Alex was dead he knew that. Even after countless years of research on the subject of death, no one for sure knew what lay beyond life. There were multiple ideas and theories of what happened after death but with no proof and countless sketchy accounts from various people calming what happened after death no one knew what to say let alone have an answer.
Books and novels have said that when someone is dead they will only see blackness as that is all that awaits them in the afterlife. Alex was awake and knew he was dead since he still felt the cold numbness of the bullet wound that he has hat was still bleeding non-stop. However, Alex felt that he would not die again since that would seem stupid and pointless for someone to continue to die over and over again. The only reason that could happen was that someone was condemned to Hell for eternity or however long it is deemed necessary.
"So doc that is my whole life story"
Yes, Alex was talking to a doctor while he laid down on a classical therapy couch. What was weird was that this therapy session was taking place in the same convenience store where Alex died in. Of course, the doctor was none other than death.
Death was wearing a lab coat for some reason when Alex first saw him but soon came to accept his situation and what could he do demand to go back? Death was like how most pictures depicted him with a skeleton body and a long menacing sickle which was up on the counter.
However regardless of this menacing and ferocious-looking being that had existed since the beginning of everything he was sobbing ethereal tears as he blew into a handkerchief. Alex felt slightly embarrassed for him since he first thought that death was a cold and evil character but reality proved otherwise. As the kids on Eve would say he was a pretty chill and laid back dude.
Death surprisingly had a lot of time on his hands since about a billion years ago he had 'accidentally' made to many vassals who were now doing his job of leading the dead to the afterlife. So Death found other things to do since all he had was time and he did not want to be bored. So he started to meet with the people who died to hear their life stories, learn new things, and occasionally provide solace for past actions or things they did not get to do.
That is why Alex had spent the last eight or so hours (Hard to tell the time when dead) talking about his crap life. Alex's life moved Death to tears which were now coming out of his eye sockets even though a normally a skeleton should not be able to cry, but hey who cares. Alex let Death wipe his tears as he knew that he was probably going to go to whatever Hell or Heaven awaited him.
"Oh sorry it's just... your life could have been so much better and I am truly sorry for you Alex" Death says
"Yeah but hey talking about it made me feel a lot better so thanks for listening"
"Don't mention it"
Alex gets off the chair and stands up as Death also grabs his sickle.
Suddenly Death's doctor outfit changes into the classic black flowing robe that pictures and people talk about. He does not pull up the hood as he slams the sickle into the ground two times. Alex blinked and they are now in a black and endless void.
'Guess they weren't wrong' Alex thinks
Death turns around to face away from Alex and makes a small gesture with his hands and two portals appear out of nowhere. One was an almost blood-red color while the other was pure white.
"Now than usually, I would have to choose via some spell or item whether you get to go to Heaven or Hell. But this time you can choose oh and of course, the colors are related to them"
"Well I guess I will choose Heaven then"
Death nods and surprisingly the white portal disappears instead of the red one. Death sees Alex's confusion and clears it up.
"Sometimes some of the dead think that they can pull one over me by jumping into one of the portals so I decided to switch the colors of the entrances just to pull one over them hehehe..."
Alex is a little surprised at this but hey at least Death learned from those experiences. Alex walks to the portal of heaven which was now changed to the color of white and he reaches out to touch it. As his hand makes contact with the portal the game Universe just had an update.
...
Alex had disappeared from the black void leaving only Death there. He closes the portal before he receives a phone call. He reaches into a pocket on his robe that was hidden since it was a true black robe and any features to it were virtually hidden. He takes out his phone and frowns as he sees who is calling (I know skeletons cannot frown but just use some imagination).
'Why is she calling me?' Death thinks as he answers the phone
"Heya Death! How's it going?" A feminine voice says through the phone
"Hello war to what do I owe the pleasure?" Death says
"The Undefeateds are gone again so you want to go on another date?"
Death considers the request and finds that it would be nice to meet with another Horse Man well in this case a Woman of the Apocalypse. There were Four Horse Men of the Apocalypse who each represented some form of chaos. They were Death, War, Famine, and Plague which each had their own thing to do in the Universe. They, of course, paid close attention to the origins of the Undefeateds since none of them could affect them and since they could not use any powers outside their domain they could do very little to them. The end of everything was a prophecy that foretold the coming of the Four Horsemen to bring the end.
However, that was just the ramblings of some old coot that made it up. While there would be the end of everything it did not involve the Four Horsemen.
Eventually, time would run its course and everything would end one way or another. The Four Horsemen in a sense had already descended but they did not destroy anything other than that annoying fly that gets its way into your room.
"Alright just tell me when and where," Death says as he conjures a pen and paper out of thin air
"Hm... how about you choose this time," War says
"Alright how about we go to planet Eve in the Kull civilization for dinner at this restaurant called 'The Kicken Crab' I hear they got great seafood," Death says as the pen and paper disappear
"Alright let's meet there tomorrow night at 6"
"Alright see you then"
They hang up and Death disappears to find a body to wear to dinner
...
When Alex opened his eyes he was hit with a blinding light. The sound of various animals and insects could be heard as Alex props himself upon the ground. Looking around Alex sees that he is in a forest of some kind as there are tall trees that are giving plenty of shade to the ground. Alex looms at his chest and sees that the bullet hole that showed how he died was now gone. His shirt still had a hole in it showing Alex that what he had experienced was not a dream or some sort of bad hangover.
'Still, I never thought that this is what Heaven looked like' Alex thinks as he gets off the dirt floor
Walking around Alex sees some animal tracks that looked vaguely familiar for some reason. Alex decides to not think much about it so he just continues to wander around aimlessly for a while.
Eventually, Alex finds him at the edge of a cliff overlooking a great prairie as far as the eye can see. The grass of the prairie was a light purple color that was swaying in the wind as the sun shown down on the land from above.
'Hm... why does this look so familiar?' Alex thinks as he looks down the edge of the cliff, what he sees shocks him.
There were Great Ganjalo beasts at the bottom of the cliff in the plains. Great Ganjalo beasts were animals that were native to Eve before the sun disappeared and life ceased to exist on the planet. Of course by the time the Kull civilization found the planet all that remained were the bones of the mighty beasts. Of course, images were made of the creatures based on the bone structure and anatomy of the found remains from the excavation period of Eve. However, seeing these creatures alive and breathing made Alex dumbfounded at what he was seeing.
'Ding'
A loud ding resounds in Alex's head startling him as he scrambles away from the cliff edge. As he is trying to process what in the world is going on a holographic screen appears in front of Alex.
-----------------------------------------
Welcome new player!
The system is currently updating to the newest version please wait.
-----------------------------------------
A few seconds go by as Alex is too dumbfounded at what is going on to do anything before another prompt appears.
-----------------------------------------
The update was successful!
The system has decided to give the player the option to choose if they want to play the Hardcore version of the game or the casual version
-----------------------------------------
Two buttons appear below the prompt but the choice for the casual game experience was greyed out and not available for Alex to choose. The choice for Hardcore was the only option available to choose from but below the button was some red text in parentheses. The player may not choose the first option due to certain variables that are being taken into account however, there shall be an item given to the player as compensation since hardcore mode will give the player only one life and no respawns.
Alex read through all the text that was appearing in front of him but his mind was racing and trying to think of what in the world he should do or how he ended up like this. Eventually, he came up with Death being the cause of the problem since there was no other way this could happen to him by normal means. Alex really wanted to start spewing curses out at Death but eventually went against it since he realized that it would do him no good if he went and to did that since it was a waste of time. So instead Alex turned his attention to this 'System' in front of him.
Seeing as he had no way to get rid of it he hits his only option available for him.
The screen disappears and Alex feels like he has gotten away from it until it pops back up again this time displaying information.
-----------------------------------------
Name: Alex Rodric
Race: Human (Non-Variant)
System Version: 8.9.1 Free Version
Level: 1
Experience: 0
Main Class: None
Sub Class: None
Health: 20/20
Stamina: 10/10
Power: 0 (lvl. 0)
Stats: Strength 10, Endurance 13, Luck -100, Intelligence 23, Charisma 1, Mysticism 0
Stat points: 0
Skills: None
Equipment: None
Rank: A (normal person)
Congrats player you can now hold your own in a bar fight against 5 grown men
-----------------------------------------
Alex was confused at the information that was being displayed before another prompt appeared before him again.
-----------------------------------------
The system has decided to give the player an item due to the fact that certain complications that occurred.
Pick two of the five items listed below
Exp Donuts
Survival Guide
Quest Refresh Card
Class Card
Loaded Handgun (Rare grade)
-----------------------------------------
Seeing the items that Alex could choose Alex was stumped on what he should pick. However, before he can he hears some noise from the forest behind him coming towards his direction. Alex who does not want to be eaten by some prehistoric animal weighs his options before deciding to jump off the cliff. Now the cliff drop was around 20 to 30 feet so regardless Alex was gonna hurt himself.
Falling down Alex cannot help but realize that if he had chosen the handgun than he probably not be rushing towards the ground right now. When he hits the ground pain shoots through Alex's legs as he collapses onto the ground and hits his head on a rock stuck in the ground before knocking himself out.
...
Now when Alex was looking over the edge of the cliff and seeing the Great Ganjalo beasts he failed to notice that the reason that they were under the cliffs was that they were being kept in by a fence made out of vines and fallen trees. In fact, the thing that Alex jumped to escape was a female native of Eve who was just coming up to enjoy the view that the cliff brought. Never did she expect to see a man jump off the cliff even though to her it looked like Alex fell off the cliff on accident instead of willingly jumping off. Seeing this the lady runs over to the edge to see Alex knocked out in the middle of the pen before she scrambles back to her village to get help.