephine was taking the somewhat offhand request seriously.
Josephine stopped flickering, looking at Shel with a decisive look on her face. “I cannot grant this request in the precise way you are thinking, however I believe I have a path where I can bring you all together again. By using your flexible answers from the previous questions I will surprise you as requested and also grant your boon request in the best way I can within the limitations I must work within.”
The images on the wall all faded except one, Shel looked at it and she saw a much younger version of herself, standing at the entrance of a cave of some sort.
“I will need to preselect some things and force a few system options, this will limit your choices on a few others, but if you will trust me I will set you on a path where eventually your request will be granted.” Josephine continued. “Do you accept?”
Shel thought about it for a second, did she trust Josephine? Well, there was no reason to not trust her at least somewhat, and what was the alternative? Her life was apparently over, and whatever happened next was outside of her control anyway. Ha! Not like she had ever even really been in control before, in her previous life.
“Yes” Shel answered simply.
“Surprise!”
The room blinked away and Shel was plunged into darkness.