With a start, Ryan opened his eyes. Did he fall asleep in the tub? Blinking a few times, he tried to get out of the tub, but nothing happened. Blinking again he noticed that he wasn't actually seeing anything. Starting to panic he tried to move his body. Nothing happened. Thinking about it he couldn't even feel his body, he couldn't feel anything. At this point panic was starting to appear in his mind. As he started to hyperventilate, he heard a sound. Looking desperately around, forgetting that he wasn't seeing anything but black, he tried to locate the sound. Again he heard it, yet what the sound was he wasn't sure. Desperately he tried to scream, but no sound escaped. He almost blanked out when he felt something. The sound came again, this time it sounded more like from inside him.
"Ryan. Ryan. RYAN!" A voice shouted inside of Ryan. "Calm down, you are not hyperventilating, for that matter you are currently nothing." The voice continued. Hearing these words Ryan felt suddenly nothing. It was as if he had never panicked in the first place, he felt calm, under control. "Good, I see you are starting to grasp your state" The voice said. At this Ryan tried to answer, but no sound came out, or in? He wasn't really sure if sound existed where ever he was. "Well, you are partly correct, sound doesn't exist here, but you only need to think for me to hear you" The voice chuckled. Ryan let out a mental breath and thought about how weird this entire experience was. Where was he? How did he get here? Why couldn't he feel his body? Was he even alive? "Woah, calm down there, no need to ask EVERYTHING at the same time." The voice chided.
"Okay, first of, let me introduce myself"-the voice continued-"I am Agbaal, God, Lawmaker, Fallen, Risen, or Mel, whichever name you prefer really. Now, you can probably guess that this means you are speaking to a god, or the God, depending on what belief system you follow. So, what does that mean for you, well, sadly that means you are de-" At this point Ryan exclaims in his mind "dead!? But, I just got home from celebrating my doctoral degree, all I did was have some water and get into the ba… Oh…" Agbaal chuckles before speaking again "Yeah, you fell asleep in your bathtub and drowned… Quite hilarious if you ask me, it took about two days before someone noticed. At first your friends thought you had just a wicked hangover, so they didn't want to bother you. Then after two days, your friend Neill came knocking, and with no answer he called your landlord. A few minutes later they find a dead Ryan, floating in the tub. I must say, I have seen worse, but it is still hilarious every time some shit like this happens."
"Oh God, I drowned in a tub." Ryan mentally shakes his head at this. "So, to continue on with your questions. I think I have given sufficient answers to whether you are alive or not, and as to how you got here. When it comes to where this is, that is a bit harder to explain, but put simply this place is a small corner of my domain I call the collector. It basically just collects random stuff from all the worlds it is connected too, and this time it collected you. And when it comes to your body, just imagine having one and it should appear." Agbaal said. Ryan tried to imagine a body, a body with eyes, hands, feet, nose and a mouth. A bright, something, appeared. It took a few seconds for Ryan to realise that he could see again. The brightness was light, and colour. Blinking, he took a look around. What he saw was a room, maybe the size of a gym hall, filled with anything and everything. Looking straight ahead he saw a blurry shape. Pointing at it he said, "Is that you, Agbaal?" The blurry shape moved as if chuckling "Yes, but I can imagine that you only see a shape."
"The reason you can only see a shape is that your mind is limited. As is every mortals mind. You would never be able to reach beyond that limit, at least not in the world you came from. Ah, and that remind me of why I actually talked to you at all." The shape, Agbaal, seem to hit itself in what might be head the head as if to indicate it being clumsy. "Yes, I was going to say that normally every soul is reincarnated in their own world immediately upon death. Yes, before you say anything, Buddhism, Hinduism and similar got it partially correct, but you only, and I do mean only, reincarnate as a human AND only in the same world. So, why is that important you might wonder. Well, that means this collector"-Agbaal kicks, or what looks like a kick, at the ground-"should never have picked you up. It also means that your soul is no longer part of the cycle of your universe."
Ryan looked at Agbaal with an open mouth at all this information, he even partially zoned out when the talk came to reincarnation and all the laws surrounding that. "And, so, now with all that said what I need for you to do is follow me, and we will get your soul sorted." Ryan blinked a few times as the shape started to move away, and towards an opening that appeared on one of the walls of the room. Hurriedly he followed Agbaal and said "Wait, so, how are we going to sort my soul out, didn't you just say I am no longer part of the cycle from Earth?" Agbaal just slightly moved from side to side, as if to shake their head, "Well, obviously I will have to put your soul somewhere, and thus we need to go to the oversight room I have. There I will put your soul into a cycle, and, hopefully, your soul gets accepted and finds a new body, simple as that."
Agbaal and Ryan make their way in Agbaal's domain until they reach an opening into another room. Inside there are an uncountable number of screens displaying what looks to be text. Ryan looks closer at one of the screens as they pass by one. On it he sees just strings of characters that make no sense. Agbaal stops when they reach, what Ryan would assume, is the middle of the room. Agbaal then makes a few quick movements, some light glowing from Agbaal's shape, before a few dozen screens moves towards them. Again Ryan tries to see if he can make out what is one the screens, but they are all filled with the same kind of characters. "Hmm, no, no"-Agbaal says as he is moving some of the screens away-"not this one, nor this. Ah, maybe this one." One of the screens becomes larger as Agbaal moves the last screen away.
"So, Ryan, I think this world"-Agbaal indicates the large screen in front of them-"would be the perfect world." At this Ryan says "So, is there anything special about it? Do I, like, get to choose my body and everything, like an RPG?" Agbaal chuckles before answering "Of course not, I am giving you enough of a courtesy by showing you all this. Though I am going to give you one option. You can either have a fresh start, I will erase you memory and you will never know that you were Ryan, that you died in a bat…"-Agbaal lets out a little snicker-"bathtub. Or, you can choose to keep all your memories, including this experience, not that any would believe you if you told them about it, but you will at least have an edge in your next life. You could say that this offer of mine is a small gift for taking you away from your cycle. So, what will it be?"
Ryan takes a few minutes to think. Should he take the chance on forgetting everything, getting an entire new life? NO, absolutely not, that would be like killing himself, again. "I want to remember" Ryan said. "And so it is." Agbaal shout as a white light engulfed Ryan.