If not for the sudden absence of pain, this would be very reminiscent to blinking and realizing that you just took a three hour nap. The type that you don’t intend to take and seems really inconvenient but the sun shining down was so nice that you just drifted off for a second. Then, hours later you wake up, not too groggy, to a cold sky and an inconvenient truth that time has slipped by. In my case, not so much time as. . .well, the floating words in front of me might explain a bit.

‘You Died’

Not much else to look at besides the words and a few tiny blips of light in the sky. They might be huge lights, just far away, but perception is nine-tenths of description. The other tenth is conjecture, and it would be higher if not for the fact that most conjecture is composed of description.

I’m avoiding the whole bit where I’m dead and floating in not-space again. Maybe not the same not-space, but the dead part is probably true. Who would lie when putting words up in the middle of nowhere? Not me. The fact that my afterlife seems to consist of a very boring nightmare-realm is a bit depressing, to be honest. I’m left with bunches of questions and only one simple answer. Not even a good answer. I could have figured out that I was dead, probably. Not too hard a concept to figure out when you remember being impaled by a rabbit and then slowly bleeding out as your friend stomps the shit out of it. Hopefully that doesn’t anger the rest of the rabbits and she gets back to the relative safety of the group.

It won’t help me much, but people would be more cautious once they learn that the rabbits are ferocious killers. At least if they don’t start making holy hand grenade references.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Bored, bored bored bored bored. . .hungry? I’m stuck in the afterlife and I’m hungry? I get that I’m pretty corporeal here, but you would think that the dead are beyond that sort of thing. Unless I’m a zombie? I mean, I don’t think I am. I could go for a burger but brains sound disgusting. Maybe in a few more days I could change my mind. Would make for a decent reason for zombies to want food, though there would have to be some reason for brains specifically. Maybe the brain-conditioning will start in a little bit?

. . .

That was a dumb line of thought. Floating here is making me crazy what with how I’m not ‘grounded’ in the real world anymore. Heh. At least my sense of humor is still here for a while. I can just stay here getting hungry and making jokes. The floating death message is going to be a good prop for my comedy, I’m sure. Maybe I can even use it as an audience that will hang around for my puns. Mmhmm, I’m on a roll now. High five, death message!

Blip.

. . .

‘Initializing in’

’59’

’58’

’57’

Ok, so that’s cool. Maybe this place isn’t going to be super boring like it looked. I mean, countdowns are usually good. If I’m dead a bomb isn’t really that scary, and if it’s a countdown to judgement day, well, I’ve been a relatively nice guy?

’43’

’42’

’41’

Or, maybe this is like a videogame and I get to start the day over and try doing better? I would really enjoy a second chance at dodging that rabbit. Then people could cry at my inevitable funeral instead of struggling not to laugh at my ineptitude. They’re probably starting an in-joke right now. “Don’t get Jackson’d when you explore the tall grass!” they’ll say. “I won’t, dude. Who would be that dumb?” they will reply. Then I’ll rise up as a ghost and haunt the shit out of those people, and somehow ghosts won’t be scary enough and they will say something like “Look out, a ghost rabbit!” when pointing over my shoulder before laughing like they made comedy gold right there.

’20’

’19’

’18’

And somewhere down the line, possibly decades, there will be phrases like ‘hunting ghost rabbits in heaven’ that mean that someone has died, and people won’t even know that they’re mocking me and in for a knuckle sandwich if I find them somewhere in the afterliAGH!

. . .

. . .

Gravity works now. That’s a plus. So does. . .sand? I’m gonna say fine, black sand. It’s not course, so it feels nice on my feet when I sink in a bit. Hard to see what with the whole everything is black here, but it feels like sand ergo I’m calling it sand. Might have been here the whole time, just out of reach of my toes.

‘Soul Bubble Initialized’

Huh, that’s kinda-

‘Progress until possible rebirth’

0/1 Stable Connection 0/? Energy

. . .huh.

That’s kinda interesting. These words seem to be sticking around like the ‘You Died’ message from before though. Seems like I need some sort of connection to the land of the living. Not sure if I need to make that, or if someone else out there has to. It would really suck if nobody picked a priest and they just left me here or couldn’t find my body in order to get me back.

The fact that the energy counter is now up to ‘1/?’ is promising though. If it were all through the ‘real’ world it shouldn’t show an energy counter, and if that was someone trying to revive me, there should be a stable connection.

That means that I should be able to do something about this instead of standing around looking at some floating words all day.

Despite how last time went, I think it might be a good idea to go exploring. What’s the worst that could happen. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

Alright, so I didn’t get hit with Murphy’s law, but I am seeing a slight problem with my plan. Wandering around in search of help to get home is great and all, but only if there’s sufficient room to wander. The fact that this place is very much a bubble like it was called isn’t the bad part. I can stand not being able to wander out and find out what those stars are. The fact that the bubble is only about fifty feet in diameter with the progress counter at the center is a bit annoying. Past around twenty five feet or so is a wall of force. I can feel it, throw sand at it, and even see a very faint shimmer if I look closely, but other than that it just sits there. No cracks, no fogging to my breath, and certainly no bending. So I’m stuck here in the afterlife watching a counter go up and trying to figure out how to get a ‘Stable Connection’ to form.

Maybe a nap will help? No, that would be stupid. If I wait too long I just might go crazy from hunger before I get back to the land of the living. Don’t want to go zombie on people when I inevitably come back.

Which means I need to figure out how to make a connection to the real world. Doors are a good step. Very symbolic, which is probably what its going for here. If this is a magic focus type deal, I’m probably not going to stumble across it. Having nothing but sand and floating words as materials doesn’t seem that promising for building. That leaves other things like a statue of myself out too. Maybe a drawing of myself would work, but not being able to tell what it looked like with this black sand would make that hard. Plus, I’m not a great artist, so it might not count.

Still, Wouldn’t hurt to try. . .

. . .

. . .

One stick figure later, and I have good news and bad news. Good news is that I now have a stable connection. It was at ‘.2/1’ when I drew a normal stick figure, and then after adding things like hair and “Mike” with an arrow pointing to me it went up to ‘1.1/1’ which is a little confusing but a good start. The fact that the energy cost is at a whopping ’71/1,000,000,000,000,000′ is a bit of a letdown. When I changed the name in the sand to “Mike Jackson” the connection went up to 1.2 and the energy counter went down by a zero. Which means that I have three options. First, I can wait this out for a really long time and eventually come back. My stomach disagrees with this option. Second, I can try to improve my drawing by adding more things. Being very intricate with this is difficult with the medium unless I make it really big and get a better memory so I don’t smudge it too much walking around. Third is to attempt something new and see if I can do this a better way. The fact that I have not listed give up as a fourth option is mostly due to the fact that I will not be known as the guy who got killed by a rabbit and then wasn’t able to figure out how to resurrect.