Unknown person 1: “Romance, romance, romance…tragedy? Or is it comedy? What do you call it when a grandma dies of a heart attack because a skunk farted?”
Unknown person 2: “Haah…it’s a tragedy obviously! Poor woman died in that stench…imagine the corpses smell.”
Unknown person 1: “…”
Unknown person 2: “…”
Both: “PFF, HAHAHAHA”
Unknown person 2: “You are actually right…pretty hard to decide what it actually is! Anyway, change the channel, what’s next?”
Unknown person 1: “Oh, seems like a war is starting. USA vs Russia, who do you think will win this time?”
Unknown person 2: “Hard to say. Both have the same military power. And it’s not USA and Russia anymore. Get with the program already. They are Aegis Alliance and Firestorm Federation. They don’t even look the same anymore, how can you still call them by those outdated names?”
Unknown person 1: “Bah! Whatever, to they will always be USA and Russia. Anyway, it’s starting!”
Well, to understand our conversation right now, one would have to know the events which lead to it.
I am, or actually was, a normal engineering student. My buddy next to me was a mugger. Yep, a real life mugger. Anyway, one night coming back from school I ran into him. Well, more like he ran into me. The reason? You guessed it, to mug me. All this is nice and all but the next thing was what made this story really interesting. While tackling me the idiot didn’t realize we were on a bridge. Yep, a fucking bridge.
Obviously, we fell down to our deaths, end of story! ...As if! After I, I mean we, fell, I woke up in a white chamber. There was nothing inside except for 2 chairs and TV. If you can remember a certain movie where a certain Morpheus showed a certain Neo the world through a TV, it’s just like that.
About a second of looking around, not even getting up from the floor, a bright light comes and a person appears. Yep, my own mugger decided to make an entrance!
Furious at the man if front of me for making me fall of the bridge, and quite possibly die, as my surroundings were really confusing, I decided to do what every other rational and thinking being would do in my situation. I beat the crap out of him, at least I tried, and he didn’t just let me hit him, it turned into an all-out bawl in no time.
After about 5-6 hours of hitting each-other, I figured this was going nowhere.
Me: “Hey, Stop! STOP!”
Him: “What? Had enough?” he said with a smug expression. He seemed quite triumphant, tho I don’t know why.
Me: “Are you an idiot? We’ve been beating each-other for quite a while now but neither one of us has any injury nor are we even tired. I think it’s about time we figure out where we are.”
He seemed a bit embarrassed by that as he also realized we were going nowhere with that brawl.
Him: “Y-yeah, you’re right. Where are we anyway?”
Me: “I guess we died? We did fall of a bridge on the hard asphalt.” I give a menacing glance at him.
He looks down and starts explaining himself.
Him: “I-I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to kill you, I didn’t even want to mug you... I, I just needed some money for my baby girl.”
He falls to his knees and starts crying. What’s this, a bad soap opera? If he thinks I’m going to feel sorry for him, he’s badly mistaken.
Me: “Whatever, let’s just find what happened to us. If we are dead, as I presume we are, shouldn’t something happen? Like a white light and all that shit?”
He calmed down a bit and started thinking things trough.
Him: “I guess we are to wait? From what I heard in some religions, people need to wait up to 40 days or something. I don’t see an exit so let’s just wait.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Heeding his advice we sat down on the chairs and started talking about one another. I was startled to find out he was 47 when he was alive. Now he looked like a 20 year old. I guess, as ghost or whatever we are, we get the body of when we were at our best.
He also told me his story, about how his wife had a disease that could not be cured and died when their daughter was born. His daughter had the same diseases, but now a cure existed. The only problem was the fact that it was way too expensive. That’s the reason he wanted to mug me.
Well, I couldn’t say that I forgave him, but I did feel slightly less angry now.
Next we turned out attention to the TV in front of us. There was a remote on top of it so I took it
The remote had four buttons. A start button, a stop button, a next button, and a previous button.
Out of boredom, and curious if you get cable in the waiting room for heaven or hell or whatever I pressed start.
The images on the TV were like a bad movie with no plot whatsoever. I started shuffling the channels until.
Him: “STOP!”
He shouted, but I know why he did it. On the screen was a funeral, more precisely it was our funeral.
We were dumbfounded. The TV showed events from earth. It was amazing.
Trough it, I found out why our funeral was held together. It seems the police thought he wanted to save me from a car crash and didn’t arrive in time, thus we both died….idiots.
He did confirm that something pushed him hard from behind, but in all the commotion he forgot to tell me. Now I felt like the idiot. Of course a single human couldn’t push me 3-4 meters until the end of the bridge and still have enough momentum to jump over the railing. I was after all 190cm tall and around 90kg.
What he was most worried about tho, was his daughter. She was a pretty girl of 17. If she wasn’t in a wheelchair and with a bit of makeup, she would be a world class beauty.
Me: “Damn, are you sure you are the father? There is no way someone that beautiful is your daughter.”
I did say that, but it wasn’t completely true. She had his blue eyes and complexion.
Him: “HAH! Praise me more! I am the proudest of my baby girl!...”
He suddenly got depressed.
Me: “What’s wrong? If it’s about killing me, I’m not blaming you so much anymore so you can rest easily.”
Him: “Thanks, but I was worrying what was going to happen to my daughter now… we have no other relatives alive, I was her only family.”
Just as he was worrying about that my father said something that got his attention.
Father (TV): “Well hello there, young lady, I heard you have no were else to go. If you’d like, how about you become our daughter? We lost our child and you lost your parent. If anyone can understand you, is us. What do you say?”
My father just proposed her to become their adoptive daughter. I was quite baffled as I didn’t expect that. My companion also felt shocked. His gaping mouth was like a gouge telling me just how shocking that revelation was.
Me: “Well, your daughter should be fine now, as you can see, my parents are pretty wealthy. They will definitely cure her.”
As he realized what that implied he started crying again, this time it took a considerably longer time for him to stop.
And that’s how this all started.
Over 130,000 years later we are still watching this TV and waiting for whatever is to come. If it will ever come.