So this is it, huh? My last moments will be here, lying in a hospital room, while listening to the incessant rain. I know that no one will cry over my death. I know that no one will remember me in five years. I wonder, was this a good life? I spent my entire life struggling to make ends meet. I grew up in that cruel orphanage, dealing with that witch of a caretaker, and eating what scraps we were afforded. We either starved or we fought for food there, and I refused to starve. I stole what I had to. I stole fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, and anything else for us to eat. It was hard, but we managed. Not one family adopted any of us, so we were stuck in there for the entirety of our youths. We had school, a strangely normal experience where people were actually nice to us despite all of the cliches of bullies picking on the orphans haunting us on our first days. It was… nice: a brief respite from the harsh reality of our situation.

God… is this going to be the last thing I think about? Am I going to have my life flash before my eyes before I die? Well whatever. I’ve never been one to give up just because it seems hopeless, so I’ll just keep thinking about it. Maybe they’ll figure out a way to save me. Even if it’s just a chance…

Well, now that I think about it, life got better after I got a job and could pay for the food we needed to live. It got even better after we could leave that place and rent out an apartment where we could all live together and away from the old hag, all 7 of us. Money was in short supply for a while, but we got better jobs. Sarah went into accounting, a very confusing concept for most of them; I understood it though. Nick and Jack, the twins, went into plumbing, a good trade for making some good money. Jess went into landscaping work, a good fit for her tomboy personality. Alex always went on about his herbal remedies and essential oils, which I never understood. There’s science out there! Learn from the people that sought the answers before us! Well, his herbs and oils scam brought in his share of the rent, so it’s not all that bad. There was me, Abe, who made my living as an electrician and a damn fine one if I say so myself. Then there was Mary. God I miss her. We all did. She was the housekeeper and kept our place in pretty good order. She cooked our meals and made our lunches, cleaned the place and even our rooms. She was a saint. But… Well, only the good die young I suppose. It was the second anniversary of the old hag’s passing if I remember correctly. She collapsed and we rushed to the hospital. It was a heart attack. A bad one. She died that night, only 23. We were so heartbroken about it that we all cried each other to sleep. She always wanted her ashes to be buried in the woods somewhere, which we were able to manage.

But after that, it was like the old hag had found us and wanted to ruin everything we had, even after she kicked the bucket. She took someone new every year. First it was Alex to a drunk driver. Then it was Nick to a shooting when he went to get groceries the next year. The year after it was Jack to a falling pipe at work. Then it was Sarah to lung cancer, something that probably came from her coworkers tendency to smoke. This year it’s my turn. Jess’ll be the last one. But man, dying to a lightning strike… that’s a new low. It’s not like it’s my fault. Those bastards at the company wanted me to fix a pole in this. I wonder how Jess is doing? I hope she’s alright. I… think this is it, I can’t stay awake any more. Great, now the nurses are screaming. Shut up for a while… I’m trying to go to sleep…

Guys… I’ll be with you soon… Woah… that lightning was intense just then.

*=====*

Hmm…? I feel… fluid. Everything’s red. All I see is… red. Wait, there’s some blue out there. It’s so far that I can’t get a good look at anything. I can feel myself sloshing around, my mind leaking. I can still remember everything, but it feels exhausting. Man, I really need to get it together, I’m not this lazy. I just woke up, after all. I just need to feel myself a bit more. Ugh… I feel it now. I feel like a giant wad of old gum being slowly torn apart. I can feel that the only reason I’m not a goner is the fact that I’ve been stuck to myself for so long that I’m tough to tear. I keep feeling it pull harder and harder. I can feel it. It’s… stopped? Wait… I feel like I’m being sucked into a whirlpool. My very being is being put into… something. Crap… I feel sleepy again. I’ll just take a quick… power… nap…

*=====*

Ugh… I feel like every bone in my body’s broken. Wait… I don’t have a body. Where am I?! Okay… calm down… calm down… just think what happened. Well, that massive rainstorm came and I got called out for some powerline repairs and I... died… Wait if I’m dead, where am I now? Looking around there’s nothing but a black void and… a suspiciously bright blue river beneath me. Hold on, if that’s down there then what am I doing up here? Is this my own personal hell or purgatory? Let’s move around. Yep, seems that works. Alright, now down to the bright blue river. Yep, that works too. There’s no reflection in it, so what is this? Touching it feels… calming. Pulling my hand out is easy, but it feels so warm in there. I kinda want to just sleep in it or wrap it around me. That would feel- woah! It just wrapped around me! Get off! Hoo… It came off… easily. Alright, coil around my arm. Ah! It did it! It’s coiling around my arm! Alright, I need to calm down. Keep a cool face… Alright, so this stuff obeys me? Yep. It moves everywhere I want it to. It’s also endless.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

What else is there here? It’s just a void with a blue river running through it. Well, that’s what I thought before that giant screen suddenly appeared. Okay, when did that get there? That was just void a few seconds ago, so what happened. Well, there’s nothing on the screen right now, so I’ll just have to wait.

Well, now that I’m waiting, I may as well get some thoughts in order. I died after going out in that rainstorm and getting struck by lightning. Instead of going to heaven, hell, being reincarnated, going to hades, or anywhere else, I got sent to the void where there’s just this river here. Well, at least I can manipulate it. Well, if I can change it to whatever I want, can it be a fire river? Yes it can. But doing so puts a strain on my concentration. Well, changing it to fire did nothing to the void around me, so- Argh!

Okay, now my brain feels like it’s gonna blow. Okay, wait, what does all of this stuff mean? Demi-human? Purity Union? What’s this whole new alphabet? Wait, there’s this last thing. Sect of the Divine Mechanism? That sounds kinda lame but… Oh no. The screen is showing a video feed. Those guys… They have long flowing grey robes, metallic skull masks, and grey leather gloves and boots. There are hundreds of them… They’re all kneeling, praying to… me? Okay, that was a lot of information that just got pumped into my mind, so let’s organize it a bit.

Starting with me, they created my current form, a giant machine with a “divine core”, because it said in their scriptures that they must create a machine god to be granted salvation. They believe that they created a divine soul out of… mana and mind energy. What’s mana? Okay… It’s a form of energy that beings can manipulate with internal commands. So that’s what the blue river down there is… Okay, so they created the “divine core” out of this mana and… mind energy, the energy that all sentient beings in this world possess that is similar in concept to a soul. Sarah always talked about things like souls and mana in the web novels she read, so I kinda get that by concept. Wait… if they created this thing my soul is now trapped in out of other souls, whose souls were they? Okay, it was their own souls. Something about needing to give a part of themselves to create a true divine being or whatever. So the who is this religious group, the what is that this thing is really an extremely complicated container for a soul, the where is… on an independent island city-state that is currently going through some kind of coup. Well that sucks. It seems that this Purity Union wants to eradicate a group known as Demi-humans, groups of humans too different to be a different race but too similar to be a seperate species, due to their religious beliefs about how Demi-humans are evil. That’s… really messed up. Well, if I want to change anything, then I should get my own position to be stable first. Anyway, the when is… that they made this thing weeks ago and are only now finding signs of life from it, which I can assume means me. They fed me information to be able to lead them better and bring about the apocalypse sooner. Ugh… a doomsday cult. That’s not going to be fun. Finally, the why is that their holy books told them to do it. So, I’m a soul in a machine being worshiped by a bunch of lunatics to bring about a doomsday on an island city-state going through a genocide. Well, at least school taught me something.

So, what is for the future? They are planning on nurturing their “divine soul” by offering mana in large quantities, worship, and… sacrifices… Woah woah no no… That’s not okay… that’s… wait what are they doing? They were just praying in that large concrete basement in rows, but they are now up and grabbing something. That’s- that’s a person. It’s a woman by the looks of it, and she is wrapped in a cloth. Handcuffed by the look of it. Okay I have to stop them somehow. This is wrong they’re going to kill that woman for no reason other than-

No… No… Is that… Mary? They unwrapped her and I see her. She’s… the same Mary we sent into the cremation furnace. No this can’t be… this can’t… I have to stop it. Hey! Stop that! ...They can’t hear me. They just strapped her to an altar made of stone and I can only sit here and watch… No… He’s raising the dagger, that crazy cultist wearing those grey robes is raising the dagger to kill her… No… STOP!

I just… killed them… I wanted to stop them, but that mana took that to mean I wanted to kill them… They were all just fried by electric energy from the machine. The only one left alive is the woman that looks like Mary…

Oh god… what have I done…

What have I done...