JESSICA : N/A

DAY 1 : A-DAY, FIRSTWEEK, AGNI, YEAR 1

PURGATORY 2 : INTERLUDE 1 : CHOICE

I accepted death as it came. If that was the price to save James… I paid it happily.

I accepted the price of never going home. I paid it gladly.

I accepted the price of never telling Thomas. I paid it regretfully.

I accepted the price of leaving James behind. I paid it wishing there were any other way.

I accepted that there must’ve been. I paid it willingly all the same.

I accepted the strange blue text prompt. Wait, what?

[ BEGIN CUSTOMIZATION? ]

As the prompt changed, my eyes shot open. I was… Alive?

I inhaled. And far more explosively than I thought possible even with non-collapsed lungs.

I felt my hair get jostled slightly from the resulting breeze. Was that air pressure? From the force I used to breathe in? Since when could I do that?

Operating my newly non-perforated lungs like a bellows, I breathed in and out as hard as I could. As I barely dared to hope, I didn’t feel any of the stabbing pain I expected, no matter how hard I exhaled. Not only that, but each inhale compounded to make me feel like I was in a fucking wind tunnel. “HA!!! HA, haha haaah… WHAT???”

Only then did I notice my surroundings. “What in the deus-ex-machina…” I could’ve sworn I was face-down, bleeding out on James’ boat. After absolutely no perceivable change to myself… My surroundings… Anything… I was suddenly just sort of standing right here. All alone. On top of a minor hillock. In the middle of an otherwise empty grass field. And not only was I completely uninjured, but also apparently capable of some sort of super-breathing.

The grassy landscape stretched as far as I could see in any direction. Just hills rolling into hills rolling into hills for what might as well be infinity. It was… Nice. The sun is warm. But not hot. I don’t know that I’d ever stood in the open sun without despising that fact to the core of my being. But now I was in direct sunlight… And I didn’t actually want to be in the shade. Rather than what I’d come to expect from sun exposure, this was almost more like constantly standing next to my own personal campfire. Meanwhile, the gentle breeze cooled my arms and face perfectly, but without making me feel it through my clothes. This was… bliss.

“Holy-” Was ‘fuck’ okay for me to say in Heaven? Well… I mean if I made it here to begin with, then it must be fine… “Fuck… Fuck fuck fuck! FUCK!!!” The top of this hillock had surprisingly great percussion. I felt like Commander Pixis at the top of the wall. “FFFUUUCK!!!”

I did that a few more times. And then a lot more. And again. But sooner or much later, I did stop. Oh right, didn’t that text say something else before?

The transparent box turned opaque as I focused on it.

[ BEGIN CUSTOMIZATION? ]

The same ‘YES’ button from before was outlined in yellow now. So then it was pre-selected? Or maybe that’s what it would automatically default to at the end of the countdown?

[ 7:00:63 ]

What the fuck were these number combinations? About a second later, it changed.

[ 7:00:62 ]

Then after another…

[ 7:00:61 ]

I just watched it count down. At least I knew it was a countdown. But what was with that trailing number? Well, only one way to find out…

[ 7:00:02 ]

[ 7:00:01 ]

[ 7:00:00 ]

Moment of truth…

[ 6:63:63 ]

Huh…

[ 6:63:62 ]

So that was 64 second-ish seconds in a minute… And then it looked like there were 64 of those in an hour? But wouldn’t that make it not actually an ‘hour’? Well, at least they were still both the same number. So that means I had… Um… Close enough to eight hours that I didn’t particularly feel like doing math about it. But not quite long enough for me to do nothing. Which was the only thing I wanted to do. Fine as I may have felt physically, I’d never been this mentally exhausted. Whatever, I could do this. Then sleep. Then sooo much sleep.

Back to the prompt, then. It clearly wanted me to start customizing… Something. Myself, probably. Putting together context clues from having played literally any RPG ever, I was pretty sure that’s what this was. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking? But even that didn’t explain the distinct sense of deja-vu I was getting from this whole thing. When the fuck had I done any of this before? In real life, I mean. Everything I was currently seeing, hearing, or even thinking… It defied any measure of common sense I knew.

I probably would’ve dismissed it as a dream if not for the fact that… I looked at my hands. They sure did seem a whole lot like human skin… Yep. I was definitely here. Or was this really a dream after all? Thinking about it that way felt the exact same sort of ‘familiar’. Only more so. Have I dreamt this, then? Although, I really have made plenty of characters in video games… That had to be what I was thinking of.

But what was with this place, or whoever ran it, presuming consent to turn my life into a video game? Because obviously I would’ve wanted to, right?

Except… No, of course I would’ve wanted it. So what was with that instinct to find an angle where I was a victim here? Like… How often had I literally fantasized about this exact thing? Oh, maybe that’s why the deja-vu… But how the just-as-literal fuck would this game know that?

“You know what?” Not giving it the satisfaction. “Fuck it.” These sorts of things always asked to confirm before letting you quit, anyway.

I reached out to press the ‘NO’ button. But as soon as I thought I was putting my finger in front of it, my whole hand was already behind the thing. I pulled my hand back. Still not close enough? I pulled it further. “Fuck!”

Having Inadvertently jabbed my own right eye, I reactively shut it. But now, the prompt was half in front of my still-open eye, and half… In the center of an otherwise featureless black void that may or may not have been the back of my own eyelid? What in the..? I closed my other eye.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Both were shut now. So why could I still see the blue box? Was it literally all in my head?

I began to actively will the ‘NO’ option to be selected. It didn’t work. So I tried again. Nothing happened. “No.” Still nothing. “NO!!!” Other than hurting my own ears a little, the loudest I could yell made no difference. Okay, so it wasn’t a voice-recognition thing.

How did I do it last time? I’d definitely accepted the prompt. Only accidentally… That feeling had been more like an undirected acceptance of my general situation, rather than the prompt itself. So the reverse of that would be…

[ ABANDON HEAVEN? ]

[ 7:63:63 ]

Huh… The timer reset. Not the smoothest way to take a break. But acceptable. “Does that mean I can finally rel-”

The prompt preemptively answered my incomplete question by changing again on its own.

[ TRULY ABANDON HEAVEN? — EFFECT: YOUR SOUL WILL BE TRANSFERRED BACK TO YOUR ORIGINAL BODY — RACE: HUMAN — GALAXY: RYBOSOL — SOLAR SYSTEM: THE SOLAR SYSTEM — PLANET: EARTH — AGE: 15 YEARS, 7 MONTHS, 25 DAYS, 0 HOURS, 2 MINUTES, 43.97902597 SECONDS — STATUS: DEAD — WARNING: THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE ]

Oh no. My heart rate skyrocketed as I stopped mentally accepting things. And I retroactively canceled all of my pending acceptances. I also mentally screamed ‘NO!!!’ as loud and repeatedly as I metaphorically could.

[ ABANDON HEAVEN? ]

[ 7:63:63 ]

“Okay… Okay, we’re fine…” I fell over onto my back. “Fucking hell…”

At least I was back to this now. The same two options as before. Only this time, ‘NO’ was preselected. Also, the timer was back to eight full hour-equivalents. And now that the adrenaline was fading… What the fuck was ‘Rybosol’? Was that The Milky Way’s real name? I supposed it wasn’t like humans consulted anyone else before calling it that. And if there was other life in the universe, then someone must’ve beaten us to it. But why was the solar system just called ’The Solar System’?

Wait, I got distracted by inconsequential bullshit again. I considered the prompt as a whole. ‘Abandon Heaven’..? Okay, let’s go ahead and not do that.

Once again, I rejected the world in general. Guess I had the hang of this now because the prompt was back to how it started.

[ BEGIN CUSTOMIZATION? ]

[ 7:63:63 ]

And we were back to eight hours.

I selected ‘NO’ again. And again. Each time, the prompt reset along with its timer. So then as long as I don’t go more than eight hours without pressing the button…

Like a tidal wave, my exhaustion crashed into me. My stomach unclenched. I rolled fully onto my back. I relaxed.

Then I was just laying in the soft, warm grass, staring up at the tranquil sky. I closed my eyes.

The prompt was still there.

Well that ruined the mood a bit. Not enough for me to bother with now, though. It could just go ahead and stay there for all I cared.

I’d been constantly under pressure for… Only like five hours? Seriously? Five hours to change my life forever. Five hours to… End… It really was over, wasn’t it? And that status… ‘DEAD’. So close to 16…

My birthday next week seemed so significant only yesterday. I was going to make a literal throne and just sit on it all day. If anyone came to check on me, I’d give them various menial orders until they left. I was gonna skip school for it, too. I mean I’d probably end up sitting alone and unvisited by anybody for the entire day. But James would’ve shown up. And maybe Thomas…

I was kind of hoping he’d come over and then I’d tell him… Wow. That was never going to happen, was it? I was really looking forward to… Our first… “GOD DAMN IT, IT’S NOT FAIR!!! AND I’M EVEN FOUR MONTHS YOUNGER THAN I THOUGHT??? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF WAY IS THAT TO LEARN MY REAL BIRTHDAY???”

At that stream-of-consciousness complaint, for the first time in years, I remembered my parents. I mean… I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the crazy-techno-death-clock over the time-telling capabilities of my nearly homeless parents. Parents who already had a kid they couldn’t care for even before getting pregnant with me… They’d probably had a lot of things to worry about that in no way involved a clock or calendar.

Like my dad. Except he was gone before I could ever call him that. “He held me while I cried…” I did so now, as for the first time, I realized I had an actual memory of my father… Even that term seemed as fine as any other. I never called him anything really. He was gone before I could speak. All my memories were so fuzzy. I was so little…

But now I could clearly remember a cold winter night. How did I forget when they both hugged me at once. “So tight that it hurt…” I could even remember that pain. “It was so warm…”

I remembered how he died. The cancer they still couldn’t cure. Or at least, I’d heard about it later. Apparently, he’d been balder and skinnier at the end. But I didn’t remember that. Even now, he was still just a vague impression in my head. One that I was thankful for. That I could even say I loved. The way you loved an ancestor. “I never even knew what he liked.” The pride was there, just… Muted.

Mom though? Her, I remember. But it’s not like she told me anything about anything. Seriously, fuck her though. I loved her. Even still. I just never liked her.

I did hope that would change one day. But then she was gone. All these years since she ran off and died on us too, and I’m still mad. They said ‘time heals all wounds’. But that apparently didn’t work when it was your parents.

I still felt like if I turned around, she’d be there the instant I did anything wrong. Like she always was. And she’d be exactly as many times taller than me as I remembered. Which would’ve put her at about 12 feet. But the realism of it didn’t change what I wished would happen every time I wanted to run from anything… From everything…

We stopped seeing Charlie after mom died. James was still too young to work. But he was the only one of us even capable of it for that whole last year… I remembered how we kept getting close to living on the street. About as close as we repeatedly were to moving out of that shitty neighborhood. But the money was always taken. Sometimes by robbers. Or scammers. Or the bank itself. Sometimes even to save James.

I remembered him tearing himself apart over that. How he’d tried to get more money. How his solutions always involved stealing. How he’d been stabbed by his partner. How he’d almost died in our front yard. How I cried over his hospital bed. I don’t remember how many times. But I didn’t hesitate to use all our savings on him.

And I remembered how I’d hated James for getting hurt. I remembered that most of all. And regret. That, most of all…

Because I also remembered the promise James made. To raise me in her place. To protect me. To give me a good life. To allow my ‘obvious genius’ to flourish. To let me explore my passions. To let me do something besides merely survive.

And I remembered how he’d kept his promise. Even when I made it hard for him. Even when I did it on purpose. Even when it meant lying to me. About the jobs. About the danger. About his partner… About how many risks he must’ve taken to end up getting shot at by the FBI. I hadn’t known it was that bad. I hadn’t known it was bad at all. Not really. Not like that…

Too much. It was too much. I stopped remembering that part. But I kept remembering the rest. Over and over.

When the timer’s first digit turned to ‘0’, I selected ‘NO’. Over and over. I didn’t keep count. No way out of this place but death, apparently. I was trapped here, wherever ‘here’ actually was. Trapped away from James. And wherever he ended up. If he wasn’t here… Should I just quit out? I’d be close to him again. My soul or whatever… I’d be back in my body. Even if only in death.

But I knew James would never forgive me for that. Neither would mom. Or dad. Or Charlie. Or Thomas. Ashley would probably be happy though. Everyone who hated me would be happy, I bet. And everyone who loved me would be sad. Which… Should’ve been all I really needed to know.

Yeah, who cared which group was larger? Who cared what any of those fuckers thought about anything? Let alone me! “YEAH, FUCK ASHLEY!!!”

Selecting ‘NO’ one last time, I stood up. Then, for the first time since I got to this weird field, I purposefully selected ‘YES’.