As I sat on the cloud-chair, left leg crossed horizontally over right, with my right elbow on my heel and my hand holding my chin up, I wagged the paper in my left hand towards and away from me slightly, considering my options. At the top of the page, written in flowing, nigh-illegible calligraphy with gold ink, were the words “Reincarnation Assignment and Reality Enrollment.” I looked at the… angel(?) sitting across the desk from me, and while the smile never left her face, the bored look on mine clearly unnerved her somewhat.
“Is this all there is?” I asked. Her smile became even more strained as she parsed the question.
“What do you mean?” she asked with a pleasantness only a customer service worker could muster. “Are none of these powerful enough, perhaps? I thought I had gotten a decent list.” I looked back at the sheet and shook my head.
“No, you’ve got a dragon, an abandoned space station AI, and a tech mogul’s heir in here, so if I wanted straight power, I could just go with one of those. But all of those are boring.” I let my left arm fall as I leaned back, holding my elevated ankle with my right hand as I did. “I was hoping for something more… off the beaten path. Something weird, something unexpected. Something that most people would think is too much work, or not worth the time and effort.”
The angel pursed her lips for a moment, drumming her fingers on the desk as her eyes drifted from the paper in my hand to what I assumed was a drawer on the right side of the desk. After a few more seconds, she finally returned her gaze to me and stopped drumming her fingers.
“Let me go check with my supervisor, ok?”
I shrugged, since it was a better answer than ‘no,’ and she disappeared in a gentle flash of light. I sighed, and leaned my head on the back of my chair. Applying for reincarnation in another reality with all my memories intact hadn’t been what I’d meant when I hoped something interesting would happen today, but after finding out that getting shot in the chest by someone who was clearly either mentally unwell or a drug addict was unforeseen even by the divines, I didn’t feel like I could complain. Technically, I had gotten my wish to the highest level possible. I just wished I could have gotten a better look at the gun he used, because it didn’t look familiar. I was never an expert by any means, but play video games almost your whole life, and you’re bound to pick up a lot of info on the way, especially from people who ARE experts. Or at least, people who think they are.
Two more gentle flashes of light interrupted my musings, and I returned my attention to the desk in front of me as a new angel appeared in the seat, with the first one standing to one side. Unlike the first angel’s pale skin, green eyes, and bright red hair, this new guy had skin of a light brown color, with blue eyes that literally shone, and black hair that seemed to change styles on its own every few seconds. He had his hands and forearms resting on the desktop, fingers laced together and a playful smirk on his face.
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“So,” he began, staring intently at me as he spoke, “you’re looking for a reincarnation that’s a bit more unique, I hear?” I nodded once, noticing as I did that he wasn’t blinking. It made sense, but it was weird to see. “Alrighty then. I’ve got a couple openings with lower priority, but they’re also not lives that are typically given to first-death souls like yours. Your whole life’s experience up to this point won’t have done much to prepare you mentally, which is why it wasn’t on the original list, but since you asked, we can show them to you. Do you still want to take a look?”
I nodded again.
“Please.”
He nodded in return, and reached to where the first angel had been looking before. I heard the sound of a drawer, as I expected, and he produced another sheet of paper. I gave back the one I had been holding, and took the new one instead. I immediately brightened up at this new, far more interesting list.
A cockroach born from a genetically modified species which didn’t die of old age, and had been unwittingly released onto an ocean planet.
A collection of adult toys on an alien world which some lunatic was trying to combine into a living partner.
A species of grass with bioelectric organs that could pass signals between each other.
The list went on, and a few certainly seemed like they would keep me from being bored, but then I saw one that truly caught my attention.
A desert dungeon which had recently been killed, and needed to be replaced.
It wasn’t like the rest of the entries on the list, really, since it was the only one which needed to be replaced, and it was far from the usual choices simply by virtue of making me ask a question that didn’t have a satisfactory answer: How does a dungeon live?
I looked back up, finally, to see that the second angel had left, and the one who had originally been guiding me was back in her seat. She was smiling more genuinely now, probably because I had actually been considering the options given to me instead of just looking at the list.
“So,” she said as I straightened myself, “have you found one you like?”
“Yes,” I replied, and turned the paper so she could read it, and pointed to my choice. “I would like to see what life as a dungeon is like.”
She nodded and marked the choice down on the massive contract I had been made to go through to get here, smiling wide the whole time.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, easily sliding the phone book’s worth of papers into a regular-sized manila folder, “and we hope you enjoy your new life’s experience.” With that, she clapped her hands together, and I felt a wave of energy wash through me. I looked down at myself to find that my body was slowly disintegrating, starting from my fingers and toes and moving inwards and upwards.
I suppose that makes sense, I thought after shoving down my instinctive panic. Dungeons don’t usually have a humanoid body, do they? The angel waving was the last thing I saw before everything went dark, and I lost consciousness.