The day I died had been just like any other. I woke up at six in the morning, took a shower to wake myself up, ate breakfast then brushed my teeth. Yes in that order, what's the point of cleaning my teeth then getting them dirty with food?

But anyways, as I was saying it had been a normal day, I clocked in at my shitty Mcdonald’s job at eight in the morning just as I usually did.

Then I went to attend my community college classes in the afternoon, just as I usually did.

As I left my last class for the day, something happened that nobody had seen coming. A blinding flash of light appeared behind me almost like a camera flash but hundreds of times brighter, so bright in fact that it burned my skin with its intensity. I whirled around ignoring the pain of my slightly seared back, to see what had caused it. It was the worst mistake of my life as I soon found out, but ironically, it was also the best mistake of my life as I would later find out.

In the distance, I could see the mushroom cloud beginning to form, but I hardly had enough time to process what I was even seeing when the shockwave hit. A wall of pure force and unbelievable heat slammed into me and sent me ragdolling across the parking lot, slamming into the side of a car. After that, all I knew was agony and darkness, my entire front side had practically melted from the intense heat, my eyes had literally burst at the sudden temperature increase. All I could do was lay there pitifully moaning and begging for death. Finally, mercifully, it came.

After the horrible pain of being in the edges of a nukes blast range, the darkness that had consumed me was a welcome thing. I embraced death, and if my lips hadn’t been practically melted off I would have smiled when my time was up and everything faded to black.

I had "sat" in the darkness for a while, I couldn't even guess the time since there was nothing except my own thoughts in that void.

But suddenly the empty void had been replaced with a warm and almost comforting liquid. And while everything was still dark, I finally could feel things, granted it was only the warm fluid I seemed to have been submerged in, but compared to the darkness I had grown used to, it was almost sensory overload. I had a sense of self where before I had been formless.

I didn't know what this place was but I liked it. It was so comforting in this weird almost instinctual way. I couldn't have described it if someone had asked, but it felt right in a way that went beyond merely comforting. I would have gladly stayed there forever.

Like all good things, however, it ended. My blissful state of existence was abruptly ruined when what felt like walls suddenly started to squeeze me and I was pushed through what felt like some sort of stretchy film, and suddenly my world had gone from a stable comforting warm darkness to a world full of freezing air and giant hands.

I couldn't even open my eyes to look around as the fluid I had been submerged in seemed to have left residue that glued my eyes shut. In my panic I flailed around and screamed bloody murder, it seemed my tongue didn't want to cooperate since all that came out was a shrieking wail. I was confused, scared, and uncomfortable, all I wanted was to go back to my comforting dark world.

Those giant hands seemed to be passing me around as if I was a toy. Since I still couldn't see I assumed they were gods and that I was being judged for my sins or something, perhaps I had been in limbo before then and now they were finally making their final judgment on where I was to go.

As if they had heard my thoughts, something that felt like a sponge was wiped across my body, removing the remaining fluid from my body, including my face. Taking the opportunity, I slowly cracked my eyes open, only to slam them shut and scream even louder than I had before. The light had felt blindingly bright after so long in darkness. Even with my eyes closed the orange light that penetrated my eyelids still hurt slightly.

However, if these beings were going to be deciding the fate of my eternal soul then I wanted to at least get a good look at these gods. So I bit the bullet and opened my eyes once more, what I saw made me freeze, my screaming which had been a near-constant sound up until that point died in my throat.

The divine beings that were holding me looked an awful lot like robots, correction, it appeared to be one robot with over a dozen prehensile limbs. 'God made robots to automate his job…..what….the….hell? Okay, Zack, it's perfectly natural for a divine being to create things. So why not robot angel thingies?' I tried to rationalize it in my head as I stared at the metallic being...that was cleaning me?

Indeed, it seemed that the many arms of the robot were working on making sure my body was spotless as it scrubbed and dried my sensitive skin gently. Soon I found myself expertly wrapped in an unbelievably soft and fluffy white blanket and placed in what appeared to be some sort of bed. With its task complete it promptly floated out of view and thanks to the way I was wrapped I couldn't move my head to track it.

All I could do was stare blankly at the ceiling which appeared to be made of interlocking glowing white crystals. 'So now I just wait for the big man to show up?' I wasn't quite sure if that was a relieving thought or a nerve-racking one, so I decided to focus on other things like how tired I felt. 'Would God find it rude if I fell asleep waiting for him?' I wondered as I felt my eyes start to droop.

I was jerked into wakefulness at the sound of voices. They spoke in a language I had never even heard of, which of course made sense since it was the language of the gods. I waited with bated breath as the voices got closer.

The first thing I noticed when they got within view was that they looked exactly like humans….or was it the other way around?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The second thing was that they were very easy on the eyes. They both could have passed for models, the guy having dark hair and piercing blue eyes and a handsome face, while the woman had nice golden blonde locks and similarly beautiful blue eyes and face.

They both looked down at me with similar smiles on their faces. They looked… lovingly at me? I supposed they were gods and loved all their creations or something? Well, either way, the looks on their faces as they gazed at me made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and took my breath away. They looked at me like I was their whole world, which was a ridiculous thought, seeing as how they were gods and everything. The female reached down and scooped me into her arms holding me to her chest as she gazed down at me. I leaned into her delicious warmth and basked in her loving gaze.

With my head pressed into her chest, I could both hear and feel as she spoke to me in that bizarre language of hers. I couldn't understand her obviously, but I could feel the love in her voice all the same. All too soon however she held me away from her and I suddenly felt so cold and lonely without her warmth, I let out a strangled whimper in my displeasure but it was quickly cut off as the male took me into his arms and I found myself once more soaking up the warmth these divine beings seemed to radiate as I was pressed into his chest.

There was one word however that I was able to pick out from their conversation and it was "Kara". I wasn't sure what it meant but my ears had picked it out due to selective hearing and it being the only word my brain recognized as a word.

I must have fallen asleep in his arms soon after because the next thing I knew I was in the arms of the metal angel again and unlike last time, it seemed to be trying to put one of its arms in my mouth, the tip of the tentacle had some sort of sweet-smelling white liquid dripping off of it. I wanted to turn away and scream but for some reason I couldn't explain. My body, of its own accord, leaned forward to accept the appendage into my mouth. It squirted the white liquid into my mouth and to my horror, despite my mind screaming in horrified protest, I not only swallowed it greedily and readily, but also greatly enjoyed the experience. Eventually, after a while, the metal angel pulled its arm out of my mouth and set me back into bed.

I was traumatized. My body had betrayed me and that Thing had...it had...well I wasn't quite sure what it had done or what the liquid was but I knew I didn't like it or want it...no matter how much my body had apparently enjoyed it. My mind was my own, but in that moment when it was feeding me that liquid, I wasn't quite sure if my body was truly mine. It had felt like a natural thing to let it in my mouth despite knowing intellectually that I didn't want it, my body apparently said otherwise.

Something about that experience had put a seed of doubt as to where exactly I was. The only other explanation other than a realm of gods was that I had been reincarnated. I had never believed in reincarnation. It seemed so stupid, I mean if the population of the planet is constantly increasing where are the new souls coming from? It didn't make a lick of sense to me, therefore it wasn’t worth my time or faith. So the question now was, why was I staring up at a ceiling made up of glowing crystal, when I should have been looking at a pair of golden gates or a fiery pit. I didn't want to believe it but the facts were certainly starting to add up.

With the new doubt planted in my mind, I waited for the next time the gods visited me. Assuming of course that they came to visit me again. But I had a feeling I would see them again.

Apparently, I had fallen asleep as I once again found myself being awoken by the sound of voices. Unlike last time I had awoken, I found myself in the arms of the female god once more soaking up her warmth. Her voice took on a more excited quality, and the smile on her lips got wider as she noticed me staring back at her. At that moment something in her eyes stirred something in me and I knew, I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that this woman was my mother, not some goddess. Every fiber of my being reacted to her presence in such a way that she couldn't have been anything else.

I stared up at her quietly, just thinking, frantically trying to make sense and peace with my situation. If I had indeed been reincarnated, it looked like I was still human, and judging by the floating robot and the weird crystal ceiling, I appeared to have been born a considerable distance into the future. And judging by the fact that I was even able to think these thoughts, it appeared that I hadn't been reincarnated properly. 'I mean, I’m not supposed to remember my past life right?'

While I had been deep in my existential crisis, my mother had apparently taken me out onto the balcony, as the sudden feeling of wind on my face broke me out of my thoughts. The sight in front of me stole my breath away.

Any doubt I had about being reborn into the future was erased, as I took in the city before me. It was a strange amalgamation of metal, glass, and crystals, and every building seemed to want to escape the planet with how ridiculously tall some of them were. I could see what appeared to be flying cars flitting between buildings, it almost reminded me of insects around a hive. It put images of Coruscant to shame.

But the thing that really clinched it for me was the giant Sun that took up nearly a fifth of the sky. It was red. We weren't even on earth and by the sheer size of the city, it looked like we had colonized this world a long time ago. I couldn't even begin to guess how far into the future I found myself.

It appeared that mother was worried by me suddenly freezing and staring into space, as she was staring at me with clear concern in her eyes. Her voice now had a distinctly worried note to it, once again, I distinctly heard her say "Kara", at this point I was pretty sure it was my name. I stared at her and gave her a gummy smile. The smile I received in return made my stomach churn in happiness. I knew intellectually it was just my baby body’s instinctively reacting to the positive attention, but with the near high I was getting off the sudden rush of endorphins, I couldn't bring myself to care.

All that changed, however, when I glanced down at the base of her throat and noticed the metal clasp that was holding her dress together and the joy I had been feeling died an ugly death and was replaced with confusion, and my eyes widened in mounting horror as I slowly started to realize what it meant. I recognized the symbol it was shaped to represent.

How could I not? After all, it was quite possibly the most universally well-known fictional symbol on my planet, regardless of culture or location. Sitting innocently on my mother's throat looking almost a molten orange in the red light of the sun was the Crest of the House of El.

Language I don't even recognize.

A giant red sun.

Floating robots.

Crystalline buildings

House of El.

Kara.

Slowly but surely I was putting it together, and I wasn't liking the answer. Not one bit.

I wasn't just not on earth, I don't think I was even in the same universe.

And like any sane person in that situation, I screamed and promptly shat myself.