“Woah, there, little gal, what are you doing floating around here?”
Jadis had been screaming for what felt like ages when she was rudely interrupted by a stranger’s voice breaking through her terror like a sledgehammer to a gingerbread wall. One moment, she was lost in a spinning sea of existential dread while her senses were bombarded by an uncountable number of realities too far beyond her comprehension to describe, the next moment she was sitting on a plush chair in a modestly decorated living room.
The whiplash of the moment was almost enough to send her into a whole different kind of screaming, but she settled for just feeling confused and ill.
“So? Got anything to say?”
The stranger’s voice cut into her thoughts again, prompting Jadis to notice the individual lounging on a couch across from her.
He was, well, an individual. The more she stared at him, the more she realized she couldn’t actually see what he looked like. She could tell he was male, certainly. Not too tall, not short, maybe a medium build. The man was colorless, but not gray or transparent, she just couldn’t think of any color that described his skin or hair or clothes. Was he wearing clothes? She was certain he was, but she couldn’t for the life of her tell what kind they were.
Now that she was looking around, the comfortable living room was just as starkly featureless as the man. There was furniture. A carpet. Paintings on the walls. A coffee table between her seat and the lounging man. But Jadis couldn’t describe any of them, not their shape or color or anything else about them. She couldn’t even describe the chair she was sitting in even though she knew she could feel it was a comfortable seat. That was all, though; it was just a comfortable seat.
“Not much of a talker, are you?” The man said, sounding a little bored. His voice was neither high nor low and had no accent whatsoever. He had a man’s voice, nothing more.
“I didn’t think you looked broken,” the stranger continued, “but if you’re just going to sit there, I guess I’ll just toss you back where I found you.”
“No!” Jadis finally found her voice, dread welling up in her chest at the thought of going back to where she had just been. “I can talk! I’m sorry, I was just, um, I’m sorry. I don’t know where I am or who you are and I’m really confused. What just happened to me?”
The man leaned back a bit and made a humming noise.
“So you can talk. Pretty coherent, too. Remember your name?” He asked, not answering her question.
“My name is Jadis,” she answered him anyway, the fearful possibility that she might have been kidnapped pooling in her stomach. She had no idea who this man was or where she was. She was near certain her last memory was of going to sleep in her college dorm, not in some bizarrely featureless living room. If this strange man had drugged her and was holding her hostage, being cooperative would hopefully keep her alive until she found a chance to escape. Being drugged was the only explanation she could think of for why she couldn’t see her visible surroundings, though she felt entirely lucid.
Jadis had never taken any drugs before. Maybe people always felt lucid when they weren’t actually?
“Jadis, Jadis… I feel like I know that name…” the kidnapper mumbled, rubbing his indescribable chin with non-existent fingers. “Wasn’t that from a book about cats and closets?”
“Um, yes,” Jadis confirmed. “My parents are really big into fantasy novels. It kind of sucks I was named after the villain, but yeah.” Jadis trailed off lamely. She was rambling a bit with nervousness. Talking about her dissatisfaction with her name wasn’t something she should be focused on considering the circumstances.
The featureless kidnapper laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, I’d say the villains are usually the more interesting characters. Not always likeable, but oh so entertaining. I’d wager you were probably meant to have some of that pizzaz. Or maybe your parents hated you! Quite possible. You do seem to be on the more boring side of human personalities.”
Jadis felt her hackles rise at the casualness of the man’s insult. Having her kidnapper call her boring was pushing the limits of her restraint. All thought of cooperation went out the window as she drew her back straight.
“Well excuse me for not being more entertaining for you, asshole! If I seem so boring, maybe you shouldn’t have kidnapped me? How about you just take me back home? Or show me the door? I’ll walk.”
The kidnapper laughed. Really, it was more of giggle and a snort, followed by an incredulous shake of the head. “My, my, you do have a bit of fire in you, it seems. Good on you! Shouldn’t let people walk all over you just because you’re weak and they’re unimaginably more powerful than you. Sets a bad precedent.”
Jadis felt the wind go out of her sails as the man completely dismissed her anger. He was treating her like a complete non-threat. Plus, what had he said about unimaginable power?
“I think you’re operating under a misconception,” he continued, a slight note of amusement still coloring his voice. “I didn’t kidnap you. I found you. You were floating loose out in The Between, making a racket. I was just passing by and decided to pick you up. Mortal souls aren’t really made to handle The Between.”
Jadis sunk a little deeper into her seat. “Floating loose? Souls? What do you—”
The man cut her off, silencing her upper brain function for a long moment with a few short sentences.
“Let’s get this over with. You’re dead. You are a loose soul without a body right now. I picked you up because I’m a god and I felt like it.”
She stared at the indescribable man in the indescribable room as she looked down at her own hands and realized that she didn’t actually have hands. Just vague impressions of limbs. She looked back up at him. She took a deep breath.
“If you scream, I’m tossing you out.”
Jadis did not scream. The impulse to let out a primal wail was surprisingly easy to swallow. She’d never been much of a screamer before, anyway. The seemingly endless terror-screaming from before had been more than enough.
Instead, she took another steadying breath and met the featureless man’s eyes. Was he actually God? Should she apologize for calling him an asshole? She wasn’t sure, so she left it alone and instead asked the most salient question she could think of.
“Is this the afterlife?”
God seemed to be looking at some kind of computer tablet in one hand. It, too, was completely featureless, but she could tell some kind of information was scrolling across the screen.
“Hm? What did you say?” He asked, looking up from the device.
“Is this it? The afterlife? Or, are you judging me right now, before sending me off to heaven or hell or something?”
Jadis wasn’t sure how to feel about the almost negligent way God was treating her, with how quickly he seemed to ignore her presence. What the heck was he doing with a tablet, anyway? Reading a feed on prayers?
God laughed another oddly unhinged giggle and tossed the tablet down on the coffee table. “Afterlife? No, this is my living room. I’m not judging you, either. Well…” he wiggled his head back and forth before shrugging. “I’m kind of judging you, but not in a sins and good deeds kind of way. More of a trying to decide if you are interesting enough to bother continuing this conversation or if I should just dust you and move on with my day.”
“Dust me?” Jadis asked, not liking the sound of that at all. “What, uh, does that entail?”
“Just like it sounds,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Break your soul down to nothing, let it merge back with the ambient etherium of existence. Like composting coffee grounds, but faster, if you follow me.”
Jadis stared at God in horror for a few seconds, processing.
“Why the fuck would you—!?” She shouted, half standing from her seat. Then, thinking better of it, she sat back down and contritely continued, “Um, sorry. But why? Is there no afterlife? I don’t get to go to heaven?”
God didn’t seem to be particularly offended by her outburst, but he did shift upright on his couch, taking a seated position with his feet on the table and his arms spread wide across the backrest.
“No, there’s an afterlife. Lots of them, actually. It’s all dependent on the god who has a claim on your soul, who you worshiped. For some reason, no god has a claim on yours, from what I can tell. Why is that, I wonder?”
Jadis absorbed those additional bits of reality shattering info and took a moment before responding. “I’m a, er, I was an atheist, I guess? Never followed any religion. My parents were atheists, too.”
“Atheist!” The god threw his head back and laughed, this time a deep belly-laugh that made Jadis feel small and stupid. “So many gods to choose from and you’re an Atheist? Will mortals never cease to amaze!”
He continued laughing for a while, trailing off in fits and giggles while Jadis sat in her comfortable, formless seat, not sure how to respond. Once he seemed like he’d regained some composure, she continued her questions, lacking any other sense of what to do in this odd meeting with divinity.
“So, you aren’t my god? You’re not, uh, God, with a capital G?”
“You aren’t one of mine, that’s for sure,” he answered. “You’d have gone to the afterlife I set up for my followers automatically. Since your soul is unclaimed, it must have bounced around on the mortal plane for a bit before getting lobbed into The Between somehow. It’s not unheard of. We gods set things up to make it easy, can’t be greeting each and every soul that finds their way to heaven. Can you imagine how many believers die daily across the infinite planes of creation? Can you picture me shaking the hands of each one? Ridiculous!”
Honestly, Jadis couldn’t imagine this odd, not quite smug man doing anything remotely like greeting dead worshippers personally to prep them for an eternity in heaven. But then again, he was taking the time to talk with her, for some reason. Boredom? He did say he was trying to decide if she was entertaining or not. Maybe since she wasn't cosmic dust yet that meant she was interesting enough, at least for the moment?
She pressed on with her questions, hoping if she did so this god might decide not to compost her soul.
“So, uh, if you aren’t God, or my god, anyway, what do I call you?”
“Just call me D,” he replied with a slight wave of one hand. “I’ve got a lot of names on a lot of worlds and I’m not picky about them. D is easiest.”
“Okay, D,” Jadi nodded slowly, “What’s next? I mean, once we are done talking, I mean. Not that I’m trying to rush you or anything, but this is kind of a stressful situation to hang over my head, you know? Can you send me to the afterlife? Your afterlife, I guess?”
“Goodness, no!” D exclaimed, one hand going to his heart. “Do you think I let just anyone into my divine realm? I have standards, you know. I don’t just let any random stray in the door. You’d have to be one of my believers, at least.”
Jadis blinked. “But I know you exist. I’m talking to you.”
“Yes, yes, you know I exist. That’s not the same thing as believing in me. If you want to be one of mine, you have to have faith in me, despite having other options. You don’t meet the criteria at all.”
Jadis didn’t really have a response to D’s assertion that she lacked faith in him, having not woken up prepared to have a discussion about religious belief with a god that day. Instead, she took a different tactic.
“Well, I assume you don’t want me sleeping on your couch, right?”
“No, if I had any other gods visit that would be an awkward conversation.”
“…Right. So, how about sending me back to my body? I’ve got a lot of life left I’ve been meaning to live so it’d be great if I could, I dunno, just pick up where I left off? If, that is, it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
D hummed and rolled his head on his shoulders, considering Jadis’ request. A nervous tension crept higher and higher up Jadis’ spine as the silence continued. After a minute or two of humming, D finally tilted his head upright and met eyes with her.
“From what I can tell, it looks like you were living a fairly boring life, yeah? Are you sure you want to go back to it?”
She had to pause at D’s question. Jadis did have to admit that she hadn’t done much in life yet, having barely started college. She had goals, though. Jadis was going to get her degree in physiotherapy, get a career in a big city practice, maybe somewhere in Philly or Pittsburgh. She’d make enough money to be comfortable, enough to vacation regularly. Maybe even find someone to be with, romantically…
Goddamn it sounded boring as she thought about it.
“Are there other options?” Jadis quickly asked D, hoping his question implied that he could do more for her than just return her to what promised to be an utterly ordinary, boring life.
D shrugged his shoulders.
“Sure,” he nodded, amusement coloring his voice. “I can put you on any planet you want. I could even give you a new body, too. Doesn’t have to be what you started with.”
For the first time since she came to her senses in D’s nondescript living room, Jadis felt excitement well up in her chest. Could the god really put her anywhere, in a new body? Could she be someone new, someone not boring, on a fantastical new world? Maybe even one with some of the fantasy elements she’d always loved reading about?
Jadis wanted to live a new life more than anything else she had ever wanted in that moment.
“Please. Please, put me somewhere with magic?”
D laughed, no doubt amused by the desperate yearning that colored Jadis’ voice. “Sure, sure, I can make that happen. What can you do for me, though?”
“Do for you? I mean, what do you want? I don’t really have much to work with here, though.” Jadis gestured at her incorporeal self. “What can I do for you?”
D leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Not much, not as you are. But, I’ll tell you what girlie, I like that spark I see in your soul. It’s a good kind of spark, full of longing and dissatisfaction. Nothing’s more boring to me than contentment. If you had been content with your mediocre little life, I’d probably just shoot you out the door.”
The faceless, formless god smiled in a way that Jadis could feel more than she could see. “You aren’t content though, are you?”
“No,” Jadis admitted. “I’m really not. I’m not anything like I had hoped I would be. Nothing like my fantasies, my daydreams… I’d give anything to live an exciting life rather than the dull one I had going on.”
D slapped the coffee table, the bang jolting Jadis out of her brief reverie.
“There! That’s the attitude!” D pointed at Jadis, his other hand drumming the table with excitable energy. “You want excitement? Good! That’s what I want, too. I am languishing here, bored near to tears, I tell you. There are dozens upon dozens of worlds that have my believers on them and so few are doing anything worth my attention. So, here’s the deal. I’ll give you a new body, however you want it to look and function. You’ll also get to live on a world with all that magic and high adventure you’ve been dreaming about. In exchange, I want you to stir the pot.”
Jadis felt her desperate hope catch in her throat as D described what he was offering, but hesitated at the price.
“What does that mean, exactly? ‘Stir the pot?’”
“It means exactly what it sounds like. I want some excitement. There’s a planet that’d fit right in with the kind of fantasy you’re thinking of, a real playground for magic and adventure. Most of the people there worship my stepfather.”
“You have a stepfather? Gods can have stepfathers?”
D sighed at the interruption. “Yes, I have a stepfather. Gods get married, too. The guy’s a real stuck-up prick, too. Very holier-than-thou kind of attitude. Anyway, most mortals are worshiping him on that planet, rather than me or anyone else in the family. I don’t really care if he’s the big dog on that planet, but the people there are just so damn boring!”
“What’s so boring about them?” Jadis asked. “Is it because of your stepfather?”
“Yeah, partially his fault, also partly the fault of my second cousin Sam. He’s on the destruction and ruin side of things, ol’ daddy dearest is opposed.”
Jadis tried to wrap her head around a god of destruction being named Sam but pushed the thought aside to focus on D’s explanation.
“Sam is trying to destroy the world with monsters and undead, stepdad has saints and heroes and all that jazz to defeat them. Nothing particularly wrong with that set up, except it’s been going on forever.” D emphasized the last word with a groan and a dismissive wave of a hand. “Dozens of times now they’ve been repeating the same cycle of heroes and villains battling each other in some destined conflict. The whole world’s culture and history is built around it and it’s just so fucking tedious! I can’t watch another round go by without something new happening.”
“And that’s where I come in?” Jadis interjected, leaning forward herself, a smile on her face. “I am so completely on board with joining in on some fantasy battle between forces of good and evil.”
D waved a hand and suddenly a plate filled with cookies and two tall glasses of milk were on the table between them. He gestured for her to have some as he helped himself, continuing his talk excitedly.
“Yeah, that’s where you come in. Shake things up. Be my chosen hero and defeat the big bad Demon Lord that Sam sends to ravage the world every couple hundred of years or so. Or kill stepdad’s heroes, destroy his churches, and bring a reign of terror upon the land! Kill off both and let the peasants figure things out, I don’t care, just do something different from what I’ve already seen a hundred times! Inject a little bit of healthy chaos into the humdrum. Think you can handle that?”
Jadis bit down on the cookie, a flood of different flavors entering her mouth, all of which told her that the cookie was the best she’d ever tasted, while still not telling her what exactly it tasted like.
D’s offer was more than attractive, it was everything she could have ever dreamed of. The price was steep, though. D was asking her to get involved in a war between two gods. Would Sam or his stepfather sit idly by while she disrupted their routine? Having one, possibly two gods pissed off at her sounded like a massive downside to the whole proposition.
She’d have D on her side, though, right? Having a god in her corner had to count for something. Besides, she didn’t have to start a war with both gods, according to D’s own presentation. She just had to do something different from the status quo. There were probably a lot of ways she could do that without getting herself smote by D’s stepfather while still entertaining D.
Even if getting involved in D’s scheme did get her killed, so what? She already died once, apparently. A second chance at life was a lot more than what most people got. Besides, this time around, she planned on saying a few prayers every night to a certain god, hopefully securing a proper spot in his afterlife. In fact, now that she thought about…
“Sign me up,” she said with a firm nod, nerves and excitement warring inside her chest. “But, if I’m going to risk getting any of your family upset with me for doing this, I want a spot reserved for me in heaven if I die.”
“When you die,” D corrected with a waggling finger. “Immortality is the privilege of the gods, my dear. But that’s fine. So long as you don’t start worshipping anyone else, I’ll mark your soul and embrace you as one of my very own when you inevitably pass on from your mortal coil.” D said the last with a dramatic flourish of a cookie, biting it with a resounding crunch at the end.
“Okay then,” Jadis nodded. “How do we start?”
D took a sip of his milk and waved a hand in Jadis’ direction. “We start by setting you up with a fresh new body. Now, keep in mind, I can’t start you off as some perfect specimen of immense power, but I can still start you off with the same level of advantages any other god-chosen hero would get. If I give you too much, stepdad will call foul play and interfere directly and then both our fun will be over far too quickly. That said, I still have quite a lot of wiggle room in how I create your new form. Any requests?”
“Can I design my new body directly? I’ve always liked playing sim and RPG games. If you set it up, I’m sure I could create my own look exactly how I’d like—”
“No, not doing that,” D interrupted Jadis’ enthusiastic request. “I know how mortals like you are, you’ll spend days agonizing over the minutia and still complain about the outcome because you forgot something or other. I saw enough of your likes and dislikes when I took a peek at your boring past life. I’ll give you a body you’ll be happy with. Trust me.”
Jadis did not entirely trust D’s assurance but decided against arguing with the god. If he wanted to screw her over, he absolutely could and there was nothing she could do about it. She just had to hope that he was being honest with her about his willingness to give her a new body that she would be happy with.
“Any specific ideas you have, though? I don’t mind accommodating a few requests.”
Jadis thought about it for a moment.
“I want to be beautiful,” she said.
“Obviously,” D nodded, motioning for her to continue.
“I’d like it if I was tall. I’ve always been a little insecure about my height. Oh! And I really like the white hair look. Always thought the characters I saw with white hair looked pretty cool and sexy.”
D motioned his hand in a circular gesture, his chin resting on the other hand. “Sure, sure, that’s all fine. But isn’t there anything more interesting you want? Now’s your chance to live out your deepest, darkest desires, you know. I’m not going to offer second chances once you’re reborn.”
Jadis clutched her hands tight into fists, looking down at where her incorporeal feet sank into the plush carpet. There was something she’d always fantasized about, an experience she was quite certain she’d never have, but the thought of that experience had kept her entertained on many lonely nights. Was it something she really wanted, though? A change to her norm that would be with her so long as she lived? Could she actually ask D, this stranger, for something so… lewd?
Why the fuck not? If he really had looked into her past life, he probably knew all about her favorite fetishes anyway.
“Could you give me a, um,” she paused, stumbling over her embarrassment as she struggled for the right words. “Well, do you know what a futanari is?”
D laughed, another one of his oddly deranged giggles. He swiped up his computer pad and started typing on it in a rapid staccato that Jadis could barely follow, his fingers flying at inhuman speeds.
“Oh, I know. I mean, that specific word is something new to me, but the concept I totally get. Do you know how refreshing it is for me, to have a mortal just come right out and ask for a sex thing? Most are just so damn bashful about that stuff.”
Jadis felt a blush coloring her face, but she pushed past it. “Is that a yes, then? Cause if you’re okay with it, I’d really like to just go for it.”
“Ha! I knew there was a reason I liked you. Don’t sweat it, kid. Wish granted. One cock added to the package,” D laughed at his own joke, still rapidly typing with one hand. He paused suddenly, though. “Do you want balls or no? Sort of a risk versus reward thing with those if you ask me.”
“Um, can you leave out the balls but still let me ejaculate?” Jadis felt extremely silly asking the question but explained herself anyway. “I’m sort of into the whole cumming thing, but not quite so interested in getting kicked in the balls.”
D tilted his head, thinking for a moment, before his rapid typing resumed.
“Internal gonads are doable. Best of both worlds. Yeah, I think this will come together nicely…” D started to mumble as he typed, seeming to forget Jadis was even present as he continued to type on the pad.
From her position, Jadis could barely see the screen, but what she could make out was an unimaginably complex string of symbols and diagrams flying by at speeds she could barely comprehend. Occasionally the screen would pause for a second or two and she caught sight of what looked like a human form, growing more detailed in each iteration.
Eventually, D seemed to remember Jadis was still sitting across from him and he off-handedly asked, “Anything else to add? Almost done here.”
She got the feeling D was about to rush her out the door, so to speak, so Jadis hurriedly added, “Can you make sure I’m big, please? I’d like to take full advantage of my new body, you know?”
“Yeah, no problem,” D said under his breath, fingers still going at warp speed. Moments later, his computer pad started flashing brightly and Jadis could sense a mad grin spreading across D's indescribable face.
“And we are good to go!” He said, leaning back on his couch. “Or rather, you’re good to go. Glad you like the RPG thing, by the way. Oros has a leveling system based around that kind of magic. I’m sure you’ll love it.”
“Wait, what?” Jadis said, starting to feel a strange pulling sensation coming from inside her chest. “There’s a literal leveling system? Like, with experience points and everything?”
“Yeah,” D said with a short chortle. “Was something of a fad a few millennia ago. Lots of gods designed worlds with variations of leveling systems. Oros has a fairly simple one, I’m sure you’ll pick it up fast.”
The pulling sensation inside Jadis was intensifying. It felt like she was being stuffed into a box, except from the inside out. Was this what implosions felt like?
“Is that all I get for a tutorial? I mean, come on D, give me a manual or something?”
“Can’t give you any more advantage than what other god-chosen get, so no can do.” D shook his head, lifting one hand in a jaunty wave. “But don’t worry! I’m sending you somewhere that has one of my temples. Should be a few priests around there that’d be happy to give you some guidance. Have fun and make me proud!”
Jadis felt the outermost pieces of her soul begin to collapse inwards, unable to resist the overwhelming pull that was centered in her core. No longer able to voice her thoughts, her last sight of D was of him lounging back on his couch, a manic giggle echoing sharply off the walls of his living room.
804