What is there after death?
"Why the hell are you asking me that question you fucking bastard!"
I launched a punch at him. A right hook to be exact.
Ion caught my punch with his left hand. Then, faster than even I could react, he pierced my shoulder with that impossible thing on his staff.
Before I could even register the pain, I found myself lying on my back against a fleshy floor. Intense pain blossomed in my right shoulder as Ion began to pull and didn't stop pulling.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Ion straight up ripped my arm off. Pulled it right off like a cruel child pulling apart the limbs of an insect.
My vision blurred.
I felt tears gather at the edge of my eyes coming from the sheer pain in my shoulder.
Even in so much pain, I glared hatefully at Ion. My teeth bared as I tried to look as intimidating as possible.
"Are you going to behave?" Ion asked as he lowered to a squat right next to me, his staff of Yaldabaoth's heart nailing me to the disgustingly soft ground.
I spat at him.
The spit hit his face, right in one of his eyes.
Ion threw my detached arms away. There, his arms turned into two smaller ones, then those two turned into four even smaller ones. Ion's arms soon turned into fractals of millions of super thin arms ending in billions of hands and trillions of fingers. He began to move them.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
All of my limbs detached themselves. I howled.
"Ahhh…ahhhh… ahhh…"
I sobbed. The pain was so much. Why am I not blacking out?
There, the pressure from Ion's staff on my shoulder disappeared as he grabbed my head by my hair and placed me upon an extended lump of flesh. My headdress fell off along the way.
I didn't pay attention to anything else. I couldn't. Not with my mind so clouded by pain.
With another gesture of his millions of arms, billions of hands, and trillions of fingers, I felt my mind become extremely clear. He did something to me.
The clarity meant I was able to fully take in my situation, and know the following as facts:
- Ion conjured up a kinetohazard to get rid of my pain.
- I don't have any limbs.
- I very likely won't survive past the one-hour mark.
"Apologies about that, my Goddess, but sometimes people just won't listen to you unless you show them your power."
"Uh-huh."
It was… odd. The fear I should be feeling is dulled as though a lot of time had passed. It was much more subdued like their cause was something that happened decades ago.
"I tried to preach to my fellow slaves in the Daevite Empire to try and rise up, but until I showed my power and overthrew the local nobility inside the city, no one listened to me."
Frustration ebbed out of Ion akin to radiation from a nuclear reactor.
"But yes, anyway, where was I— ah yes, my Goddess, what do you think is there after death?"
What is there after death? Why is Ion asking me this question?
Wait a second… a thought crossed my mind. Being converted by the sun means the person experiences endless euphoria. The opposite of euphoria…
I recalled my memory of reading SCPs.
There was a very special SCP within Series III that explored the existential fear of death. It was an SCP that described what happens after death. In it, the O5 Council brought one of their own back from death using a technique never to be repeated, and that O5 explained how he experienced pain unlike anything else.
Even as the human ability to experience pain was reached, that threshold was lifted so they could experience even more pain. The scariest thing about that SCP was that O5 said how this pain was happening to every human who has ever died.
Legions of the ancient dead.
That O5 willingly entered SCP-106's pocket dimension, because being tortured for the rest of eternity by the old man was a better fate than whatever awaits someone after their death.
The unimaginable pain, so much that the O5 who returned thinks the physical human brain isn't fully capable of comprehending…
"—!"
Oh my god… Those people whom I had mercy killed…
"Ah, you must realize it now, right Goddess? What's there after death?"
"... pain." I finally said, "Endless pain… isn't it?"
"Pain?" Confusion covered Ion's face like curtains after the end of a play.
He suddenly snaps his fingers that are now returned to normal, "Ah no. The reach of that parasite does not extend to here. It does not reach into this timeline. No, instead, it's something far, far worse."
Worse? How the hell could anything be worse?
I struggled to think of anything worse than endless, unimaginable pain.
Seriously, what the hell could be worse?
Just then, the space behind Ion filled with the image of a beach surrounded by the blue ocean underneath a blue cloudless sky. There was a small umbrella on that beach.
"A paradise, is it not?" Ion asked. It took me a few seconds to realize that wasn't a rhetorical question and he expected me to answer.
"...Yes. A tropical paradise."
"A false one. I see this as a fate far worse than even the unending pain offered by that parasite."
"..."
HOW?!?!?!
I wanted to scream. How is retiring on a tropical island after death worse than fucking endless, unimaginable pain? So much pain that the human might not even fully comprehend it all?
It was an inconceivable notion. An unbelievable idea. A ridiculous concept.
It'll be like choosing to burn in hell over this eternity in a tropical paradise.
"I know. It seems ridiculous, does it not? The idea that this is worse than torture at the hands of that entity." Ion then reached out with a hand, "I too, thought the same thing. In my final battle as the Sorcerer-King of Adytum against Hephaestus of the Mekhanite Empire, I lost and was crushed by the Warhammer that contained a finger of Mekhane before being hanged by the ropes of Alagadda."
In a more somber tone, Ion continued and pointed at the island behind him, "I died. I appeared inside that place. At first, as you might imagine, I thought this was my just reward as the Messiah of Nalka and the Emperor of the Kalmaktama Empire. I enjoyed myself with the three beauties present. I enjoyed the various fruits both known and unknown to the Empire."
That sounded like a paradise.
"For the first few years at least. I slowly grew bored. Those beauties were no longer beautiful. They cannot affect my loins. Those fruits no longer excite me. Their sharp effects dulled after so many exposures. I began wandering. Being so bored, I started looking for ways to escape. For the first time in years, I used my magic and reality-bending powers to try and escape."
Ion leaned forward and touched the illusion he conjured up. He grabbed at it harshly, as though trying to destroy it.
"I failed. I couldn't escape. This place… was an omnilock. I, Grand Karcist Ion, was trapped. That couldn't ever happen, so I unleashed all my might to break this omnilock."
Ion's head dipped, "I failed once again."
He then turned to face me.
"I was trapped. Even when I used all my magic and those three beauties as sacrifices, I couldn't escape. Even after millions of years of constant attempts, I couldn't break out." He then looked to his staff, "So then I chose to learn. I delve deep into the art of fleshcrafting. I delve deep into magic. I fortified my mind. I experimented on myself since I couldn't ever die nor could those three beauties. I learned about things… so many things that no one back on Earth could've ever known with what little time they had. My might with magic was stronger than anyone. Even the eldest son of the first man is no match for me."
"I became a God." Ion spoke softly, "But I was still trapped. When I fully mastered magic like none other, enough time had passed that proton decay would've occurred many, many, many times over. In fact, all potential permutations of particles within this small realm have already been reached. Even as a Magic God, I couldn't escape. Even when I shred that realm into its most fundamental particles, even if I destroy it so utterly that nothing is left other than a true conceptual void of non-existence, a [ ]… I still couldn't escape."
Was there supposed to be something after 'nonexistence'? It sounded like to me Ion simply stopped talking.
The flesh god's tone sounded dead.
"Many minutes of eternity have passed and my fortified mind crumbled. I still remained on that island surrounded by an ocean. Everything grew stale. I began looking for an escape from the staleness. If I could not embrace an escape then I choose to embrace oblivion. Hours of eternity passed yet nonetheless I still returned to that island surrounded by an ocean, with those three ugly beauties. That never-setting sun above me."
Ion gripped his head as he stabbed himself with his staff.
"The thing is, with that parasite inside the Noosphere, you know that there is a torturer. You know that there is a reason for your suffering to feed it. But with this eternal hell of staleness: there is no reason. I eventually came to the philosophical conclusion that this…"
He gestured at the island and pulled out his staff, "All of this… this is simply the human condition. It is not a punishment. It is human nature. There is no cause for this. No rhyme or reason. Both saints and sinners go to the exact same spot."
He took a deep breath. I found myself fearful. This… hell. This unexplainable hell without reason other than you being human…
It was said by scientists that 100 billion humans lived and died throughout human history. 100 billion people inside that place. That island in an ocean, underneath the cloudless sky and a never-setting sun.
The legions of ancient dead. Trapped inside there.
But…
"How did you escape?"
He turned to face me fully, "I didn't. One of my followers of what you know as 'Sarkicism' performed a miracle unlike any other. A fluke so rare it will likely never happen again in the lifetime of this Universe. The original is still trapped inside that hell. I am but a quantum copy of Ion."
"Quantum… copy…?"
"I believe the modern world calls it a 'Boltzmann Brain'. A random arrangement of matter arising from Quantum chaos that just so happens to resemble someone. After being destroyed in the Seventh Occult War, what remains of my followers tried one last attempt and succeeded in bringing a copy of Ion back in the 1950s by controlling the fundamental probabilities on the quantum scale. It took me a decade of being in a vegetative state before I finally got up from my bed in the wilderness of Siberia and waged war against Yaldabaoth. I knew for a fact that not everything the original Ion knew about magic came with me since this body of flesh was limited. Despite that, using what I knew, I slipped between the bars of Mekhane's cage that held Yaldabaoth and carved out her heart, finally ending the God of Blood and Flesh."
Ion then reached for the impossible thing on top of his staff that shouldn't exist.
The still-beating heart of Yaldabaoth. Pulsating like a spinning neutron star.
"I consumed the rest of her body. And with my apotheosis completed, I claimed the sun as my throne. From where I sat, I projected my merciful radiance and granted all under my guiding light forever euphoria they will never get tired of. A break from the hell that is eternity."
"..."
I was dumbfounded, and suddenly; sympathetic. Instantly I understood where Ion came from now.
Despite my reluctance, I realized that Ion is a hero as well. Just a very different hero.
He saved all of humanity from the hell of eternity, just to place them inside a heaven of his own making. A paradise of raw happiness.
My mind then recalled the words of those When Day Breaks victims. Not one regretted it. Not one was saddened by their transformation. Not one experienced anything other than euphoria and peace. That probably wasn't mind control then.
It was, in all other words, a heaven compared to the staleness of eternity.
I felt my will to fight him practically evaporate away.
Every piece then further lined up. That severance from the origin of water on a conceptual level. What Cain described and how SCP-343 said there was only pain in death.
This story has no hero or villain. The world is far more complex than that.
Everything makes sense now.
Everything lined up if death leads to that hell.
Except for one thing—
"Why me?"
Ion tilted his head, humming out "Hmm?"
"Why me specifically? Why do you want me to join you? In what you described as 'holy matrimony'?"
Ion then placed the tip of his staff against my chest. More specifically, my heart.
"You are an alien existence. An alien from the Noosphere itself. You are a true foreigner, visiting from outside of even the Abyss. You represent a new potentiality. The Multiverse contains everything. The Noosphere that surrounds the Multiverse contains every possible thought— every concept— that could ever be conceived. It is limiting. You are a portal to outside everything. If we join forces I can spread my mercy even further into the Great Beyond of Unreality."
… The Waifu Catalog. He's talking about how he knows I'm not from this place, and so Ion is banking on me becoming something akin to a Gate for him toward all the other Worlds the Waifu Catalog has access to.
I can't do that—
Would that be so bad though?
That thought stopped all others in their tracks.
Would a permanent euphoria really be so bad compared to an unchanging eternal hell?
I became stumped.
I wish to become a peerless hero who saves everyone. An invincible hero that defeats all evil.
But isn't death evil? Isn't the eternal suffering that comes after death evil? If they are, then does that mean the human condition is evil? Our very nature is evil?
My mind moved at light speed to try and comprehend everything. My mind was now undergoing a civil war over the question of whether or not to help Ion.
This is non-consensual. One side said.
It will be consensual once they realize what's there after death. The other side argued.
Ion has no right to enforce such a state of being.
He has a duty as a ruler to do what's best for his people.
He's melting them into flesh blobs!
It is a destruction of human nature.
It is my duty as a hero to save people from the sun!
You will condemn them and every future human into a stale eternity of forever stagnation.
I am saving them from becoming a flesh blob!
You will become the greatest monster in history for damning every soul from this heaven of unending euphoria.
I… what is the right decision then?
I felt myself splitting apart. I want to stop When Day Breaks yet the knowledge of what comes after death made me want to help Ion instead.
Should I really help him?
"... There has to be a better way—"
"There isn't." Ion cut me off, "To prevent anyone from entering that place, I must change them on such a fundamental level as to be completely inhuman. That place represents the human condition. It is a human's endpoint. It is built into the very concept of humanity. In essence: to be human is to end up in that place after you die. Learning of this, how could I not do what I did?"
"..."
I felt powerless. As though I returned to being a human and found myself being asked to flatten a mountain using only an unbreakable pickaxe.
Then I thought of the Waifu Catalog, and how Ion said there were no other solutions.
A daring idea crossed my mind.
What about a solution coming from outside of the box?
Ion would never think of it. He's walked too far to turn back now. I doubt the notion of a solution from the outside that doesn't involve him turning people into those masses of molten meat even exists inside his mind.
It'll be something that doesn't exist inside the Noosphere. A thought that is unable to be come up with by anything inside the Noosphere. A timeless concept that doesn't exist yet among the pantheons of detached platonic forms.
Joining… holy matrimony… My mind created an idea.
"Hey. Wouldn't Lovataar be jealous?"
Ion turned to face the many stars that surrounded us. "No. Lovataar may love me, but I don't feel the same way with her. More than that, one of the beauties inside that realm looked similar to Lovataar. It ruined anything relating to Lovataar or my usual sexual preference for me."
I grabbed Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind. With Ion's complete focus on me, I began to control my severed arms.
"So you love me."
The Grand Karcist returned to look at me. I summoned forth the Company Smart Device and had my severed arm turn it on.
"At first, I was intrigued by you. A being that's from the Outside. But then that fascination turned into something deeper." He didn't answer the question.
With but a single thought, Ion conjured up a ring. Then, he dug his fingers into the still-beating heart of Yaldabaoth and gouged out a tiny piece of it. Whereupon Ion inserted the piece into the ring.
He took one knee and presented the jewelry to me.
"Marry me, Kukulkan. Together we will become something greater than the sum of its parts."
"... Was that a love confession?"
Grand Karcist Ion. You have fully proven yourself worthy of the mantle of the greatest hero of mankind. You saw a problem and devised a method of solving it… you saw the true shape of the ultimate problem and devised a method of solving it.
There was a brief pause, making me feel fear before the flesh god confirmed it, "Yes. I suppose that was. I love you, Kukulkan. Marry—"
Ion disappeared the moment I pressed the 'sell' button on the Company Smart Device through my severed arms.
Ion, the greatest hero of mankind… your solution costs too much.
The platform of flesh and rocks broke apart as the meat rapidly died from exposure to outer space. A layer of frost appeared over those things as Ion's magic no longer existed to preserve them.
Forgive me. Ion. Please, forgive me. Forgive me for my betrayal. Your dream of eternal bliss is much better than stagnation.
As I floated there in space, tears freely came out of my eyes at what I'd done. I covered my face as the guilt chewed away at me.
Forgive me.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
FORGIVE ME!!!!!
I screamed silently into the space. There was no air, so no matter how I tried, no sound could come out.
_____________
AN: For those who want to know, the afterlife is SCP-7179.