GUESS WHO’S BACK

I opened my eyes. This was quite surprising, seeing as my most recent memory involved the unpleasant and unforeseen event of someone shoving a big-ass sword through my skull. Not only was it surprising that I had the nondead-ness generally required to open one’s eyes, but it was also a bit of a shock that I even had eyes in sufficient condition to be opened in the first place. In fact, I felt confoundingly great, I didn’t so much as even have a crick in my neck. Hell, I was probably doing far better than anyone else who’d had a sword, gently, brutally assault their grey-matter. All of this is begging one simple question… why, in the name of all that is holy, am I not dead? One does not merely survive a head stabbing the likes of which I received. Actually, I’m getting another simple question begged, where the hell am I? I seem to be floating amid nothing but pure darkness, although floating is a strong word. Floating implies weightlessness, and while I wouldn’t describe what I’m feeling as weighted, I also wouldn’t call it weightless either. I am just sort of… here. It was like not only was there no gravity, but even the metaphysical concept of gravity was absent, I.E. there was no gravity, and there was no lack of gravity, because gravity didn’t exist. It honestly felt super weird, and more than a little trippy, but was oddly comfortable. I begin wiggling about, movement here is also very, very weird. Weirder than gravity, on account of there being no space. Hell, it feels distinctly… two dimensional. I have absolutely no idea how to describe it, it’s not like everything is flat, it’s not like I’m on some ultra-thin plane fixed in 3d space, it’s like the concept of the Z axis is just… gone. Like all there is and ever was, is up, down, forwards, and backwards; the very concept of left and right being completely invalid. With that I decide to try to stop thinking about the dimensionality, it was making me a little dizzy.

Instead, I focused on the strange certainty that I wasn’t actually dead. It was a strange thing to be certain about. One might assume that this feeling shouldn’t be unusual, seeing as I went my whole life without being dead, but… this was different, a certainty that only came with having done the action itself. It’s one thing to know your house isn’t a forest full of monsters, but once you go there, once you’ve actually experienced it, you have a greater understanding of the exact differences and what they mean. All that’s to say, I knew I wasn’t dead, because I knew what it was like to be dead… except I didn’t. There was no memory, in between my death and my waking in this void, yet… something inside me knew something had happened, that an amount of time had passed. Actually… come to think of it. The last thing I remember was being brutally murdered. Shouldn’t I be… in distress, at least a little panicked? Maybe even mildly perturbed? The more I think about it, the more it bugs me how… not bugged I am, which if you think about it, sort of solves the issue. Hooray! Cheshire’s bugged now! Problem solved; she now has no reason to be confused about her lack of metaphorical insectoid-ness. Lumina be damned, I’m bored. There is so much nothing happening here, I’m honestly not sure how long I’ve been here. It’s hard to tell on account of the rampant nothingness. Hello! I called… or at least I thought I did. It was kinda hard to tell if I was actually speaking. Anyone there? Yep, still nothing.

Hi. Oh Jesus Christ! I shouted into… maybe my own head… it was still hard to tell. But I just heard a voice. It sounded like a young girl… probably about… high school age… maybe? I don’t know children. Should I respond? Uh… hello? Who are you? How did you get into my head? I heard her giggle. I’m not in your head. It’s more like you’re in mine. “Oh… I see… what?” hey, I can tell if I’m speaking again! Nice. “Sorry, this place isn’t really set up for mortals, I’m still working out the kinks,” she said, sounding a little distracted. Huh… that’s something. I moved the where am I question to the top of my mystical magical list of queries. Just above, what’s going on, how am I alive, and the classic, what the fuck. The girl snickered. “You’re funny,” she said. “I haven’t said anything,” I said. “No, but I can hear your thoughts.” Oh… no… not my thoughts. If she can hear my thoughts, she’ll know everything I don’t want her to know. Like that time in high school when I was so lonely I tried making out with my reflection in a mirror. FUCK. Or maybe that time, when I was like seven, when I knocked over what I thought was a vase in my neighbor’s house and it broke, spilling dust everywhere, but I didn’t tell anyone, and only later realized that it wasn’t actually a vase, but a ceramic urn. WHY IS MY BRAIN DOING THIS? The girl’s giggles grew more intense, even as she was clearly trying to suppress them. “Hey, what’s your name?” I asked, desperately trying to distract my brain from giving away all the classified documents to the first mind-reader it could find. She carefully restrained her laughter. “I’m Umbra,” she said. “Nice to meet you Umbra I’m Cheshire,” I said, voice stilted and robotic, as I was mentally solving quadratic equations in a desperate attempt to keep my brain from running though the most embarrassing section of memory lane. “There. I shouldn’t be able to passively read your thoughts now,” “Oh, thank god. Why couldn’t you have done that one first?” “Actually, I could’ve done it a while ago, but it was too funny.” I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms, grumpily…. Wait… since when was there a chair in here? And a gravity? And a third dimension? I shook my head and looked around.

There was a young lady in front of me, she was dressed in an intricate black dress, it was completely black, but somehow had a sort of depth to it. I could also see each fold and lace; it was very strange to look at. Usually if something is a deep enough black, it just looks like… well… black, no light, no shadows, just darkness. This on the other hand, was as black as black could get, but I could still determine things like, texture, and depth. It was almost like one of those optical illusion rooms, where the room was designed in a way to mask its actual shape. I.E., my brain decided, of its own volition, that the dress I was seeing had depth and texture in a way that my eyes weren’t perceiving. Okay, maybe that metaphor wasn’t the best. But still, the dress was weird. Looking away from it, I looked at her face, she was obscenely pale, literally paper white. Her eyes were oddly dark, irises looking like pools of infinite darkness. Her hair looked off… it was black, sure but there was something to it, like it wasn’t a natural black, it was too… pure. Like with natural hair, there’s always a little brown in it, whereas this looked… dyed.

“So… Umbra, hi… are you like… Mortella’s assistant or….” I let myself trail off. “No, Mortella doesn’t have… huh… actually she does have an assistant, two in fact. But no, I’m Umbra, the goddess of darkness.” “Oh okay, I see. So… you… exist? Actually, I always thought that was odd, there was a goddess of light, but there wasn’t one of darkness, maybe you just don’t have much to do with Earth, or something like that. Or, you have a secret cult that exists in the shadows. No, that’s it right?” Umbra’s face suddenly became highly suspicious, and she stopped making eye contact. “Y-yes, I have a massive secret organization, filled with people. Mhmm, yep.” I nodded. “You’re a terrible liar.” Umbra glared at me. “No, I’m not! You know saying such things about a goddess is blasphemy, you can get burned at the stake for that!” “Sure, sure. You’re majesty? Wait, how do you properly refer to a deity? Your majesty just seems wrong.” Umbra just shrugged. “I don’t care, just call me Umbra,” “Yeah, but how am I to be unconvictably rude to you without referring to you politely?” I asked. Umbra puffed out her cheeks frustrated and childish-ly. Then she burst into giggles. “Anyways, I’m kinda curious, how am I alive?” Umbra’s giggling petered out, before she replied. “Well, you technically aren’t. You’d need an actual body to be alive. Mortella is working on finding you a new body. But in the meantime, I’ve made it so that we can talk to each other before you’re officially brought back to life.” “Wait, Mortella knows I’m being brought back?” “Yeah, we made a deal, I gave her some wantons, she gave me your soul, it wasn’t a big deal.” She said with an expression that said Praise me, praise me, which I blatantly ignored.

“So, why haven’t I heard of you,” I said, with a shit eating grin plastered to my face. Umbra stuck her tongue out at me before replying. “Honestly? Because I am like seven hours old.” Oh, I guess that makes sense, if someone is seven hours old, no wonder no one knows… about…. “Wait, seven hours?” “Yeah?” “Aren’t gods like, immortal, and infinitely old and stuff?” “Uh, no? Don’t get me wrong, most gods are way older than me. But first of all, gods aren’t really immortal. Mortella was super specific about that, and also, we do start existing at a point in time. Mine just happened to be several hours ago.” “Uh huh, so you’re a child.” Umbra’s face turned red. “No, I’m not a child, I’m an omniscient being of infinite darkness. The mistress of the inconceivable void. The origin of all shadows. A paragon of….” “Who’s only seven hours old.” She glared at me. “Yeah, well you don’t even have an age!” “Yes, I do I’m twenty-two.” “Pfft, you need to have a body to have an age dummy.” “Fist of all, did you just unironically use the word dummy. And second, that doesn’t make any sense, I’ve been alive for twenty-two years, so I’m twenty-two.” “No, you were alive for twenty-two years, then you were stabbed. Just because your soul was left intact and preserved, instead of whatever Mortella does with them once they die, doesn’t mean that you get to keep those years. You are zero, so therefore I’m your senor!” She said triumphantly. “That’s bullshit, I’m deciding to keep those years, I earned them.” “Oh, yeah? Then when’s your birthday? You’ll need to know it if you’re going to keep incrementing that year counter of yours.” “My birthday is….” I blanked.

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I felt like it was on the tip of my tongue, I remembered the year I was born, year 404 of the new calendar. But… the month and day… I couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t I remember. “I… I can’t remember,” I said, the lighthearted tone I was using to banter with the goddess gone. She looked like she was going to say something inane for a second before she heard the gravity in my voice. I couldn’t remember. I could remember celebrating it, but not what day it was, what time of year it was, whether it was snowing, raining, or sunny outside. I remembered writing it down on documents, but I can’t remember what I wrote, the lines completely unfamiliar to me, as if they were written in an alien language. Why can’t I remember it? Umbra sighed. “Okay, maybe I went too far. No one remembers their birthday once they’re brought back, I don’t know why Mortella made that rule, but it’s always been like that. But don’t worry about it too much, it really isn’t that big a deal.” “I mean… I guess it isn’t going to kill me or anything, but… I still feel kinda violated.” Umbra just nodded. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have a birthday.” “You were born seven hours ago, today is your birthday.” “Yeah, technically that would be the truth but, we don’t really measure days here. The gods rule over so many planets, all of which have different lengths of day and year, that it’s pointless to pick out a specific day.” “I mean… I guess that makes me feel a little better.” Umbra beamed at me. I sighed. On to my next question, I guess.

“So, why am I not dead?” “Oh,” Umbra said, as if she were remembering something. “So, Lumina. We’re gonna kill her,” she said. at the mention of Lumina’s name, a felt that coal of anger flare up within me. Sure, I know it was one of her followers that did it, but it was with her blessing. So, I hold both her and that follower responsible. “Okay… how?” Umbra shrugged. “I don’t know. There are a few weapons capable of killing a god, Mortella’s scythe, Rachel’s machete, Maggot’s knuckle dusters, (“Maggot?”) the list goes on. The problem is, there all owned by someone we can’t easily steal from. For example, the easiest person to steal from on that list would be Rachel. The problem is, she’s killed more than a few gods before, and I’m talking some big shots here, she killed the god of combat. Like, how do you even beat the god of fighting in a fight? Anyways, point is, we’re going to have to make our own god killing weapon.” “Okay, so you could’ve just said we should make our own weapon, I didn’t need the whole spiel. Also, how exactly do we do that?” Umbra shrugged. “I have no clue.” “Aren’t you like, omniscient or something?” “Well yeah, but omniscience doesn’t come from nowhere, it comes from Niiha, the goddess of fate, some things are deliberately omitted to prevent problems. For example, granting any random god who wants to know the know how to make a weapon capable of killing just about any living thing in existence. The good part is, we know it can be done, the presence of such weapons means it must be possible to make them.” “Okay, so where do I come in with this?” “Well, nowhere for now. I’ll be the one figuring out how to make the weapon, you can do that to, but your main goal will be forming a network of trusted people who you can work with to acquire the objects. As well as forming an information network in case you hear about an unattended god killing weapon.” “Do they really just leave those things lying around?” “No, probably not, but you can always hope.” “Also, why can’t you get the items?” “If I go to earth the other gods will know, and I’d prefer Lumina doesn’t hear about what we’re doing until it’s too late.”

I stare down at them, small balls of malt coated in chocolate, they are arrayed in a bowl, all about a centimeter in diameter. A box, presumably where they came from, stands next to them almost mockingly. It stares at me, daring me to try one, I stare right back. I’m not going to be intimidated by some god damn candy… right? I push the bowl across the table. “No, I’m good,” I say, noncommittally. The girl, who is not a girl, on the other side of the table smiles at me. “Really they’re fine… probably,” she says. “The hell do you mean probably?” I say, leaning slightly away from the candies. “Well, as far as I can tell they are normal whoppers… but….” “But?” “Well… it’s less the candies themselves, and more who I got them from.” “Who the hell did you get them from?” She mutters a name under her breath. “Huh?” “Mortella,” she says. “Mortella…. You got these from the fucking death goddess and now you want to feed them to me!?” I shout. “Yes, but only so that I don’t have to eat them,” she said, pushing the bowl back across the table. “So, you admit I’m your guinea pig.” “Absolutely,” she said, smiling sweetly.

“Yeah, no.” “Come on, you know how much I had to offer to get Mortella to bring you back to life, the least you could do is test as to whether or not she gave me death candies.” “You got them from death, literal death, fourth horsewoman of the apocalypse death… Of course, their death candies!” I shriek, then realizing something I continue. “Wait, didn’t you say that to bring me back all you gave her were some wantons?” The girl, who is not a girl’s expression suddenly shifts to that of my six-year-old self, trying desperately to convince my mom that I did, not in fact, eat an entire pack of chocolate bars… while my face is covered in chocolate. “No…” She says, unconvincingly. “No, I’m pretty sure that happened, you were all proud of it too.” “Well… okay… maybe that happened, but you don’t know what extents I went to, what trials I endured, all to get those wantons. I mean, they are for the death goddess after all, she wouldn’t accept any old wantons.” “We’re in heaven, right? I’m pretty sure they have some damn good wantons here,” I said, absently plucking a whopper from the bowl and popping it into my mouth. I bit down on the sphere, feeling my teeth grind through it, as my mouth filled with sweetness. “Hey you ate one! Are you dead again? Do I need to go get more wantons from the cafeteria?” I tensed as my brain caught up with my actions, oh no… I’d eaten… wait… this is just a normal whopper… wait again… cafeteria? “They have a cafeteria in heaven?” I asked. “Yeah, it’s where I met Mortella,” the girl, who was not a girl but also not a boy, said. “So, let me get this straight. You have been holding this I brought you back to life thing over my head for the past two days… and all it took was for you to get up and get her another plate of wantons!” the not-girl blushed, as if flattered. “Maybe,” she said, squirming bashfully. I just sighed. “This is why I hate gods,” I muttered, eating another whopper. “Are you sure those aren’t poison or something?” the not woman asked me. “Yeah, they are basically just whoppers.” “So, the radiation treatment wasn’t necessary?” I spat the half-eaten whopper out on the table. “RADIATION TREATMENT!” “Eww… gross,” she said, waving a finger to vaporize the whopper mush in a poof of black smoke. “What did you do to the whoppers?” I pressed. “Just some mild… scientific… examinations.” “Mild scientific examinations of what nature?” I pressed yet even harder. “Well… you know… the usual,” she said, again getting that guilty six-year-old look on her face. “What sort of usual?” I pressed hard enough to form diamonds from coal. “Okay, fine I may have done some mild radiation detection on them, but they might still be fine. Worst comes to worst you may grow another head or something.” “EXCUSE ME?” “It’s… fiiiiine,” she said, “Don’t worry about it.” “You just said, I might grow another head!” “Yeah, but it’ll be completely inert, just basically a really complicated zit… maybe.” “What do you mean maybe.” “Well… there is a small chance it might gain sentience and begin fighting for control over your body, but don’t worry my little guinea pig. My plans for you will work whether or not your body is being controlled by a radiation clone or not,” she said, beaming. I gave her a flat look.

“I’m going to die… again,” I said grumpily. “Oh, don’t be like that, I wouldn’t let you die. I’d have to bribe Mortella with more wantons if that happened, and hell if I wanna do that again.” “I’m so glad to hear my survival is contingent on the laziness of my patron goddess, truly I have chosen wisely.” “That you did! Just imagine how much work I won’t have to do now that you’re around. Soon enough I won’t even have to get up off the couch to get the remote control.” “Oh, dear, my goddess has aspirations of being the ultimate couch potato. Hey, Umbra, is it too late to switch back to Lumina, sure she killed me, but is that really worse than… this,” I said wiggling a finger at her before swiping up another whopper. “Yep, completely and utterly too late. Choosing a patron deity is under a strict no take backsies sort of policy.” “No take backsies? Who’s making these policies, and how old are they?” “Me, and about two and a half days.” “I get the sinking feeling that this policy was made five seconds ago just to keep me trapped.” Umbra gave me a beaming, innocently un-innocent smile. “I can feel the walls closing in on me now. First, I’m killing a goddess, next I’ll be killing spiders, then I’ll be fetching popcorn. I can see my fall from grace approaching me like a freight train with no brakes,” I lamented. “Well, the sooner you accept I tied you to the rails and cut the brake and feed pipes with an angle grinder, the sooner I get my bowl of Cheetos.” “Oh, so it’s Cheetos now? You know, ever since I killed that spider, you’ve been really letting yourself go.” “Yeah well, it’s hard being a goddess, I need to…” at that moment someone appeared in the room. He had a long black cloak and a skeletal frame; I could practically see his bones through his skin. “Excuse me madams, but the lady Mortella wishes you to know that she has found an acceptable body.” He said. Umbra stopped mid-sentence. I took a deep breath. “Well, I guess it’s time.” Umbra suddenly looked a little sad. “Okay,” she said. “Don’t worry, I think we can still talk, prayers and all that,” I said. She perked up. “Yeah, okay.” “Come along Milady,” the man said extending a bony hand, I grabbed a few more whoppers, and stood, crossing the table and lacing his fingers with mine.