Six Months Before the Grand Opening

“What about her?” God Rion asked, producing his open palm. Light from a soulstone shone brightly, illuminating the heavenly domain with a set of “greatest hits” from the candidate’s life. They played like a video, a video with depth of real life. A movie studio came into focus.

A camera rolled, capturing every nuance from a computer-controlled rig. Watching from a set of televisions, a woman leaned forward in her director-chair, studying a duo of actors. They ran across a bridge, timed explosions right on their heels. They leaped, the director’s heart soaring with them, and plunged into murky ocean water.

The lightshow skipped ahead, and the director stood with her actors. She pointed back and forth, highlighting a path for them to walk and marks to hit. She then returned behind the camera, pressed her eye up to the viewfinder, and said, “Action.”

“Who is she?” Goddess Tippy asked.

“Juliet, awarded movie director and mother of two. Died six Earthen years ago—” the video in God Rion’s palm shifted to the woman in a hospital bed. “—from cancer.”

Tippy flexed her divine authority, reading the soulstone in mere heartbeats—an entire life, watched and understood in an instant. She made a sour face.

“Good suggestion, brother. But our technology—”

He held up a hand. “Isn’t advanced enough. I know, I know. She’d have no cameras or editing software to work with. Which is why I’m passing my claim to you.”

“Oh? Are your dreams of a blessed Hollywood finally gone?” Behind her, white paneling flew through the air, landing on a bright green hill.

They were just illusions, the God knew, but as the word “Rionwood” erected along the hill, he couldn’t help but smile. Then he remembered his sister was mocking him.

“Just pick someone who can progress our technology, okay? I’m tired of seeing what Earth’s capable of. Movies would bring our world so much culture.”

Tippy produced a soulstone of her own. Light flickered to life, showing a man drowning himself in amber liquid and pain pills. She stopped the video before it could progress.

Rion studied the man’s tired, graying beard. It peaked unevenly, like a frayed wool sweater beaten one too many times in a washing machine. His gaze shifted down, taking in the hard, metal park bench the man slept on. Snow piled around its legs, a cold wind causing streaks of white mist to flood across the park. The man clutched a half-empty pint of booze, and countless pills littered the ground around a spilled pill bottle.

The God homed in on the bottle’s label.

“He doesn’t look like an ‘Andrina.’ Are these stolen pills?”

Tippy nodded. “Meet Luka, engineer. Died three years ago, but his life’s long been over.”

“You want him?”

She shrugged.

“What can a drunken thief possibly provide our world?”

“See for yourself.” She handed the man’s life to her brother, allowing him to relive the events that led to the man’s death.

In an instant, Rion understood everything that pushed Luka into hell and back. And yet, it only made his confusion worse.

“He created destruction. What good will he be in our world?”

The Goddess adjusted the soulstone to show a childhood experience. They watched it together, silence stretching as young Luka laughed and giggled.

“We do a lot to rule our home, brother. But there’s a few things we can’t do. I want that—” She gestured at the memory. “I want to create happiness.”

“Our world is happy,” Rion quickly said.

“It is, but superficially. We give them everything they could ever want, and yet, they’ve stagnated. Why do you think we need to steal the dead from Earth? Because we gods are parasites. Us, and the others.”

“Parasites that sucks happiness?”

She shook her head, and for a brief moment, her godly form slipped. “I look at Earth and I see chaos and unrest. And yet, I keep looking. I love experiencing the lives of the candidates. I long to see their triumphs, and my heart aches when they are in pain. I feel strange, brother. And I think something bad is coming for our home, for our people. We need to get ahead of it.”

Rion stared upon his sister’s mortal form, a body she long abandoned, her statements slipping away. “You kept it? How’d you keep it pristine all these years?”

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“It’s just skin and hair. A simple preservation glyph was overkill.”

He was at a loss for words.

“Trust me, brother,” Tippy whispered, her voice small. “I want this feeling to go away, and I think Luka is it.”

He looked up, reaching out his hand. How long had it been since they properly hugged? Did gods even hug? He pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her.

“What would the others think if they saw us now?”

She laughed, her chin resting on his shoulder. “They’d call us children again.”

He shivered. “I hate when they do that.”

“Yeah…” The moment stretched. “What do you think of him?”

Rion pulled away, locking eyes with his godly sister. “You’ll have to seal his memories. He’s got a lot of trauma, and he’ll be looking to revert to old habits.”

“Maybe an anti-alcohol blessing then?”

“That’s the safe bet. Can’t have him getting drunk if he’s supposed to ‘create happiness.’”

***

Swimming through the bliss of oblivion, Luka felt a nudge. A simple tug, like a child grabbing his sleeve. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he opened his eyes. A dead man returning to life—a light blinded him.

A woman made of stars stood before him.

Basking in a golden glow, her form shimmered with the warmth of a cool noon-sun. Her torso radiated a harmonious energy, vibrant and alive, yet aged and wise. Her face read understanding, though her eyes were supernovas bursting among the blackness of space. Cascading down her neck, hair danced and sparkled, each joyous strand eager to sing and giggle for the little human.

Luka took her and all of her glory in, the brightness of her presence only highlighting the darkness that swarmed his mind. He stood before a god, he knew, and yet, he cried, every tear boiling with the virtue of self-loathing.

She waited for him to speak.

“Am I going to Hell?”

The Goddess considered his question, her hair flowing around her body like a silhouette. “Do you think you should?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

His hands and chest began to shake, the tremors created by tanks and the backdraft of grenades. The sound of gunfire boomed in his heart, each beat just another dead innocent. He clawed at his skin, anything to take his mind off of—

“I see.” Her words destroyed the feelings plaguing his mind. It stopped, the pain, the heartache, the guilt.

Face still set and eyes still puffy, Luka looked up at the woman made of light while she looked down on him, judging. A smile, one formed from pity, crept across her golden face.

“Your memories… I will keep them for now.”

Luka would have gone another dozen lifetimes without realizing his memories had been stolen. But as soon as she pointed it out, a hole presented itself in his mind. Sections of his past disappeared, locked away like… like…

“A murky bog? Is that the phrase you’re searching for?” the Goddess asked. A single strain of hair flicked toward the human, an energy condensing around its tip. “Maybe I took too much. Allow me to rectify—”

Words came to Luka. Lectures, studies, textbooks. He remembered where he went to school, he remembered his classes. His professors were a blur, but their lectures stood out like a lighthouse. He followed the math and engineering, finding another bottomless hole. What did he do with his degree? Actually, what did he do with his life? Most of his adulthood was gone, only scant memories remained.

Why did he remember so many television shows and song lyrics?

The Goddess said, “It’s not often I stand before someone with such powerful memories as yours. I fear my memory-work is lacking. I’d ask my brother to assist, but his is possibly worse.”

Luka stared blankly.

“If it eases you to know, every life lost directly connected to you has already been returned to the mortal realm. Reincarnation, if you will.”

“I am in Hell,” he muttered.

She tilted her head, a single hair strand brimming with elegance fluttering to the forefront. Energy gathered, and in an instant, their location changed. They stood above a blue and green planet, one no Earthling would recognize. It was larger than Earth and similarly covered in puffy clouds and breaking waves. It spun, slowly it seemed, but no doubt at great speeds in actuality.

“My home. Beautiful, isn’t it?” the Goddess whispered.

Luka’s mouth slowly dropped open.

“Child of Earth, you’ve done heinous things in your previous life. And for that, simple reincarnation isn’t enough. You spent your adult life destroying, and I think it is time for you to build.”

His thoughts went to his family.

“They’re gone, my Little Luka.” She smiled a bit. “Your mom used to call you that, right? Remember her, in this new life you create. Think of her, and the world you’d want her to live in.”

Luka looked away from the planet, finding the Goddess’ golden light. He flinched when the light looked back.

She chuckled. “This world is one born of magic and divinity. The graces of gods run through the streets like rain water, and their wrath crushes the kindling of enmity before it ever reaches the levels of Earth’s wars. Whatever you can think, you can create. As long as you have the materials necessary and no one overtly suffers from it.”

A strand of her hair touched Luka on the top of the head. It felt like a kiss, a little peck from a kindly grandmother. And yet, his skin burned with the throes of an erupting volcano. His vision faded to a mass of his own dark magical hair. They wrapped and twisted, binding his brain and body until they settled and disappeared.

Luka coughed, the pain and irritation disappearing in a flash. “What was—“ He stopped cold. There, in the periphery of his vision, was a hair. It moved when he tried to look at it, always staying to the edge.

The Goddess watched as he rubbed his eyes and plucked at his eyelashes. She cleared her throat, drawing his attention.

“That was a gift of magic. A divine blessing to be more precise. Everyone unique like you gets one, think of them as a name tag from me, to you.”

Her body started to shrink, or maybe it was Luka’s consciousness slipping. Regardless, she continued to speak, “You will keep the name of ‘Luka,’ but your old body has long been dead. Your new one is created in its image, albeit younger. I hope you like it.”

Her voice was turning faint and Luka struggled to stay awake.

“You will create, but only things that bring happiness. I won’t allow anything less. The rest is up to you. Live well, Luka of Earth, and I hope your story becomes the backbone of something special.”

And with that, the Goddess disappeared and he fell asleep.