“Clink clink clink”, removing the gas nozzle from the car a young man stuffs it back into the gas pump and closes the car’s gas cap. He turns back to the screen on the gas pump while shutting the gas door behind him. As he turns he sees a woman a pump over on the other side smoking a cigarette while filling her truck with gas. A brief moment of tension fills him before he calms down, ‘It’s not like she's going to douse herself with gasoline and dip her cigarette in’.

Turning his attention back to the gas pump screen he reads, “Transaction Successful! Thank You for your patronage, Akiel Don.” Akiel shakes his head thinking, ‘Even the gas pumps have messages that contribute to customer service now’ while waiting for his receipt. A sudden wind blows by bringing the strong scent of gasoline to him, Akiel swerves his head back to the woman he observed before only to see her clutching her chest in pain. Her gas nozzle on the ground spewing gas all over her legs and towards the underside of her car.

Akiel freezes, searching for the lady’s missing cigarette. Not in her hands. Not anywhere on her. Not in the puddle of gas and not on top of the car. Finally, after moving closer he saw it had rolled behind a two-sided squeegee bucket. He sighs in relief, making his way around the bucket he bends down to pick it up. Just as his fingers are about to touch the cigarette butt a random humanitarian flies by shouting, “call 911, we need an ambulance and a fire truck!” to no one in particular. His shoe outsole gripping the cigarette as he ran towards the woman having a heart attack in the middle of an ever-growing puddle of gas.

Akiel stands ramrod straight as the guy runs past him with a still-smoldering cigarette lodged in his shoe. The hair on the back of his neck sticking straight up and his back spasming with a sudden chill. Without thinking he picks up the squeegee from the bucket next to him and chucks at the figures head. The squeegees edge smashes into the guys head, sending him sprawling into the gas puddle and the woman. Akiel pounces on the guy's shoe, just inches away from the encroaching puddle of gas. Not taking any time to remove the still miraculously smoldering cigarette he yanks the guy's shoe off.

While turning over the guy yells angrily, “What the hell was that for?” Akiel expressionlessly looks at the man for a moment as he nurses the back of his head, completely forgetting about the lady next to him having a heart attack. Akiel then grins foolishly while raising the underside of the guy's shoes revealing the smoking cigarette. “Although the chance is small, it could have started a fire,” Akiel replies. The man, only shocked for a moment, turns around and asks the ever-weakening lady, “Are you allergic to aspirin?”

Relieved, Akiel gets up and turns away, walking back to his car. Without a second look, he drops the shoe in the trash and gets in his car. He sighs, “Of all the things that could have happened… It just had to be a gas spill.”

After glancing at the woman surrounded by every other concerned passerby, Akiel pulls out and turns onto the main street. He continues down the road listening to the FM radio until hitting a stop sign. As he comes to a stop he pulls over towards the shoulder as a fire truck speeds by. “Huh, I wonder if that lady’s still alive.” he muses. More sirens can be heard coming from the road perpendicular to him so he stays put.

Off to the side, Akiel notices something peculiar, a Caucasian with a grey hoodie that covers most of his face walks off the sidewalk and starts leaning on Akiel’s car. The man's head cocked to the side away from him, ‘probably looking down the street perpendicular to me where the sirens came from’ Akiel thinks to himself. The stranger casually lifts his guitar case over his shoulder and rests the bulky part on his shoulder with the elongated end across my car. Using his free hand he opens a velcro flap and stuffs his hand inside. He lowers himself next to the right front tire, his hood slides back just enough for Akiel to see his face.

Not really understanding, Akiel shifts his focus to the incoming vehicles. As the ambulance and police cars turn in front of the car Akiel notices that he sweating in his short sleeve shirt. A quick glance at the car’s temperature display tells him that it's 94 degrees outside and the guy beside his car is wearing a hoodie. Looking back at the stranger he notices two things. First, the tip of the guitar case was no longer there and Akiel could see a smoothly tapered point sticking out. The other thing he noticed was that the Caucasian male had a masquerade mask tattoo covering his face. ‘Masquerade tattoo huh? Wasn’t there some kind of warning, something about a reward if we saw men with masquerade tattoos? I think it was a couple weeks ago.’ Akiel thought to himself

Without giving Akiel any time to contemplate uselessly further, the tattooed man clenched the index finger on the hand jammed in the case. Almost immediately Akiel hears the sound of a firework flying off as the back of the guitar case expels a short burst of flames. Before Akiel could turn his head to follow the projectile's path an explosion of sound and vibrations erupted. The ambulance which was halfway through its turn explodes and the police car behind it gets totaled after narrowly avoiding a full collision with the blazing ambulance and smashing into a sedan parked just off the road.

Akiel jerks his head back to the stranger next to his car only to find him standing. The terrorist nods to himself and takes out what looks like a grenade. Pulling the pin out he casually drops it under Akiel’s car. Akiel hurriedly opens his door and tries to run, only to be winded by the seat belt that jolts him back into his seat. He fumbles with the belt and stumbles out of the car, into the street.

Looking back, he sees smoke coming from several places, including the bottom of his car. The street quickly becomes covered by a myriad of different colored smoke clouds. ‘There's no way that the stranger could have thrown all of those grenades, he must have helpers.’ Akiel thinks as he rushes to the other side of the street. “Why go through all this trouble? A couple smoke grenades and a well-placed getaway car would be enough. With this many helpers, something else is definitely happening.” Akiel murmurs to himself as he makes his way around a dark colored SUV.

Peeking through the window Akiel finds a slightly overweight man with faint yellowish skin tone. He is looking around towards the street anxiously, next to him is another guy facing away. Akiel slowly moves towards the back doors and peeks inside. Seeing it empty he slowly opens and eases his way inside. As he sneaks inside he thinks, ’I really should rethink my future occupation, who needs to be a pharmacist when you can be a spy. I mean, I snuck in here and they haven’t even figured that out.’ Akiel squeezing himself into the foot space looks up to see a greasy face staring at him in shock. Akiel smiles awkwardly while saying, “Hey there, just hiding here for now. Don't worry, I’ll leave right after the commotion.” “Wait, do you see that? There are people running around on the street. Look, right there and there!” the driver shouts in agitation.

Looking out the window towards the street Akiel spots a vague outline stopping at the car just a few feet in front. It hits the bottom side of the driver door window and takes a shooting stance. The area just beyond his hands lights up a few times in quick succession and the silhouette steps closer to the vehicle, disappearing from sight.

“Did you see that? Did you see that? That guy just shot those people in the car right?” the driver screams at the passenger. The driver movers the gear shift into reverse while saying, “Alex, and you in the back seat, put your seat belts on. I don’t think the police will get here in time.” He smashes into the car behind us and changes the gear shifter to drive. Akiel, sprawled across the back seat as a result from the collision, scrambles up and straps himself in.

The driver drives up onto the sidewalk and accelerates around the corner, continuing on the sidewalk. Entering a sidestreet the car quickly exits the smokescreen, swerving onto the road. Just as Akiel relaxes, his sight starts to spin, his ears ringing and barely picking up the sound of screeching metal. His body screams in pain. Completely disoriented and badly injured, Akiel starts to lose feeling in his body.

As his sight starts to stabilize, Akiel sees something alien just before his conscious regresses into oblivion. It was a hand. A purple hand covered in black tattoos and wrapped in brown prayer beads. As it reaches into his chest and as it seemed to pull something out, Akiel’s vision turns dark.

***

As if blinking, Akiel was once again able to see. Blinding light followed by several noises assaults his senses. Akiel’s senses gradually acclimate to the new environment as a resonant voice announces, “Sorry for the interruption, but I have to get this started. Since all of you have been sent here it just means that your soul was harvested an undefined amount of time before your actual time of death.”

Akiel finds himself as an incorporeal version of himself, surrounded by many others all in the same situation. Looking through the others he sees the speaker, an Asian man in a simple black suit. Next to him is a Caucasian woman in a ballroom dress quietly waiting at the side. The Asian man continues after a slight pause, “Because you were retrieved at incorrect time intervals the allocated slot for your given soul was left empty and the fetus that was meant for each of you was given a premature death. To ensure that all of you return to the correct slots, all of you need to die once again.”

Even if Akiel could make noise he would have remained silent. This was just too much to take in. Following another slight pause, the Asian man continued, “This may sound terrible, but I assure you it’s actually a great opportunity. To die you obviously need to be alive and so all of you will be given bodies and be sent to a world where individuals from another world are not a foreign idea. In a fixed amount of time, all of you will be transported. So, until then, I will give you time to let all of this sink in. My colleague here will take all of your questions so please be at ease.”

Signaling his colleague to take over he turns to the side and disappears. Akiel, still stunned by the surreal circumstances, turns his attention to the female. “Finally, he’s gone. I really hate being in this form,” she says as she dissipates into a cloud of mist before continuing. “Now listen up, all of you have been given a certain amount of credit to dictate how you will be living in the next world. It’s simple! Just imagine that all of you got your paychecks and now will shop on an online website.”

Akiel flinches backward as an internet screen appears in front of him. He scrolls down the website as the cloud of mist somehow continues to talk. “Now, before all of you go ahead and spend your credits please notice that at the very top of the page is your name. Next to your name is the number of credits you have,” it says. Looking at the top of his page Akiel sees his name and the number nine hundred and sixty-three next to it. “The most popular item is listed near the top with prices listed to their right. Once everyone is done, I shall continue to the next step.” the mist cloud says lethargically before yawning and continuing. “Almost done people. The most popular item is race and occupation selection which allows the purchaser to select a race and corresponding class. The catalog includes the perks of each race, their current overarching circumstances, and variations that you can go through later. I would suggest staying human since having less to adapt to makes it easier to acclimate to the new world.”

As the mist cloud stopped rambling an awkward silence prevails throughout the space. ‘This is probably when it will answer our questions right?’ Akiel thinks to himself as he waits patiently. After a few minutes, the cloud seems to churn and lethargic says, “Yup! That's it, that's all I’m supposed to say so bye.” Just like the man before the cloud seems to disappear into an invisible side door. Dissatisfied, Akiel turns his attention back to the screen. Glancing at the race and occupation his face becomes ghastly pale, the option costs way too much. It cost a full thousand points, he needs all of his credits and then some.

Slightly discouraged Akiel scrolls down the page reading each option. To his surprise, each option after the first was dirt cheap! It seems like most people have very close to a thousand credits and rarely more. ‘There should be other options worth almost as much as the first in this list’ Akiel reasons. Scrolling back to the top be changes the search criteria to most expensive first before hitting the search button.

The screen blinks blue and the options list is rearranged and to his surprise, several options are listed above the race and occupation option. Skimming his way down the list Akiel finally arrives at options he can afford. ‘Inheritance, invisibility, tireless….’ Akiel continues to scroll down the similarly priced options until he reaches an option called 'discerning eye' for six hundred credits.

It’s not that the other options are lackluster but to Akiel they either don’t fit the type of life he wants to live or they don’t seem to appeal to him as much. Discerning eye’s only description is that it shows the truth, warding off all lies and illusions. ‘With this, no one will be able to fool me. No one will tell me what to do in this life. Not only do I refuse to conform to society again, I also refuse to ever settle down and become complacent. Earth is one thing, this new world is true freedom. With no family, no expectations and no morals, I will live my life fulfilling any and every urge I feel!’ Akiel firms his resolution and purchases discerning eyes.

Not in the mood to scroll through the rest of the options, Akiel purchases a peculiar option called “Otherworld care package”, with the description: “everything you may need to live relatively well in the other world.” With sixteen credits left he converts them to a flat attribute boost. Although not much he doubles his base speed.

As soon as he finishes his purchases an automated voice booms in his head, “Stage three commencing! All subjects have finished the second stage. Time is synchronizing. Transportation of batch 9312 is commencing...” Focusing on his surroundings, Akiel manages to tune out most of the automated messages. He could see various different expressions around him, from ecstatic to gloomy, nervous to just bored. Suddenly, the feeling of being squeezed becomes apparent. Akiel's eyes open wide as the once endless white surroundings changed to a black and white liquid consistency. It’s like pouring paint through an ever-narrowing tube. Waves of inky black and viscous white ichor mingled as the sides ever so slowly came closer. Like the tide the enclosure retreats and advances but each time the extent of the advance grows.

Eventually, the voluminous liquid covers Akiel, starting from the top of his head and the bottom of his feet meeting at his hips. The sound of thousands of untuned blaring trumpets slowly increases until unbearable. Suddenly Akiel feels the feeling of freefall, almost as if being stretched he starts to feel noxious. A moment passes and everything stops. The unbearable sounds and feelings cease to exist. The familiar feeling of having a physical body returns followed by the unfamiliarity of a new body.

Akiel slowly opens his eyes only to be horrified by the sickening sight before him. All he could manage in his state of daze was a raspy screech.