I had my body back. By that, I mean that my flesh appeared undissolved, my eyeballs weren’t popped, and I couldn’t see my own bones chilling out below stray globs of muscle and fat. So, you know, the usual. I patted myself down, feeling familiar legs, chest, and face, just to make sure.

“Oh thank god, I’m alive…” I said, outloud, even though it probably made me look like a crazy, muttering to myself. I was already set to notch the whole thing off as the stereotypical dream. Just a nightmare, from some bad carpet I ate. Bad Karma...Except you know, now that I think about it; where the fuck was I, and why was I wearing a dress? An itchy grey dress that covered my shoulders, and that came down to my ankles. As I checked around my surroundings, I belatedly realized that something was up.

“Jesus Christ,” I swore. The nightmare keeps on going.

All around me was blackness, although of varying shapes and textures. The floor was reflective and hard, and yet oddly patterned in a series of concentric rings. The sky, if it could be called a sky, was an unending matte black. There was an unseen light-source, as I was very much able to see my surroundings, but they had no color...just, black.

I squatted down to check the floor out. It felt like marble, but below the hard and smooth and unmoving marble, ripples spread out from where I stepped or touched, all while the floor remained perfectly flat. It was ballin. If ever I was a billionaire, I’d totally get myself a floor like this, and probably put it in a banquet hall.

Eventually, I stood back up and checked out the only other thing in this void besides the ballin floor.

A large staircase with stairs twice as tall as they should be, lined by columns, with a plaque on the bottom-most step that read:

Choose your Path

Man...What sort of nerd-shit was that? I mean, I still climbed the stairs and checked out the threshold at the top, because, what else was there to do, you know?

The columns were greco-roman, maybe. I dunno man, I wasn’t a historian. I just know they would have fit with what I’d seen in movies, but black, instead of white. The slab roof resting on top of them was a radiant black, which didn’t make sense, but nothing here made sense anyways. All of it was posh for sure, definitely on the upper end of old money, or maybe aristocratic vampire society; I could totally see them digging this place. But the second I touched the threshold atop the stairs, everything changed. It went from hedge-fund-black and turtle-neck to more of a fantasy rummage sale.

The moment I touched the threshold, I found myself surrounded by tables lined with all sorts of random shit. Like, absolute madness. Ok, you probably don’t understand, so I’ll give you an example. On the table closest to me, there were all the different types of weapons you’d see in the Lord of the Rings: A long bow, short bow, horse bow, falchion, machete, short sword, long sword, rapier, glaive, tower shield, buckler, bearded axe, long axe, hatchet, dagger, javelin, even something like Gandalf’s staff, though not as epic of course. There were seriously all sorts of weapons here, some of them complete bullshit. Like the double edged great-axe, that thing must have been insanely top heavy.

While the first table I checked had weapons, the next table had none. This one held paint-brushes, threads, pouches, bolts of cloth, scissors, bowls with powders, scattered crystals, a scale, and an old school tritometer. The next table held gardening supplies. The next table wasn’t a table at all but was actually a cart. The next table held a plow taking up most of it. Another held a variety of leashes and nets. Another held cooking and kitchen supplies.

The further I went, the more nuanced the items became. There was an old brass and leather camera that looked interesting. As I continued down the tables, I avoided actually touching anything. I didn’t know what would happen if I did.

There was one table I came across that I broke my ‘do-not-touch’ rule on.

There was this gorgeous mannequin with a sparkly leotard, strips of colored cloth hanging from the shoulders, elbows, knees, and waist. But the leotard wasn’t the interesting part. The mannequin looked just like me. As if I’d been slathered in makeup, and thrown into this ridiculous outfit, and then frozen in place.

Seeing myself like that, it brought me back to Sex-Ed in college (a pshycology credit, don’t judge). For whatever reason, the dude sitting next to me asked the professor how to know if you’re gay. Major eye roll, right? Anyways, the professor said that there wasn’t really a way to know for sure, but if you ever masturbated while thinking of yourself, or watching yourself in the mirror, then you might be somewhere on the spectrum. The same dude tried hitting me up after class, telling me the whole “I need to know if I’m gay,” bullshit, and wanting to test shit out with me. Like dude, what the fuck. Try sleeping with another dude to see if you like it. Naturally, I told his ass NO. He pushed. I told him HELL FUCKING NO. He called me queer. I punched his lights out and broke his nose. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the campus jail, until my Dad bailed me out.

The thing was, I would totally go down on myself. So maybe that old sex-ed professor knew what he was talking about. And not to get creepy, but I did get creepy with that mannequin. And that mannequin was anatomically accurate, down to the mole on my left thigh. I did feel a little guilty about it, but not enough to stop.

I guess I’d been there a while when I heard barking, very high pitched barking, with some oinking and shnuffling mixed in. And it was getting closer. I cleaned myself back up, which was easier done than said when wearing a dress, which was probably the only good thing about dresses, and I spat a couple stray hairs out. Something was getting closer, and I wasn’t about to get caught with my figurative pants down. But what was coming? Dogs? It sounded like they were a ways off still, but the sound carried oddly here. I started walking towards where I thought they were, further along the tables.

Eventually, I found them. Or better put, they found me.

They came running at me, curly tails wagging, huge eyes bulging, and tongues lolling to the side; two pugs were at my feet, one brown, the other black.

“PUPPIES!” I shouted, falling to my knees as two pugs jumped to kiss me. I pet them and scratched them and let them get their fur all over my dress (I didn’t like the stupid itchy grey dress anyways). But wait...where did these two little guys come from?

Some dude cleared his throat. I jerked up, losing balance, and fell over onto my back. That dude wasn’t just some dude, it was the fucking Grim Reaper: skull for a face, black hood, shadows, and a scythe, which would have been way more menacing, except for the pugs engraved onto the blade. And speaking of pugs, the brown one jumped up on my stomach, licking my nose, while the black one started to chew my hair.

“Castro, Brutus, OFF!” The Grim Reaper said, slapping his skeletal hand on his black robe. The brown pug jumped off and whined, while the black one kept chewing. “Brutus!” The Grim Reaper said, more menacingly this time. The black one, Brutus I think, growled playfully, until the brown one, Castro, tackled it, knocking Brutus off my hair.

But you know, as cute as the pugs were, and they were adorable, some questions were coming to mind. I mean, I was on my back, on the ground, in front of the Grim Reaper. It was only natural for me to have questions But before I asked any of them, the Grim Reaper spoke.

“What were you just doing when I arrived?” He said.

“Whaaaa….” I started eloquently. “Nothing.” I blushed a bit, and had trouble meeting eyes with his empty sockets. “Why do you ask?”

The Grim Reaper stared at me for several moments, before shaking his head and scoffing. “An interesting interpretation of nothing,” He said finally. Had he been snooping on me? No way. No one had been around. But I guess someone could have hidden in the shrouding darkness? I hadn’t really checked if anyone had been watching. But clearly, this perv had been perving.

“Hey man,” I said. “What happens in a dream stays in a dream.”

Another scoff from the Grim Reaper, and he shook his head. “Regardless of your delusions,” The Grim Reaper said. “You have spent far too long here, and I have been dispatched to expedite the process.”

“Who--What? ...” I started asking.

“Yes, yes. I am sure. Many questions,” The Grim Reaper said. “Yet none are as important as this: You must choose your Path.”

“What is all this about?” I asked. “Am I dead? Is this heaven?”

The Grim Reaper laughed. And not just a chuckle, this was a full on, boisterous laugh. A cackle. He wiped the bottom of his eyes, as though wiping tears away. When he managed to catch his breath, he spoke again.

“And do you think your life merits entrance to Heaven?” He said, all while continuing to chuckle. He sounded way too normal for a bag of bones. I mean, he didn’t even have a diaphragm, lungs, or vocal chords for that matter. How the hell was he talking? Or walking? Or doing anything besides being dead? I wasn’t about to take this sort of shit from a skeleton.

“Woah,” I said, climbing back to my feet, the pugs began trying to climb me. “I don’t know if I like your attitude pal. I was a decent person. I didn’t kill anyone. I barely stole. I sure as hell don’t deserve to end up in Hell.”

“You and I both know your words lack conviction,” He said, then tapped the floor with his scythe. A small, infinitely thin phone-screen popped up before him, but facing me. The screen showed a video, a montage, starting in an off pink bedroom, with a familiar Madonna poster taped to the ceiling.

“Hey!” I said. “That’s my bedroom! How’d you get that video?” He didn’t answer, but I realized the viewpoint had a nose front and center, barely noticeable, until you noticed it, then glaring. That’s my nose! I thought. It slowly dawned on me. “Those are my fucking memories!” I shouted at him, feeling the invasion of privacy. What was in my head wasn’t there for anyone else. I started looking for something, anything to hit the Reaper with, regretting having walked so far away from the table with swords.

“Indeed,” he said.

The scenes kept playing. The green-lipped girl hovering over me, her dyed hair dangling above me. Next was a ruby-lipped brunette. Then a sterner looking middle-aged woman, with short cropped blond hair, with a neck tattoo.

“And that was just the month previous to your wedding, it seems.” The Reaper said. The scenes kept playing. Women, more women, going backwards, to the first time I met Kait. Then there was that one time I tried things with a dude (gross!). And there was me shoplifting lipstick. I guess it wasn’t all sex. At least the Reaper didn’t show me at the--Oh, oh no. no. no...too much.

“Put that shit away man,” I said, turning my attention back to the pugs. They were grumbling around, weaving through the legs of the tables. The reaper did put the screen away, and noticed his dogs making a grumble. He fished a couple rawhide bones from a hidden pocket in his robes, and he tossed them to Castro and Brutus (the adorable pugs).

“As we both know,” The Reaper said. “If there were a Heaven, it would be unlikely you would find yourself there.” The dogs stopped there grumbling and stared at the rawhides on the ground, then glancing at each other, before looking back to the rawhides again.

“So what’re you saying?” I asked. My legs felt weak, and I found myself leaning against a table. “This really is Hell?” I couldn’t believe those pretentious dick ass preachers were right. It wasn’t fair. God damned misogynistic narcissistic assholes.

“Hardly,” The Reaper said dryly. “No, you are a place far different from anything you might have imagined.” He said.

The brown pug, Castro, had grabbed both of the rawhides and was sitting on them, growling whenever Brutus looked at the bones.

“Now you must choose your Path,” The Reaper continued. “Choose your instrument to affect change upon the Realms.”

I looked around at the rummage sale. I still hadn’t forgiven the invasion of privacy, and I was feeling a bit spiteful. The Grim Reaper seemed pretty proud of the fact that my feeble mortal mind couldn’t possible comprehend my fate, that the crap happening to me was beyond my wildest dreams, or imagination. Fuck that. I decided I wasn’t gonna play ball with the dick-face.

“This stuff is all shit,” I said, waving around at the tables.

“Yet, to affect change--” The Reaper started, but I interrupted him.

“And how the fuck did I get here?” I asked. “I was getting married one second, and the next…”

It came back to me. I mean, it really came back. You know how sometimes, you can know something bad happened on an intellectual level, but then later, the jive hits you and absolutely wrecks your face? That’s what just happened. The emotional bat came at me while I was minding my own business, and plowed me upside my head, knocking all sorts of shit loose.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “My dad...Kait! What did you do to her?”

“And now you pretend to care for your ex-fiance?” The Reaper asked. He was smiling. Skulls can’t smile; the Grim Reaper really shouldn’t be able to smile. But somehow, he was fucking smiling.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I do or don’t care for,” I said, planning to wipe that non-existent smug grin off his boney face. “I loved her. I loved my Dad. I was going to have a happy life, and you--You!--ruined it!” I shouted. There was a stick laying against one of the tables. I grabbed it and swung hard at the Reaper. It passed through him as if he were made of air.

“You blame me?!” The Reaper laughed. “I’m hardly to blame. No, that was the Crystal--”

I swung again, the stick passing through his head. Then I tried jabbing his dumb face.

“Stop that!” he said. “I am not to blame for this! I am as much a victim as you!” I jabbed again. “You are far too irrational right now. You need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!!” I screamed, swinging wide and missing, my momentum carrying me all the way around, where I hit a table and knocked it over, sending crap flying everywhere.

Castro jumped in surprise, and Brutus swooped in and grabbed both the rawhides.

“Hmm. Far too irrational,” The Reaper said, pulling up his screen again, this time showing a menu of dragging sliders that he controlled with his finger. “Let us see. Let us lower your anger...and boost passivity…”

My perception warped in a subtle way. A haze settled, leaving my head spinning. I felt like I had a hole draining my mind, and my thoughts spiralled that drain. “What’re you doing?” I slurred.

“A bit too inquisitive still,” The Reaper said, before adding, “I am making a few changes to facilitate your selection…” He continued making changes.

“My what?” I asked, before I realized what he had done. “You changed my personality?!” I should have been screaming. Intellectually, I knew that I would normally be very, very, pissed. But I was not feeling much of anything. “That...is...like...mind-rape…” I said. Again, I knew I should be furious. I should be kicking, fighting, doing everything in my power to get even. But instead, I was calmly...talking?

“Your metaphor is rich,” The Reaper said, “Coming after what you did with that poor, consentless, still-frame.” He made one last change to a slider, then vanished the screen. “There, finished.”

The haze disappeared, and I was left with peace. An inner calm. Nirvana. The feeling after completing an hour of hot-yoga at over a hundred degrees, then laying there on a mat with iced lavender-scented towels hanging over your face, while chanting ‘Om...’

It felt really, really good.

“Now, is that your selected Path?” He asked, nodding towards my hands, where I still held the stick.

I shrugged. I just felt really good. The stick was fine. I had no problems with it, it was just doing it’s own thing. So mellow. I loved it.

“Very well, on to the next stage,” The Reaper said. The rummage sale disappeared, revealing Brutus with one rawhide left, the other rahide having been devoured. Castro was giving the black one such a stink-eye, with an offended expression on its little pug face.

With the tables gone, pedestals rose up from the ground around us, each with a figurine atop them, all different.

“Select your Race,” The Reaper said.

I picked up one of the figurines, a short little lizard girl. The placard had ‘Reformed-Kobold’ written on it. That one was too ugly for me. No thanks. Even through the mellow nirvana I was feeling, I still wasn’t about to be some tiny feathery lizard girl.

“There are some parallels to your world’s entertainment industry,” The Reaper said. He sounded embarrassed. Almost as if he had stolen references and hadn’t cited them.

I moved on to another figurine. This one of a short little person with pointed ears. Compared to the other figurines, this one was smaller, maybe the same as the kobold’s size. The placard read, ‘Reformed Elf.’

“This is all pretty standard fantasy,” I said. Continuing to pass through the pedestals.

“As I said,” The Reaper said defensively. “But perhaps, the creative visionaries from your world had glimpses from beyond the veil? Not that you would know either way.”

“Hey, I’m creative too,” I said, grumbling a bit. “Creative enough to do better than this,” I added under my breath. I put down another figurine, this one of a Murmur, a person with all teeth and no eyes. Another hard pass from me. On the next was some slime thing. Another nope.

Finally I found a pedestal with someone attractive on it. It was a winged girl, A stereotypical angel. The placard read, ‘Fey.’

“That is a good one,” The Reaper said. “High Affinity, or no Affinity, depending...But also not the most creative option, now is it?”

“This lady is hot...I could totally rock wings.” I put the figurine back down. I still hadn’t checked a fraction of the pedestals. “What is Affinity?” I asked.

“What some in your past world called magic,” The Reaper said. “That certain energy that is channeled through you, of a flavor, and sent into the world around you.”

“Like lightning?” I asked, giving a subdued shudder at the memory of the bitches shooting that shit at me at my wedding.

“Just so,” The Reaper said. “The Fey have the second highest potential for Affinity, if you pick the right one.”

“And which Race has the highest Affinity?” I asked. Magic sounded cool. Something I definitely wanted.

The Reaper pointed at a pedestal a few down. On top of it was a worm, with a placard showing ‘Nascent Elemental.’ Nope. No no no. I was not going to be a worm. I picked up the figurine of the Angel. “This one,” I said.

“Very well,” The Reaper said solemnly. “Good luck in the selection.”

“Luck?” I asked. “Why would I...”

The Reaper and Pugs disappeared, and I found myself in a pleasant meadow, with tons of the sweetest and most vibrant flowers I had ever seen or smelled. But along with the flowers, there were also two wolf-people snarling at me.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s what he meant.”