At first, all I saw was pure white light.

What just happened?

As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I half-expected to see a comforting message written on the wall in front of me, welcoming me to this new place I didn’t know. But there was no wall, or roof, or sky. I was sitting on soft nothingness, in the middle of what looked and felt like a giant cloud, with no memory of how I’d gotten there.

And then, someone talked behind me.

“Excuse me, Alicia Lebel.”

The voice was soft, indefinite. Unexpected, for sure, but not enough to startle me. There had to be someone who could explain what was happening, and why my mind was such a blur, right? But who could it be?

As I turned my head, I looked into the eyes of a floating creature that had way too many of them. They were all wings and eyes and flickering glow, a shape I recognized from books. I frowned.

“You’re an angel, aren’t you?”

They shifted a little, like a human looking down at their feet.

“I guess that’s what I’d be called in your culture, indeed. And I want you to know that we’re sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“There’s been a terrible mistake. You shouldn’t be here.”

Out of their many wings, they produced what looked like a small piece of cream-colored paper. Parchment, maybe?

“We were requested to summon a hero from another world, in order to fulfill a prophecy, but as it turns out, we collected the wrong person. Please accept our apologies.”

A hero. A prophecy. From the sound of it, I’d just stepped into a fairy tale, and even with the angel besides me, it was too much for me to accept. Was it all a dream? Was I about to wake up?

I pinched myself. Ouch. All right, I’m not dreaming. But why do they look so embarrassed?

“What are you apologizing for?” I asked.

They turned more eyes to me, but I could only stare at them in confusion. In the end, they leaned a little to the left, and one glowing feather brushed against my arm.

“Don’t you remember anything, Alicia Lebel?”

All of a sudden, I did. I remembered everything.

I was three days away from celebrating my fortieth birthday with my friends, after a long year going through a complicated divorce. My ex-husband Stan was out of the picture at last, and this, too, deserved a celebration. Being single again felt like a blessing after months of bitter fighting over petty things.

I supposed I’d date someone else after a while. Maybe I’d try my chance with a woman, for a change. It wouldn’t even be a first for me: as a student, I’d been with a girl for a few weeks, and I kept a fond memory of our short-lived story.

But right now, I didn’t feel ready to commit again. I had a whole life to get back first.

It had been an ordinary day at kindergarten. Teaching young children was a choice I didn’t regret. Unlike bigger kids, four-year-olds were eager to learn everything, even though they usually didn’t realize it. They were a source of joy, while also being walking trouble. They needed to be shepherded and entertained, not only taught, and I loved the challenge as much as I loved them as individuals.

After school, I’d bought a bunch of groceries, wishing to bake my favorite cakes and share them with my favorite people. When I drove back to my house, my neighbor Alberto was consolidating his fence. He lived right across the street from me, and yet we shared nothing in life, except for our initials: Alberto Lin, Alicia Lebel.

As soon as he saw me, he looked up from his fence with a mocking grin.

“Hey, look, little Ali and her cute little carrot cakes!”

I wasn’t “little”. I was of average height and build, with brown hair and eyes, and fitter than most people. Yet, as a schoolteacher who’d never learned to shoot a gun, I was a weak little thing to him.

Even before Stan got out of my life, Alberto and I had always enjoyed sniping at each other. As a survivalist, he didn’t understand why I lived in the moment, instead of preparing for a possible collapse of civilization. He stocked on all kinds of goods and trained for battle, while I baked and danced and drank coffee on my porch. But if the world did end and we ran out of gas, at least, I could ride a horse and move around. Alberto, on the other hand, would be stuck in his useless pickup.

I looked at him with a smirk.

“I’m sure my carrot cakes taste better than your horrible canned food, big Al. Do you want one, once they’re baked?”

He shrugged and went back to his fence.

A few minutes later, having left the groceries in the kitchen, I brought out festive garlands from my garage. The party was in three days and I wanted it to be perfect, so even though it was a bit early to put up all the decorations, I wanted to devise a first plan of what they’d look like. I walked to the middle of the street to get an overview of the house. I waved my hands in the air, thinking where this garland would go and what that light would illuminate. The whole place would look amazing on the big day.

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My neighbor Alberto was still on the sidewalk, adding a metal frame to his already robust fence, but I didn’t care. I was single again, still young, and ready to have fun!

Behind me, Alberto let out a muffled scream of terror.

I turned around. He was white as a sheet, shaking so much that he had to lean on his fence to stay upright. And then, out of the corner of my eye, there was that old white van speeding at me. It looked dilapidated, and a cloud of black smoke trailing behind it suggested it hadn’t seen the inside of a car repair shop for a long time.

Oh no, it’s accelerating!

I tried to move out of the van’s way, but I tripped, and as I struggled to retain my balance, I noticed two things: the panic in Alberto’s eyes, and the logo on the hood. Turacún.

It sounds Spanish…

It was my last thought before the crash.

The angel looked at me with concern.

“How do you feel?” they asked softly.

“Disoriented.”

How did that incident with the van connect with the rest? The bright white light? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“You say you summoned me to fulfill a prophecy?”

“Not exactly. We were hired, sort of.”

They took a look at their parchment.

“Sorcerers from the Brealian kingdom requested our services to summon the legendary Great Hero Al, who, according to a local prophecy, will defeat the Demon Lord. But their chosen hero didn’t behave as expected, and he backed away from his destiny. As a result, you were killed instead.”

I leapt to my feet, my heart pounding.

“Killed? What do you mean?”

I can’t be dead when my own heartbeat is threatening to deafen me!

“I’m pretty sure I’m alive! I’m panicking right now. Do dead people panic? Do dead people have tachycardia?”

The angel waved their wings and their glow took on a rosy tint. Were they trying to appease me?

“You are dead, Alicia Lebel. This place is, how can I put it in your words? An office that processes souls.”

“But my heart…”

A wing brushed against me again, and the soft touch calmed me down a little.

“We’re in a different plane of existence,” the angel said. “This heart is not the one you used to have, even though it feels identical. You don’t really exist right now, materially speaking.”

“All right, I need to sit down.”

I looked for whatever I’d been sitting on, and found nothing. My head was spinning. I’m dead at home, and yet I’m alive here. Is that right? How is it possible?

It took me a moment to catch my breath again. I was standing in front of my murderer, more or less, and it felt emotionally overwhelming.

“Look, you made a mistake, you just admitted to it! You must take me back!”

“I’m afraid we can’t. Your original body was crushed. We don’t have the power to restore it to its previous state, so if we sent your soul back to your native world, you’d just be dead, with no second chance left.”

That’s not right. I was about to celebrate my birthday and I got killed by mistake. They robbed me of my party, they robbed me of my happiness, they robbed me of my life! How dare they?

“What second chance are you talking about?”

The angel patted my back.

“I don’t know yet. As far as I know, this incident has never happened before, so we don’t have a procedure ready. My manager should get back to me in a minute, and we’ll see what we can offer you.”

“Your manager?”

They crush my life and they treat it like another administrative mishap.

Now that the panic had receded, I was feeling angry, and eager to regain at least some control over my own life, or what was left of it.

“You’d better come up with a suitable compensation,” I uttered between my teeth. “Right now, I should be at home preparing my birthday party, not in some celestial waiting room with no future to look forward to. By the way, what did you expect? Who were you hired to summon by these… sorcerers?”

How can I admit so easily that magic users from some fantasy kingdom were able to summon people from Earth? Well, being stuck in a cloud with an angel certainly helps expanding my notion of what’s possible.

“The Great Hero Al should have pushed you of the way and been elevated through his sacrifice.”

I frowned.

“You mean you were after Alberto?”

“The big strong man whose house faced yours, yes.”

Alberto Lin. AL. Really? Some of my anger calmed down, and I even smiled at the absurdity of the situation.

“Let me get this straight,” I said, running my hands down my face. “A prophecy states that a hero will save some kingdom, and of all available people, these sorcerers ask you to summon Alberto Lin?”

“Exactly. Why do I sense irony in your voice?”

I chuckled.

“Alberto Lin, the survivalist, who stocks on canned food, slowly turns his house into a fortress and keeps ten years’ worth of toilet paper in his basement? All he cares about is himself. He was never going to rescue me from that van, let alone save a whole kingdom from a Demon Lord!”

“This is most unfortunate,” commented the angel, floating up and down in the cloud of light. “However, the Brealian ritual directed us to this man, and it didn’t even do so properly, given what happened. We can’t exactly send you there and make you the Great Hero, can we?”

I crossed my arms in defiance. Are they trying to imply that I’m less worthy than Alberto? I can keep a whole kindergarten class under control. If this isn’t hero material, I don’t know what it is! Maybe that Demon Lord just stole someone else’s toy and I can sort it out.

“I’m sure I fit the description,” I answered. “My name is Alicia Lebel. I’m an AL too.”

“But not the one they were asking for.”

This time, it was a matter of pride. I couldn’t let them tell me I was a worse choice than my neighbor.

“Can they tell I’m not the person they wanted?” I shrugged. “Besides, whatever the situation is over there, Alberto would have messed it up.”

At this point, we were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a bigger, brighter angel. The first one bowed in respect, insofar as a large ball of wings and eyes could bow. I tried my best to look them straight in the eyes, but there were only so many I could see in one glance.

It’s time to be a Karen, just this once.

“Are you the manager here?”

“Indeed, I am the team manager. You can call me Cherub, human.”

I pursed my lips.

“Cherub? Is it really your name? Isn’t that a rank or something?”

They straightened. If they’d been human, they’d have pulled their stomach in.

“This is how I kindly ask you to call me. Names are irrelevant to us.”

Oh, are they playing this game? I smiled.

“Well, Cherub, you can call me Al.”

Their eyes looked me up and down. “Al, really? The Great Hero Al? Weren’t you collected by mistake?”

“I was. But I was just telling your subordinate that I’m ready to fill in the other Al’s role and help everyone keep face, including you.”

Do you understand me, minor supervisor? I’m doing you a favor by filling in for my neighbor. Please show some gratitude and help me in return.

“Oh.” They turned to the other angel. “Is the case sorted, then?”

“I’m not sure, manager. Can we really send her to Brealia and hope the difference goes unnoticed?”

“Come on, sorcerers never know what the hero they summoned will look like! Besides, the human here says she wants to do it. So all we have to do is finish the ritual, and it’ll be over.”

I held out my hand before me, index finger raised.

“Wait a minute, Cherub. You took my life from me. I wasn’t prepared, I wasn’t chosen, I’m not a warrior. Surely there’s something you can do for me, before I go to this place I’ve never seen and become someone else’s Great Hero.”

“There is no procedure for such a case, human.”

I grinned.

“Well, then, it sounds like we should start working on one.”