(Luther Wolfe's POV);

Death. Such an intriguing concept. All my life, I'd been expecting it to drop by like an unexpected visitor during my sleep. I've been confined to hospital wards as far back as my memory stretches. You see, I've got what the fancy medical folks call a congenital heart disorder, coupled with the early markers of muscular dystrophy. I'm fragile, seriously so. By the time I hit fifteen, I couldn't even handle a meal on my own. My body's just that feeble.

Thank the stars my folks come from a well-off background; they could foot the bills for my pricey treatments and meds. It's like when the only link you've got to the outside world is TV shows, and your human interactions are limited to parents, doctors, and your nanny, things get seriously monotonous. My meds, well, they've become the closest thing to a friend. When those pain waves hit, they're the ones who tuck me into that deep slumber. Well, not quite. I did have another set of friends in the form of an endless number of music tracks in my Spotify playlists, and I did have a very expensive setup to render it with the best quality. I was also a voracious binger when it came to movies and series.

I always loved to fantasize how I would be cured someday with some top-secret medicine or something similar. I mean, I was free to fantasize, and while there was medicine to support me, let's just say it gave me more weakness than any strength. Day after day, I was just hanging by a thin thread. At least pain tried to be consistent with its visits. After I turned ten, the frequency of seeing my parents reduced. I knew that they had their hectic lives, and of course, all those expensive treatments and facilities came with a price. But soon, my parents had another son. I did get to see the boy once or twice every month when they made their visits. But after a while, they stopped all the visits by the time I was 15. I was first curious about what happened and also worried that something bad had happened to my family. But it just seemed that they were venturing into new business horizons, and they didn't have the time to look after their kids anymore. I really pitied my brother, who was healthier than me yet was as lonely as me.

It was a Saturday night, and I was put to bed by the nurse, and I took my meds before falling asleep. I was feeling good compared to other days. But then it was just another illusion of life that makes you live on, looking forward to better days. Illusion or not, I was feeling better, and I knew I would be getting a good night's sleep. I was feeling tired and rested my eyes. Suddenly, a feeling of calmness and freedom swept over me. I was no longer in pain; my breathing was stable, and I could feel relief that I had never felt in this life. I was getting sleepier, and then everything turned black.

If peacefulness had a physical representation, then I believe my current state would be the perfect rendition of it in reality. There was no pain, and the next thing I saw was an endless stretch of darkness. But the darkness soon dissolved into what I can only describe as cosmic. 'Damn, if this is some trip from some meds that I took, I am digging this.' My thoughts were running wild, and suddenly I felt a pull at my navel. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a large white hall with a table. Across the table, I could see a woman wearing bone-framed spectacles in business attire. 'Whoa… where have I seen this particular scenario?' It did remind me of a scene from a Ryan Reynolds movie that I had seen in the past. 

The woman was looking at a particularly thin file in her hand, and suddenly she looked up to me and smiled. "How are you holding up, young one?" she asked while looking at me with particularly kind eyes. "Luther Wolfe, male, 17 years old, father's name was Ryan Wolfe, mother's name Lyanna Wolfe. Hobbies, uhm… movies, music and, oh well… checking out the cute nurse. Am I right, Luther?" 

'Damn, for a trip from my meds, this is way too real.' "You are not hallucinating from your meds, darlin. I can assure you that this has nothing to do with hallucinogens. This is as real as it gets, son." She answered my thoughts. "I know that it will be a surreal experience for you. All this will end smoothly, so relax." While I was still sceptical about what was going on, I still decided to believe her and tried to think of what is really going on now. She said it was not the meds. The only alternate that I could now come up with was that I was in a high-definition lucid dream because I could feel chills and the cold seat that I sat on.

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"You know human consciousness is such a marvel. It can do assumptions and such a detailed calculation of what is going on around you, and even if it is alien to you, it will come up with an analysis that usually flies very close to the real answer. While your assumption is partially correct, I am really sorry to tell you that your brief life on earth is coming to an end, kid. OH... and yes it was your sixth life that just ended"

Bang. There it was. Even when I suspected that this was just a medically induced hallucination, at the back of my head, I did suspect this was the afterlife. And there it was. The confirmation that I needed lay bright as the sun in front of me (or sat). "It is the truth that even greater men failed to swallow without choking, darling. There is no shame in admitting that this is scary and unsettling," she quipped with a smile that was reflected in her eyes. 'Wait am I missing something? Did she just say that it was my sixth time here?' "You always have been a sharp soul, kid, and YES, it is your sixth time here," she answered almost instantaneously as if reading my mind with that deep smile she wore from the start. But without letting me speak up she spoke again. "I know you have a lot of questions regarding how the limbo functions, boy. But trust me when I say it, no matter how long we have in this realm, we cannot end this conversation. So, let us just say that you are indeed dead or currently in the process of dying. You are in a process that we can call passing. Every soul that dies will pass through their personal limbo before finally passing on to their next lives. While the reincarnation majorly depends upon their actions and consequences of their past lives, it is mostly balanced by giving them an equal number of satisfactory and unsatisfactory lives. Usually, a soul has 7 lives, and you already have lived six of them. But due to some error that we couldn't foresee, you had an unbalanced set of lives which had two satisfactory and four unsatisfactory lives. Your last life was supposed to be a satisfactory one, yet you had to leave such a depressing and lonely life of pain."

I didn't know what to think about what I was hearing. While learning the fact that I lived six lives alone was enough to give me a feeling that made my head hurt. But I felt something was off. Probably sensing my doubts 'magically', the woman spoke again. "I knew you were a very perceptive soul. Let's just say that once in a while something goes wrong in the system. And we try our best to keep the errors out of the system. But your case was a bit special not only your error did occur without our perception, but also remained unattended for so long that it is your sixth chance that is coming to an end." It was getting crazier by the second. Every word that came out of the woman was changing my worldview and the fact that I was 'accidentally' put through four lives of misery was somehow not sitting right with me. You know how you feel something is not right but can't put your finger on it, that's what I am feeling now.

"I know you have a lot of questions and doubts regarding your fate, but let's just put that behind us because we don't have much time, and we have to take care of the compensation that you shall receive for the mishap that befell on you." She spoke in a calm tone while holding down my rushing thoughts. "Compensation…what kind of compensation are we talking about? And why would you ever compensate me? As you just stated, my soul lost its memories at the moment I died, and I don't remember the misery of my past and would forget my current life's misery and loneliness as I pass through. So why? Why compensate me?" 

Even though I did try to sound unaffected and level-headed, my voice did crack and faltered due to fleeting emotions. I wanted to be in control so bad, but the reality was that I was scared, sad, and confused about my current situation. Even though she did promise me compensation, something in me told that this was not that simple. You know all your life you tend to curse your fate and imagine knowing that it was indeed fate that did me bad. 

'Sensing' my dilemma her face changed. "I know that this is not easy for you. Your pain, your loneliness, your parents' sadness all came from your ill fate. But let me assure you when I say this. You will be enjoying your life to the fullest. It will be worth every pain that you had to bear. And the One Who Dictates has great plans for you." "The One Who Dictates? Who is that? And why does he have plans for me?" I voiced my doubts once again. Every line that is coming out of this woman's mouth is spinning my mind around like a top. "Let's just say he is my big boss. He while takes only limited decisions, he still took an interest in your case and decided to compensate you in a very peculiar way. He decided that you will be sent to a specially created reality for you to live with your memories intact. While it is hard to rewire somebody's system, it is just a simple feat for him. And the icing on the cake is that, it is very peculiar that the reality has very close relations to the movies and series that you can think of from your past life. And yes, you shall be at the very center of everything."