Campbell could swear that he’d never met these people in his life, yet they all acted like they had known him for years. Some of them even knew stuff that only his best friend knew.

It was strange and terrifying. And it convinced him more that this was all a dream.

He looked at the people around him in a daze as they talked and readied themselves for the game today.

The person who talked to him earlier tapped him on the shoulder, making him flinch. “Hey, you okay there? You seem a little off.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” His eyes darted to his brother’s locker.

“Oh yeah, where is Dylan? The game’s about to start. He should be here by now.”

“I don’t know,” Campbell muttered to himself, still in a bit of a daze. He was surrounded by people he didn’t know, but who seemed to know him. And apparently his brother was supposed to be here.

This is so strange. Every sensation felt so real, but he couldn’t logically believe that this was anything but a dream.

He tuned out the voices of conversation as he stared at the entrance, waiting for his brother to arrived. Several minutes passed as everyone got changed and sat down on the benches as they waited for the coach to come in.

Campbell’s eyes were still locked onto the entrance, waiting for his brother to show up.

Step, step, step.

The distant sound of footsteps travelled into his ears, sounding like they were coming from right next to him. Easily discernible, even through all of the talking.

The sounds got louder as someone walked into the locker room.

Campbell looked up at the person and his eyes froze. No way... He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His brother was actually standing right in front of him. As healthy as he had been when he was still alive.

This can’t be real. Campbell shook his head, trying hard to wake himself up. He felt a wave of indescribable emotions course through him as he looked at his brother.

He just wanted to get out of here, but for some reason, he couldn’t get himself to move. He stared at his brother for an uncomfortably long time, taking in every detail.

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It really is him. He hoped for a moment that it was just someone that looked like his brother, but he could tell it wasn’t. Every single detail had been burned into his mind, and he knew he wouldn’t mistake anyone else for his brother.

“Hello brother,” Dylan stopped in front of him for a moment and whispered. Before Campbell could say anything, he continued walking and stopped at his locker.

He didn’t look back at Campbell. Like he didn’t even matter.

Campbell didn’t know how to feel about this. He just sat there, staring at his brother for a long time and blocking out everything else. He just couldn’t wrap his head around what was going on.

Someone else, the coach, entered the locker room and started talking to the team, but Campbell didn’t hear what he was saying at all. It just went in one ear and out the other without stopping in his brain at all.

Everyone slowly filtered out of the locker room, and for a moment, it was just him and his brother.

“Good luck out there,” Dylan said as he walked past Campbell and out the door.

Dylan shook himself out of his daze and looked around. Can I just stay here until I wake up? Please. He felt that the quiet and loneliness of the locker room was comfortable. He didn’t want to go out there and face his brother again.

“Hello Campbell,” Buddie’s voice rang out throughout the locker room, forcing its way into his Campbell’s brain and making him listen. “You must be wondering what this all is, right? You must be thinking that this is a dream.

Well, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t. This is a test for you. You have committed a heinous sin, and here you will receive your judgement.”

Campbell couldn’t get used to Buddie’s mechanical voice. It was too grating on his ears. It wormed its way into his brain and he couldn’t block it out no matter how he tried to. It was like the voice was coming from inside his own head.

He didn’t know why, but for some reason he was compelled to believe that the voice was telling the truth. That this wasn’t a dream. That it was all real and that his brother really did just talk to him, no matter how ridiculous that felt to him.

“You killed your brother because you were jealous of his success. He succeeded where you had failed, and so you took out all of your pent up anger on him. You killed him before he could truly make a name for himself. And for that, you will be punished.

If you fail at your mission today, you will be sent down to Hell, where you will be tortured for a very long time.”

Every word stung. He knew that what he had done was wrong. That it was incredibly wrong. But he had repressed any negative emotions he had felt about it, believing that he was right for acting the way he did.

But for some reason, just like how he was compelled to believe that this was all real, the voice tugged on these emotions and brought them to the surface.

He was a complicated storm of emotions, and it didn’t help that all of this was so confusing. He still had no clue what was going on and just wanted to sit here forever.

“We have brought your brother down from heaven and returned you to your peak physical form. Your mission today is to plat a game of basketball with him. But this time, you must repress your emotions and support him to the top so that he gets the glory that he deserves.”