Chapter 1: Accident

“MOVE THE [email protected] OUT OF THE WAY! COME ON!” I scream to no avail while pressing the horn on the steering wheel and simultaneously trying to steer my brakeless truck away from the bus. “[email protected] MOVE!”

I catch a glimpse of a teenage boy, looking worriedly towards me. Waving my hand erratically, I try to warn him of the impending danger. Thankfully he seems to have gotten the message and warned the other people on board. Good!

Refocusing my efforts on using the steering wheel but it’s miraculously unmoved from all my effort. Nothing in the vehicle was working apart from the horn, which I’ve been pressing since earlier.

“WHAT?!”, I shouted, noticing that the bus is also immobile and people inside are panicking as much as I am. “S#$T!”

Finally losing hope, I try to open the doors but they’re closed shut. A few seconds away from hitting the bus, I braced myself from the impact.

*honk hon-crash*

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!” An excruciating pain assaults me as I feel my entire torso being crushed by the cold metal of the steering wheel deforming from the crash. My vision slowly filled white and red as the pain quickly increased in intensity along with the number of sharp metals jabbing into my whole body. NO MORE! MAKE IT STOP!

And it did.

Confused and befuddled from the agony that disappeared as quickly as it came, I opened my eyes only for them to be stung by burning bright iridescent whiteness of the room. What?! Where’s my truck?! Was that all just a dream? WHERE THE F#$K AM I?!

“Hello!?”, I tried speaking out only to be bewildered by the lack of sound coming from my throat. What the [email protected]#l is going on?! Okay… breathe Cas. Focus, look around.

Assessing the room, I see that it’s circular with me in the centre. I’m currently surrounded by huge, black seats. Or maybe they’re thrones, there’s quite a few. Behind me is a door with a similar colour to the thrones. Looking up, I find a galaxy-like ceiling. Pure black with white star-like dots here and there. What the hell is this? I need to get out of here...

I tried walking towards the door but the lack of tactile feeling on my feet makes me look down and notice something odd. Where are my legs? WHERE ARE MY HANDS? I hold up my hands and can still feel like they’re there but I can’t see them. I put my possibly non-existent head in my non-existent hands. What the h$#l?! Breathe… in… and out… in… and o-

*click* A sound, similar to that of a door opening, echoed loudly through the whole room, interrupting my breathing meditation. I loop up towards the door and see a man wrapped in multiple chains, carrying a… bucket and a mop?

“Excuse me! Where am I?!” I scream, forgetting the fact that I possibly have no throat right now. He snaps his head towards my direction before staring agape.

“Can you hear me? Please tell me, where am I?!” I ask again, making him flinch and drop the cleaning equipment on the floor. Turning backwards, I hear a click as he closed the door as quietly as possible. He then proceeds to check the rest of the room before hesitatingly turning towards me.

“Hello? Talk to me g%#!%it!!“ He walks towards me, seemingly unsure of what to do.

“Wha-” His chest suddenly splits open with hundreds of bloody chains bursting out of it wrapping and pulling me inside. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” I scream trying to hold onto something to resist the pull.

Gripping nothing, I turn towards the hole in the man’s chest, bracing as I get sucked inside. And then blackness. Infinite unending blackness. Looking around I can't see anything, not even myself. Another unknown thing that's happening?! Okay, think... thnk...

Waiting for what seems like forever, nothing happens. Just as I resolve to collect and process the weirdness of my current situation, I’m interrupted by sounds echoing in the void.

“Wait… I can hear voices! Hello?! Is anyone there?!” But no reply came.

[email protected]$#it! Breathe Cas, do I even breathe at this point? Nevermind just breathe in… and out…. I calm myself down while trying to redouble my efforts in listening to the voices.

“@#[email protected]$ #(!% $#r chance to m#@! @[email protected]#”

“But [email protected]#$ #@%! @[email protected]# [email protected]!atch us!?”

“It will be [email protected]# $#[email protected] $#@#, @#!# @#rry.”

“@#[email protected] bless it?”

“#@!$%@tiple [email protected]#[email protected] @#[email protected]$% [email protected]!$soul”

“@#$%@!$^&@$”

Everything else was gibberish after that. Damn it I’m so sick of this! Just let me die in peace!

Suddenly, I feel myself get sucked out of the blackness into a world of light. My non-existent retinas burned once again, but through the mist of white, I can see dark silhouettes of people surrounding me. What now?! Who are you people?!

My eyesight gradually recovered and I look around once more. A crowd of people are circling me, wearing different articles of clothing from different eras. As I was about to try and speak once again, some of them point at me mumbling incoherently under their breaths. I feel something warm inside my chest making me look down towards it, seeing nothing but a bright light.

*ZHOOM*

A titanic hooded figure suddenly appears in the middle of the room in front of me and puts its hand on my head. Trying to dodge was fruitless as I can't really move without limbs. I look up only to see a mist of blackness within his hood. I tried asking it about what's happening, but ending up with the same silence as before I look around to the other people in the room instead. They look frightened, trembling from this mystery in front of me. I notice some of them start backing away, only to be prevented from moving further by an invisible wall.

“What is happening? Hello?” I ask the figure once again, having nothing else to work with but my voice which I don’t even know if they can hear. I look again inside the hood, this time seeing a shadowy mist with eyes that feel familiar yet distant.

Getting lost in the kaleidoscope of colours within its eyes, I time meaningless and important all at the same time. My thoughts and emotions are sucked away, decayed, turned to dust as the clock goes back and forth making me experience the birth and death of all things. The inevitability of time. All in an instant yet stretched towards the ends of infinity, I stay in that trance before being bought back to my current situation by a searing pain of burning inside my chest.

Hot! HOT! AAAAAHHHHH MAKE IT STOP!

The pain seemed to last forever in an instant, and as it seemed to reach a crescendo I fell into a world of blackness.

===== [email protected]$!al $h*(ers =====

[POV Hooded Figure]

“Are you sure that was wise my lord?” A voice asks me from the side after what I have just done. A simple question with an obvious answer.

“No”

“Then wh-”

“Because this is how it should be.” I look towards them, them who have banded together to try and escape this wrongness. “This is how it always has been,” I say finally before promptly going back to my domain.

“Then let’s hope he survives.”

===== The Hospital =====

[POV Cas]

It burns! It BURNS! IT BURNS!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH--”WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaah?” Wait, what? What happened? I felt like… like I was burning from the inside. What?

“Congratulations ma’am! It’s a healthy baby boy!” A muffled voice exclaims from somewhere beside me. Everything feels dampened. My ears are ringing and I feel numb. I opened my eyes and felt the sting of bright lights assault me. I can see giant shadowy figures around me.

Wait a minute… I just screamed earlier! I can talk! “Wajubaba!?” Wh-what? Wajubaba? “Waghajahajaja?!” What’s wrong with my mouth?!

I try to feel my mouth with my hands, which are also extremely numb. It feels like blood is just returning from my sleeping limbs, that feeling of numbness. Without my control, I immediately formed a fist with my thumb sticking out, and sucked it. What?! No! Ughhh whaaa-

A wave of sleepiness assaults me suddenly and I fall into unconsciousness for the second time today.

[POV Phenea]

“He has your eyes, honey.” Julius smiled at me while looking at the baby. A baby. My baby. I still can’t believe it, we have a son. I look at my baby, sleeping silently in my arms while sucking his thumb. He’s got the same reddish-black hair as his father and the same rock plates. He’s got my eyes though, that’s always more important. This little boy will be a heartbreaker one day. I wonder what I should name him? Lance? Jeremy? Hmmm…

“He has your crying face.” I giggled, teasing my husband who seems to be lost in a trance looking at our son.

“Wha-”

I got it! “Castiel! Our sweet little Castiel Newton.”

Julius grumbles from the side, “You already chose a name? What about me?” We talked about this before, but I didn’t know childbirth would be this painful. And I deserve at least this one.

I glare at him while holding little Cas closer, “I didn’t see YOU pushing anything.”

“*sigh* fine, fine,” he says while taking out a flip phone. "Let's have the nurse take our picture of us."

[POV Cas]

Ughhhhhh where am I?

“Aghujaahaaaba baja?” I try to speak again but my numb mouth fails me time and time again. Resorting to my inner voice, I thought about the events prior. What happened to me? What was that white room? Who were those people? “Gagh!” A surge of pain shot up my head derailing my train of thought. A wave of nausea goes over me and I feel myself fainting once again.

[a few minutes later]

Ugh, what the f$#@ was that? I just tried to picture their faces an- “Aghu!”

[a few minutes later]

Stop thinking about it stop thinking abou- “Nogha!”

[eventually]

Trucks! Think about your truck! Your awesome purple 8 wheeler. Ugh, I miss you, my baby, I hope you live your next life better… I start thinking about the day before everything went to s#$t, distracting myself to avoid fainting again.

===== Back on Earth =====

[Half an hour before the accident]

*ringtone plays* ‘I’ll take you for a ride on my garbage truck. Truck truck truck~’

*click* “Hello? Who is this?” I answer the phone groggily as I got up from bed, away from my sweet, sweet night mistress. I haven’t had my coffee yet and I stayed up all night with truck maintenance. Which reminds me I, I need a new fuel val-

“Hey, Cas! Sorry I need you to run a job like right now.”

“What? It’s Monday morning, and you know I don’t do Monday mornings!”

“I know man. But this is a real VIP of our company and the OGs upstairs will kill me if we don’t get this done ASAP.”

I put the phone down and hang my head, contemplating if it’s worth it to have my boss owe me a favour. “Can’t you get anyone else? How about Rick? Rick’s a morning guy, right? Ask him [email protected]”

“I tried but none of them is answering. Please, man, I’ll owe you if you do it his one time.”

*sigh* Damn it… I need my coffee. “Fine, how did this even happen? I thought you tasked everything a week ago?”

“I don’t know either man the note was lodged in my logbook. I don’t even know why it’s there! Anyway, meet you here 15 mins tops.”

“Twenty”

“Fine.”

*click* I drop my phone and got ready to head out.

===== The Hospital =====

[Present time]

I swear I couldn’t move anything on that truck… I couldn’t even open my door to jump out. All I could do was press the horn... I must have killed those people on the bus too. But why didn’t it dodge? Why didn't they just get off the bus? I was quite far away and I know that kid saw me. Ugh, so many questions…

A pang of guilt assaults me along with the depressing thoughts of accidentally killing the people in the bus. D$$nit...

Shaking my head to get rid of the thoughts, I opened my eyes to a world of white and vague shadow people, except they’re more defined now. I can kinda see a figure with long hair carrying me That voice said “baby boy” earlier... reincarnation? I mean with all the sh#t that just happened that would be the least surprising thing I guess. Should I defeat a demon king now too?

Hundreds of thoughts about the current situation run through my head before I fall asleep for the last time this day. I’m so tired...