Book 1 The Empty Twin - Ch 0.1 Prologue
"Welcome! I'm an evil god, though not really that evil of a god!"
'Huh?' Confusion, that's all I feel right now as I survey my surroundings. In front of me is an old.. boy? His stature is undoubtedly of a young boy around 9 or 10 years of age, his face is free from wrinkles, but his hair and beard are old and greying.
He looks somewhat familiar as he sits on his throne in the middle of what could be only described as space. You know those pictures taken by our space probes looking outside towards millions upon billions of clusters of galaxies? That's what everything around me looks like.
Around me were a vast number of floating white fiery balls tinged with varied colours, they look like a generic depiction of a lost soul. I myself can see my colour white though when I feel like I'm frowning or think I'm doing an action my colour flickers between red, gold, and silver grey.
"Cut the shit Zelretch!" With a voice that I could easily identify, the floating orb next to me turned a brighter shade of red as she helped me realise why I find the old kid on the throne familiar.
"Ah ha ha ha, while a lot of you are confused," the old kid said with a guffaw. "Of course, you will be the one to identify me" As the newly introduced Zelretch singled out the soul beside me.
"Yes, I'm indeed an aspect of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg and at the same time an aspect of the kaleidoscope that has gained apotheosis," Zelretch stood up as he laughed out loud. "But I digress, who or what I am is irrelevant."
"Let's address why a lot of you are confused," with one arm on his waist and his other hand making a sweeping gesture towards us. "You all died at the same time.. ummm generally" as he backtracks and babbles on about the fact that since there are no causal connections between a lot of the deaths here, adding to the fact the distance between multiple dimensions, and because of that you can swap the order on which who died first, from a certain viewpoint.
'What the hell!? This is beginning to give me a migraine.. wait, can dead souls even feel pain?'
"Yes!" Zelretch suddenly says after I ask the question in my head right between his lecture on causality, as if he can read my thoughts. "Yes!"
'This just looks surreal.' As this guy just keeps randomly saying yes, while laughing out loud, and while this is happening countless screens are now floating above him depicting countless gruesome violent events.
Multiple of the screens depict nuclear explosions.
You see another screen where a bus tumbles down a ravine.
Immediately just above his right shoulder, you see a large dragon destroying a walled city with a tall tower at its center.
In another one, you see a guy trying parkour and slipping to his death.
Demon & alien invasions, wars, accidents, murder, suicide, abuse, the snuffing of a star, a meteor strike, monster rampage, the heat death of a universe, countless versions of these events, can be seen.
Directly above Zelretch's head you can see the reason why I am and most probably why my companions are here now. The success of the Aylesbury Ritual, the subsequent wounding of gaia, then the rampage of the 5th and the 1st.
But despite the death and violence for some reason all the people who died that are depicted in these videos are mosaiced.
With a clap, as I returned my attention to Zelretch, all the previous floating displays vanished. With a somewhat dignified cough, while pretending that he didn't get distracted on a tangent. "Your confusion is quite easy to understand." as Zelretch now pointing his nose up grinning widely proud, as if he's inviting praise. "I made sure to wipe the experience of your death from your memories; and showing you uncensored footage of gruesome events might just give you guys unneeded trauma upon waking up in your next life."
'Is this really an evil god?' Ignoring the bouts of insanity, this supposedly evil god has been nothing but helpful.
Again, as if reading my mind. "Yes!". "Praise this benevolent evil god!" as he continues, "Then why do I profess to be an evil god, I'm sure many of you are currently wondering this question."
"You didn't mishear me a while ago, you'll get a next life, an actual honest to goodness isekai adventure." he eagerly explains. "Oops, a lot of you guys will not be getting that reference." as he bops his head with his knuckle in a cute way.
At this point I'm getting irritated by his roundabout way of explaining things as I half listen to his ramblings on how every few centuries all of the universes under the kaleidoscope, freezes time for a second, unfreezes again for a second, freezes again then everything proceeds as normal.
In that split second of activity wedged between the two time freezes, all souls who died that aren't anchored will be diverted here and are given the privilege to experience the kaleidoscope. He then goes on rant about while from our point of view giving someone who died a second chance may seem kind, but from the perspective of the countless universes, suddenly inserting a random group of people might upset each universes' homeostasis.
This then devolves again to an explanation that when we say countless, that it doesn't affect every parallel universe, which then devolves to a lecture on how certain infinities are smaller than other infinities.
At this point I'm now actively tuning him out and looking around. I observe and slowly move towards two familiar feeling souls, one tinged with red and the other pure white. As I huddled and basked in their comfort, I spied just in my periphery a tinge of purple.
And with that sudden jolt Zelretch's voice increased in volume in both his physical self but also I can hear him in my current metaphysical mind. "Unlike the normal tropes of transporting you to a different reality, there will be no cheat skills. This is just a tradition I established on a whim during this phenomena so I will not be hearing any complaints from any of you or else you can kiss this second chance goodbye."
"But don't worry, I'm giving you a freebie, you'll be able to perfectly communicate in your new reality!" Zelretch says this with his arms crossed and nods to himself. "Now before the deportation process begins." Zelretch waves towards us and a sort of interface appears in front of me.
Looking around I can't seem to read what's on the display of the immediate souls surrounding me. 'I guess the interface's contents are only private to its owner.' as I spy the number 666 on top and a comment directly below which reads "that's hell you're going to". Which for some reason irritates me.
"As another freebie from me, as you can see on the screen interface in front of you are the number of points you can spend on this online-looking shop to better your second life in your new reality. The number depends on your general karma accumulated in life so generally speaking a lot of you guys pretty averages out to almost the same value. Though there will be exceptions to this rule."
"Oh, and as a final advice, take your time, effort will never betray you!"