“I gotta turn in the essay tomorrow man,” Billy sighed.

Audible steps. Cars honking, people shouting.

“Come get your corn steaks!”

“We GOT cheese!”

“When’s the deadline again?” I shuffled through the crowd in front, basically shoving people away with the signature phrase, “Excuse me.” Sometimes, I wondered why I even bothered to take this darn market road. But I did get an answer from my subconscious…’because you won’t see them around here.’

There were too many people on earth, way too many. Hospitals and markets were like lampposts, attracting people like bugs.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” he sighed again. Large dude, larger than me.

“25 hours, not bad.”

“Not bad? Wait, did you even start yet?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” I shrugged.

“Dude!” He chuckled, almost running into an old lady.

I grabbed his bulky hand and pulled him towards me. Which was a bad idea cause he almost pulled me back and we ‘almost’ fell to the floor. Almost because a guy barricaded himself between the lady and us and yeah. Shit.

When your friend is a literal truck of a dude, and you’re five eight, and not even half his weight, you would stop to think hey, maybe pulling him would be a bad idea and not pull him. But yeah, sometimes my genius brain amazed me with how dumb it was and shit happened.

Luckily this wasn’t one of those times. Yet.

“I’m telling ya dude, you need to eat more,” Billy shook his head, and thanked the guy. The lady grumbled a bit screaming ‘Don’t ya have eyes!’ and stuff but we ignored her. Not worth our time.

“And be fat? Not thanks!”

“You fat phobic sun of a gun,” he laughed and his belly moved for a second.

Yeah, no. It wasn’t that I was afraid of being fat. But rather I was afraid of actually not giving a fuck about being fat. There was a difference.

Anyway, we somehow were able to make past the market and were finally back on the quiet street. Of course, there were lots of people around and quite a few stores still shouting their stuff but at least I didn’t have to shove past a crowd. Saturdays were always like this. Busy as hell.

“No seriously though, start early,” Billy said.

“Because you want to copy?”

“No, I want to take inspiration.”

“Oh please,” I chuckled. “I kind of want to but it’s so stupid. I mean, who writes about Religion of all things. Why even bother?”

“Because it’s an important part of our life?”

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“How? It’s just indoctrination. Besides, everyone knows what it is and what it does or rather has been doing.”

“And where did you get the idea that it’s all false? Did you come up with it, on your own?”

“Yeah… no.” My teeth clenched together, refusing to let go. He had me there. While some ideas were truly of my own, there were quite a few arguments I’d borrowed from philosophers and maybe… youtubers. “But I can safely say, there’re no gods.”

“Sure, sure. I can’t prove god’s existence, but you can’t disprove them.”

I kind of wanted to argue, but at the same time, with how exhausted I was from afternoon classes, I didn’t bother.  “Yeah, pretty much.”

Billy was fat. Not the massive kind of fat, but he was fat and lazy, and often had a rather weird attitude towards those adult figurines. But he was also the most real guy I’d seen. He didn’t mince words and he didn’t really fucking care about anyone’s view of him.

And that was also why we were still friends.

We’d walked so far that the density of people was starting to decrease quite exponentially. One minute there were ten guys around, the next minute, two.

CHUUU!!!

“Right on time,” Billy said.

“Yeah, half an hour late as usual,” I shrugged.

The train was still a minute away but we’d arrived at the station. Technically a station but there was nothing in sight. Nothing other than just a train track and the suspicious (definitely not poop) stench.

“Welp, it’s been nice knowing ya,” I leaned forward for a handshake. “Billy goat.”

We acted like we were parting or something. Neither of us were going to get on the train though and it wasn’t going to stop here either. Cause yeah… it wasn’t really a station. Heh!

“Likewise,” he smiled, came closer and- shoved me. “Asshole.”

Instead of shaking my hands, or hugging me like usual… Billy shoved me.

The world slowed as my heart raced. I was falling, arms flailing for something, anyting to grab onto. Yet, I watched everything in slow motion. I watched Billy as he just stood there, without any emotion whatsoever. The dude didn’t even smile.

CHUUUUUU!!!

“Why?”

The word leaked as metal grinded against metal and slammed into me…

 WHAM!

Zzz… everything buzzed my vision failed and I was dragged away. The tracks pushed against my shoulders and…I couldn’t really feel anything below, but everything above just burned. Or stung? I wasn’t sure. It was all going away… slipping away. Slowly… slipping away.

‘Well… at least I won’t have to finish that shit essay.’

***

Death.

Rather simple concept. You get popped into existence, so one day you would get popped out of it. But it wasn’t really that simple. What happened after death? You would get judged by an almighty god and be sent to maybe hell or heaven? Or maybe if God didn’t exist, you’d get shoved into earth’s asshole and spend years waiting to be devoured by some plant roots and turn into fruits or flowers or whatever?

That was assuming the fact that maybe some almighty god existed or maybe he didn’t. But what if neither happened.

What if… instead of being judged or being literal tree food, what if…

“Anga sensa ru?” A rather tall lady stood before me, as grass stretched up to her legs. It was too blinding to stare up but not looking at those tight leggings and that moderate chest was a major waste.

‘How do you even have that kind of pretty skin?’ And on her thighs no less!

She was what, ten feet tall?

She slouched down, face coming closer. Big eyes, pretty flawless skin… just how much damn foundation had she used?

And so frigging tall… I hadn’t even seen men that tall.

No wait… I was just short. Short as in… ‘Holy fuck…’ I took a look at my arms and they were tiny. Tiny as fuck. Like, I was a rather thin dude, too thin perhaps. But not this thin. They looked like twigs. Fucking twigs!

And the lady? White one-piece dress with a silver necklace and tight navy leggings; but parts of her thighs were exposed in a oval manner; weird design maybe? She had red hair, and long ears. No, not long as in large. But long as in pointy and double slitted. Aka, she wasn’t human. And her buddies pointing those fancy bow and arrows at me were proof enough. Buddies, who weren’t there even a minute ago.

‘Asia?’ They didn’t seem Asian though. Which meant…

Yes… the third option. I wasn’t being judged by a god and neither had I randomly become tree food. But rather… I was in another world.

“Unga suncha lala!~” one of them screamed, threatening to let lose some arrows and fuck me over.

I did not understand them one fucking bit. And yet, I understood them all too well.

‘Fuck.’