Wrong Turn at the Afterlife

There is a certain irony to dying while trying not to die.

I, Emerick Berthelot, had spent the last fifteen years of my life as a mercenary. Doing everything possible to avoid death. Ducking arrows, dodging swords, running from angry mobs. All part of the job description. I had survived three wars, seventeen assassination attempts, and one particularly vengeful nobleman's daughter whose marriage proposal I had declined. (Trust me, the assassination attempts were less dangerous.)

So to die by slipping on a wet floor in a tavern bathroom? That's just insulting.

The back of my head hit the stone with a crack that echoed through my skull. My vision swarm then darkened at the edges. At least I'm glad that no one saw it happen. Or I hope.

Death, as it turns out, is a lot like being drunk. Everything's fuzzy and your limbs don't work right. And it felt like someone's going to judge you for your life choices.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself floating in a vast, white emptiness. No pearly gates, no fire and brimstone, just endless void that somehow managed to be bright and completely empty.

"Oh! You're awake!"

flailed. Eventually, I managed to rotate myself enough to face the speaker.

Floating before me was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her hair was a cascade of platinum blonde that seemed to shimmer with its own light. Her eyes were the vibrant green of spring leaves, but more translucent, large and doe-like. her skin was pale and flawless, and her figure...well. Let's just say that whoever designed the female form had really outdone themselves with this one.

"Hi there!" she chirped, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "I'm Celestia, Goddess of Redemption and Second Chances! And you're..." She glanced down at a scroll in her hand.

"Um... hang on a sec."

She unfurled the scroll, which turned out to be much longer than it initially appeared. It cascaded down and continued unrolling, seemingly without end.

"Wow, that's a lot of sins," she muttered, her perfect brow furrowing. "Like, a LOT a lot. Did you really seduce an entire convent of nuns?"

"What? No!" I protested. "I've never even been inside a convent!"

"Hmm." She continued scanning. "Ooh, but you did save a cat from a burning building! That was super nice of you."

I stared at her blankly. "I've never saved a cat in my life."

"What? But it says right here..." She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening. "Oh no. Oh hmmmm." She flipped the scroll over and examined the header. "Isn't this you? Aren't you Emeric... Bertelot?" She looked up at me questioningly.

"Emerick," I corrected. "Emerick Berthelot." making a prominent K and TH sound.

"Right, right. So close!" She giggled nervously, the sound like tinkling bells. She rolled up the scroll and tossed it over her shoulder, where it vanished into the whiteness. With a wave of her hand, another scroll appeared. "This one should be yours. Let's see..."

Her eyes widened as she read. "Oh. Oh my. You've been a very naughty mercenary, haven't you?"

I shrugged. "I did what I had to do to survive."

"Mmm-hmm. Well, according to this, you've killed..." She squinted at the scroll. "Eighty-seven people? Is that right?"

"Sounds low," I admitted. "But I didn't exactly keep count."

"And you've stolen, cheated, lied, broken hearts..." She kept reading, her perfect lips pursing more with each sin. "Wow, you really threatened to feed a man his own fingers?"

"He tried to stiff me on a job," I explained. "I didn't actually do it."

"Well, that's something, I guess." She rolled the scroll back up. "So, normally, with a record like yours, we'd be sending you straight to the Underworld for punishment."

Great. Eternal damnation. Just my luck.

"But!" She held up a perfectly manicured finger. "Today's your lucky day! We're running a special redemption program. Sort of a... second chance initiative."

I raised an eyebrow. "What kind of second chance?"

"Well, you see, there's this world that needs heroes." She waved her hand, and a glowing image appeared. It is a fantasy realm with castles, forests, and mountains. "It's being threatened by a Demon Lord and his armies. We've been sending heroes there to help the humans fight back."

"And you want me to be one of these heroes?" I asked skeptically. "I'm not exactly hero material."

"That's the beauty of it!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. Her chest bounced with the movement, and I forced my eyes to stay on her face.

"You get to start fresh! New body, new life, new world! And if you defeat the Demon Lord, all your sins will be forgiven!"

Well, when she put it that way, it didn't sound so bad. A second chance at life, fighting monsters in a fantasy world, basically what I had been doing anyway, just with different scenery.

"What's the catch?" I asked, because there's always a catch.

"No catch!" she insisted, batting those impossibly long eyelashes. "Just defeat the Demon Lord, save the world, earn redemption. Easy peasy!"

I didn't believe for a second that it would be "easy peasy," but what choice did I have? Eternal damnation or a fighting chance in a new world?

"Fine," I said. "I'll do it."

"Yay!" she squealed, clapping again. "Oh, this is gonna be so much fun! Okay, so I just need to prepare the reincarnation spell, and..."

She reached into the air and pulled out a massive tome that looked older than time itself. As she flipped through the pages, her brow furrowed again.

"Let's see... reincarnation, reincarnation... ah, here it is!" She beamed triumphantly. "Okay, so I just need to recite this incantation again as usual!

"She began to chant in a language I couldn't understand, her voice taking on a resonant, otherworldly quality. The white void around us began to swirl and pulse with energy. I felt a strange tingling sensation spread through my... well, not my body, since I didn't have one anymore, but my consciousness, I guess.

"Wait," I interrupted. "Don't I get any special powers or abilities? Magic? A legendary weapon? A unique skill?"

She paused mid-chant, looking annoyed at the interruption. "Um, I don't think that's in the standard package."

"Then how am I supposed to defeat a Demon Lord as just a regular human!?"

"Oh, don't worry!" She waved dismissively. "The heroes usually figure it out. Some of them get blessed by local gods or kingdoms, others find magical artifacts and swords... it'll work out!"

That wasn't exactly reassuring, but before I could protest further, she resumed her chant. The energy around us intensified, and I felt myself being pulled toward... something.

"Oh, and one more thing," Celestia added as the spell neared completion. "I'll be monitoring your progress! I've got, like, a lot of other souls to process, but I'll check in when I can. Good luck!"

The white void began to collapse around me, compressing into a tunnel of light. I felt myself being stretched and compressed at the same time, like being squeezed through a straw.

"Wait!" I called out as the tunnel of light began to swallow me. "You didn't tell me where I'm going! Are you gonna drop me off in some forest!?"

But it was too late. The tunnel of light consumed me entirely, and I was hurled through dimensions at impossible speed. Sensations overwhelmed me. Heat, cold, pressure, weightlessness, all at once and none at all.

Then, suddenly, impact.

I slammed into something solid with enough force to knock the wind out of me. I lay there, dazed and disoriented, trying to make sense of what had just happened.Wait. Wind. Lungs. Body.

I had a body again!

I opened my eyes cautiously, half-expecting to find myself in some deep forest, perhaps surrounded by trees, maybe slimes or goblins who had witnessed my miraculous appearance from the heavens.Instead, I was staring up at a blood-red sky.

I blinked, thinking maybe my vision was still adjusting. Nope. The sky was definitely red. And those weren't clouds floating up there. They were swirling masses of dark energy that occasionally crackled with crimson lightning.

I sat up slowly, taking stock of my surroundings. I was in a barren wasteland of black rock and scorched earth. In the distance, mountains of obsidian jutted up like jagged teeth against the crimson sky. The air was hot and dry, with a faint smell of burnt flesh.

"This... doesn't look like a forest...or a human kingdom or a forest," I muttered to myself.

As I spoke, I noticed something odd about my voice. It was deeper, more resonant than before. I looked down at my hands and froze.

My skin was white. Not pale, not ashen...literally white, like...snow. And my nails... they were black and pointed, more like claws than human fingernails.

"What the hell?" I scrambled to my feet, patting myself down frantically.

I was wearing unfamiliar clothes, black leather armor with some metal armor plates on the shoulders, dark trousers, and boots made from some kind of scaled hide. Around my waist was a belt with an empty scabbard.

I reached up to touch my face and found more surprises. My ears were pointed. My teeth felt sharper, especially my canines. And when my hands reached higher, they encountered two hard protrusions jutting from my forehead.Horns. I had horns.

"No, no, no," I muttered, turning in circles as if I might find a mirror in this desolate landscape.

"This can't be happening.

"A flash of light suddenly erupted a few feet away, momentarily blinding me. When my vision cleared, Celestia was peaking there, from a white hole that's just floating.

"Hiiii!" she waved cheerfully. "Just checking in to see how you're..." She stopped abruptly, her green eyes widening. "Oh. Oh dear."

"'Oh dear'?" I repeated incredulously. "That's all you have to say? What did you do to me!?"

She bit her lip, looking genuinely distressed. "Um, so... I think I might have... um... mixed up a couple of spells?"

"Mixed up... a couple of spells," I echoed flatly.

"Yeah, so..." She twisted a strand of hair nervously around her finger. "It looks like instead of reincarnating you as a human hero in the human realm, I might have... sort of... reincarnated you as a demon in the demon realm?" Her voice rose at the end, making it a question.

I stared at her in disbelief. "You turned me into a demon? The thing I'm supposed to be fighting!?"

"I know, I know, it's a teensy mistake!" she said, holding her index fingers close together. "But, um, on the bright side, you got those special powers you were asking for! Demons have all kinds of cool abilities!"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, counting to ten to keep myself from exploding with rage.

When I opened them again, Celestia has stepped out from her white whole that has vanished, and was examining her nails, apparently oblivious to the magnitude of her error.

"So," I said, as calmly as I could manage, "how do we fix this?"

"Then send me back!" I demanded. "Kill this body and try again!"

She shook her head, making her hair shimmer in the red light. "Doesn't work that way. This is already your second chance! That's my whole department! If this body dies and you need a third chance..." She shuddered dramatically. "You'd get transferred to the Remedial Souls Division."

"They reincarnate failed cases as insects. Or slimes. Sometimes both, depending on your paperwork." She twisted her hair nervously. "And if you somehow mess up a FOURTH time, you go to my supervisor's department."

I ran a clawed hand through my hair, which felt harder than my human hair had been.

"So I'm stuck. As a demon. In the demon realm."

"I know it seems bad..."

"SEEMS bad!?"

"But it's not hopeless!" she insisted. "You can still earn redemption! The principles are the same, just... adjusted for your new circumstances!"

"How exactly does a demon earn redemption?" I demanded.

Before she could answer, the ground beneath us shifted with an ominous rumble. Celestia, apparently startled by the noise, took a step backward without looking and promptly disappeared from sight with a surprised shriek.

I rushed to where she'd been standing and found a perfectly camouflaged pit trap, a hole about eight feet deep with smooth sides, clearly designed to capture unwary travelers. At the bottom, Celestia sat in an undignified heap, her perfect hair now full of dirt and her ethereal dress torn.

"Help!" she called up pitifully. "I'm trapped!"

"I can see that," I replied, looking down at her, contemplating if I should just leave her there. "How did you not notice a giant hole in the ground?"

"I was distracted by your excellent question about demonic redemption!" she called back. "Which I was totally prepared to answer, by the way!"

"Sure you were." I found a sturdy-looking piece of wood and lowered one end into the pit. "Grab onto this."She wrapped her arms around the stick, and I began pulling her up. She was surprisingly heavy for someone who claimed to be a divine being, and my new demonic strength took some getting used to.

"Almost there," I grunted, hauling her toward the surface.

"You're so strong!" she gushed, apparently taking this as a compliment rather than an observation about the inconvenience she was causing. "I knew choosing you was the right decision!"

"You didn't choose me," I reminded her, pulling her the final few feet out of the pit. "You accidentally processed my soul after I died in a bathroom."

"Details!" She brushed dirt off her dress with the dignity of someone who definitely had not just fallen into a hole. "The important thing is that we're partners now!"

"Partners?"

"Of course! I can't abandon you here after that little spell mix-up!" She straightened her halo, which had gotten knocked askew. "I'm going to help you achieve redemption, and you're going to protect me while I do it!"

I stared at her. "You want to stay here? In the demon realm? You, a goddess?"

"Senior Administrator Goddess," she corrected automatically. "And yes! Think of it as... field work! Very educational!"

"Do you have any idea how dangerous this place is for divine beings?

"She waved dismissively. "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. I have you to protect me! And I'll blend in perfectly once I get the hang of the local customs.

"I looked at her, a luminously beautiful goddess in a torn white dress, radiating divine energy like a beacon, with a literal halo floating over her head and tried to imagine her "blending in" anywhere in the demon realm.

This was going to be a disaster.

"No, leave," I promptly said with a sigh. "Snap your finger and go back where you came from. I cannot baby sit you."

"Baby sit me!? Fine!" she said, making a pouting face. "Goodbye then!" and snapped her fingers. The light around her glow for a second. I stared at her, as she continue to snap her fingers a couple of times. "Umm..., so I might've trapped mys-" before she could even complete, I let out a sigh. "Can I come with..." she said, in much smaller voice.

"Fine," I sighed, accepting my fate. "But if we're doing this, we need to establish some ground rules."

"Oh, how exciting! What kind of rules?"

"First, you follow my lead. No divine light shows, no miracle working, no doing anything that screams 'goddess' to every demon in a five-mile radius."

She pouted. "But my divine abilities are one of my best features!"

"Your divine abilities just got you stuck in a pit trap," I pointed out.

"That was an accident!"

"Everything about this situation has been an accident!" I threw up my hands in exasperation. "You turned me into a demon by accident! You sent me to the wrong realm by accident! You fell into a hole by accident! You got trapped here now and cannot return! At what point do we acknowledge that maybe, just MAYBE, you're not as competent as you think you are!?"

Her lower lip trembled dangerously. "I am very competent! I graduated top of my class from Divine Administration Academy!"

"Congratulations. How's that working out for us so far!?"

She opened her mouth to argue, then apparently thought better of it, slumping her shoulders in defeat. "Fine. What are the other rules?"

"Second, if I tell you to do something for our survival, you do it immediately without argument. Third, you don't wander off, touch anything, or try to 'help' unless I specifically ask you to."

"This sounds less like partnership and more like dictatorship," she grumbled.

"Welcome to reality," I said unsympathetically. "Now come on. We need to find civilization before something bigger and hungrier than a pit trap finds us."

We began walking across the desolate landscape, Celestia trailing behind me and already complaining about the volcanic rock getting in her sandals, I tried not to think about how wrong this had all gone.

I was supposed to be a HERO. Instead, I was a demon babysitting the goddess who'd screwed up my entire afterlife.

"Are we there yet?" Celestia whined from behind me.

"We literally just started walking."

"But my feet hurt!"

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. This was going to be a very long eternity.