I Couldn't Stand Out, So I Made A Deal

The despair you felt when you opened your eyes was crushing and immediate. You thought you had died. You thought all of this would be behind you and yet your body persisted. What sort of sick joke was this? Nobody was coming for you.

Worse if they did what were you supposed to do if you lived through all of this? You weren’t worth the effort, that you were certain. After all the energy and time that would have to be poured into you, you’d have to do something with your life. But what? You weren’t good at anything. You didn’t have any idea what you wanted to do with yourself before this, almost dying wasn’t going to change that. Your regrets weren’t tangible.

I should be more grateful. The thought hurt as much as your chest. There always had to be more you could do, but you were tired of it. You were tired of pouring yourself into people who didn’t care about you and things you didn’t care about. Any sane person would want this; to keep persevering against the odds, but you weren’t them. You couldn’t bring yourself to scrape together an ounce of positivity, because deep down you knew it wasn’t going to amount to anything, it never did, so why would now be any different?

Pain lingers in the back of your throat as you choke back sobs. As far as you were concerned it was another pain to wrack your ruined body. Or it should have been.

You force yourself to take a deep breath, bracing yourself in anticipation of pain ripping through your body or incomprehensible pressure; except it never came.

You take another breath. The action felt unnecessary, but it was familiar and brought you some comfort. You wipe your face on your sleeve. The fabric didn’t feel right against your skin; it was grainy and smelled of smoke. Then…you must have died after all.

The void you were sitting in felt strange. The air was thick, and had some resistance to it, almost like water, but you were certain it wasn’t, and it was just warm enough that you wondered if you were imagining the sensation or not. Voices lingered at the edge of your hearing, you thought it was familiar, but t he more you strained your ears to make out anything, the less certain you became. It made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you decided ignoring it would probably be in your best interest.

A purple gap in the darkness loomed above you, just out of reach. A way out?

You worry at your bottom lip, peering into the darkness. Were you allowed to leave? Did you want to leave? You reach your hand towards it, continuing your watch at the space around you. Nothing. You take a deep breath and force yourself to stand. This too felt strange. A short while ago you were half convinced you’d never walk again. You shift your weight a few times, aware that your body felt a little too light.

You balance on your toes, feeling the top of your head break through the barrier, but you weren’t tall enough to actually see anything of use. You sigh, then wrap your hands around the edge and struggle to haul yourself into the world above.

The snatch of purple you had seen was the blank sky overhead. The black grass beneath you was overgrown and rustled in a nonexistent breeze. Mist clings to the ground, obscuring the humanoid shapes that would flicker in and out of sight. One of them blinks in beside you, its face smudgy and unreadable, then disappears again. Maybe you looked the same to it.

You give yourself a once over, but as far as you were concerned you still looked like you, albeit a little worst for wear. Soot and plaster clung to your clothes as a reminder of your ill-met demise. The beige sweater you wore was a little big to begin with but now it hung off you in all the wrong places, but you couldn’t exactly pretend you didn’t know why. You shudder at the thought. Blood stained your pants and you were missing a shoe but tying them properly had been the last thing on your mind when you left your apartment.

Maybe it’s better everybody is smudgy, I don’t think I’d want to see anybody else the same broken mess I am. Or worse.

You pull the sleeves over your scraped palms and scan the horizon, trying, and failing to find anything to distract you. You were starting to hate the quiet. There hadn’t been a moment in your whole life where there wasn’t something else to focus on, your neighbors, street traffic, TV, music. You might have felt alone before, but now you actually were, and the thought was overwhelming.

Walking will make me feel better.

You nod, hoping the lie would eventually be true, or you’d find something to distract yourself before you could start worrying again.

The only times you could remember thinking about the afterlife was when your thoughts were spiraling away from you, but even in those dark moments you hadn’t formed an idea of what you wanted it to be and rather convinced yourself you were doing to die alone and waste away long before anybody came looking for your body. You supposed that ended up true in a way. Your parents were gone overseas for work so who knows how long it would be before they took the call, then came home to put you to rest… If they decided to even do that much.

Was that why you were in a place a dreary as this?

Did you deserve to go someplace else?

Probably not. Doing good things didn’t mean you were a good person. All of it had been because you just wanted somebody to like you, that was far from being saint-like. But as far as you were concerned, being left all alone like this until the end of time was your own personal brand of hell. Maybe you should have been more selfish, or outspoken at leas then you’d feel like you deserved this.

You take a deep breath, your footsteps faltering as you spot a stone brick sticking out of the ground. The lichen that clung to it was a sickly green color, and with nothing else around you couldn’t imagine what it might have come off of unless the rest of it had sunken into the marshy ground. You nudge it, half expecting it to move, but it holds fast.

More and more cut stones begin to dot the landscape. The ground slowly hardens beneath you. Arches and stone pillars rise up out of the mist, marking long eroded entryways in walls that had fallen long ago. Black vines creep along the cracked flagstones beneath your feat. The leathery beat of wings sounds overhead. If you squint you can make out black shapes in the sky, but none of the creatures ever came close enough for you to come close to figuring out what was up there. It was probably for the best.

A large basin sits in the middle of the dilapidated courtyard, filled with more of the strange black liquid that you had crawled out of. This pool sloshed around as if something was lurking beneath the surface. You keep as much space between it and yourself as possible. Who knows if you’d be able to get out of it a second time.

An out of place desk sits on top of a cracked platform. Paper and small trinkets were stacked on every inch of the surface in heaps almost as tall as you were. Sheets drifted out of the sky above and landed haphazardly on the ground. you had to make an effort not to step on any of them. Upon closer examination the text swirled around on the page in some language you couldn’t recognize. You quickly avert your eyes as your stomach starts to churn and you feel more than a little dizzy. It as hard not feel sorry for whoever had to read this. The mess quickly started to make a lot more sense.

“Caishen?”

You flinch when a monotone voice sounds behind you, and quickly turn away from the desk. The figure says your name a few more times, rolling it around in his mouth as if getting used to it. They flick their deep hood back, although their shaggy black hair obscured their face just as well. A pair of light purple eyes peer out at you, marred by deep bags that you weren’t sure were caused by lack of sleep, and you caught snatches of paper white skin.

“I did not think you would arrive this quickly. Apologies for the delay.” He speaks slowly, drawing out the syllables of each word as if he wasn’t quite sure which one was supposed to come next.

“You were expecting me?”

“Partially. There are always others, but someone as low risk as you doesn’t even warrant me going through the usual formalities that come with sticking you lot into new vessels.” He runs a fingertip along the stacks of paper before pulling one off with little care for the things piled on top of it. He cocks his head to the side at an almost unnatural angle, then slightly rotates the paper as well.

Figures. Even now you weren’t worth making note of. “New vessel? Does that mean you’re going to send me back?”

You stand there in awkward silence. He pulls out another paper, turning it a different direction than the first. He exhales deeply, as close to a sigh as he could get, then grabs a third paper. “Some things… cannot be fixed. Some things are etched into ones soul and cannot be overcome no matter how hard one might try. A new body will not erase your shortcomings. When placing one like you in a world different from the one you came from it is hard to tell how those flaws will take hold. Do you wish to proceed knowing you will have to endure this element of uncertainty.”

At first you weren’t sure if he was even talking to you. Your mind struggled to catch up the longer he spoke but you weren’t sure you could wrap your head around the idea that everything you had done was for nothing. Was that it? The only thing you were good for was being overlooked and mediocre? Could there be something worse than that? You weren’t sure you wanted to find out.

“You are free to say no. It does not matter much to me. There is still time to get this matter out of the way.” He grabs another sheet of paper, using his thumb to count on his fingers and glancing at the hourglass that needed to be turned over on his desk."

If he didn’t care whether or not you went was was the point in even offering? How had you ended up in another losing situation? Even if you passed, what was the real alternative? Did you want to stay here? What if the next role he wanted you to fill was worse? Or he didn’t give you a choice. You had already endured this much, and if you had survived that fire you’d be continuing on where you had left off anything. This didn’t really sound much different than that.

Maybe now you could have a little more faith in yourself. Maybe you could believe that your best was just that, whether through external invitation or your own limitations that you were sure you had hit time and time again. You could come to terms with it. As hard as it was, as much as you wanted something more, at least you could go into it knowing you’d never have that.

“You will not die alone.”

“W-what?”

He opens up a drawer and crams the papers inside of it, catching a different sheet that was fluttering down from above. "That was written. One of your concerns was dying alone. That will not happen this time. Do not expect me to tell you anything else. This is a burden you must choose for yourself.”

Great. At least this time if i get crushed to death somebody else will be there with me.

He was trying to make you feel better, you could at least try to be positive. About what you weren’t sure but if you had already made up your mind to accept you should at least be grateful. Sometimes you did want to start over someplace new. This wasn’t a normal way to go about such things but it was better than nothing. Right?

“Thank you.”

His eyes flick towards you. “Am I to take that as confirmation.”

“Yes, I’ll go.”

He makes a small sound of acknowledgment, yanking his hood back up. You trail along behind him, stopping some ways away from the rippling pool of liquid as he flicks his wrist to conjure a scythe. The metal whizzes through the air as he rips open a portal. The brightly lit meadow on the other side hurt your eyes. You had almost forgotten what other colors looked like. A boy with sandy brown hair was napping beneath the tree, his skin pale despite the sun, and his body slumped at a weird angle. "Is he-

The man plants a hand on your back and shoves you forward, cutting your conversation short.