[Congratulations! You have been chosen as the project manager of the Hell Restoration Project! The skills and morals you displayed during your mortal life on Earth have made you the perfect candidate to restore balance to Hell!]
Micah had just fallen asleep, but he was already waking up to a bunch of nonsensical rambling. He usually had a clear mind, even directly after waking up. But he couldn't make sense of what he had just heard, so it really had to be nonsense.
"That's weird… He should be awake by now. Did something go wrong?"
Micah heard a voice similar to the first but slightly different, less mechanical. However, he couldn't recognize either of them. He didn't show any signs of having woken up, despite suspecting what had happened. He gently and barely perceptibly moved his body. However, he couldn't sense any restraints anywhere on his body.
Deciding that he could only figure out what was going on by opening his eyes, that's what Micah did.
The first thing he saw was a translucent red holographic screen hovering in the air right in front of his eyes.
"Oh, great! You're awake!"
[Congratulations! You have been chosen as the project manager of the Hell Restoration Project! The skills and morals you displayed during your mortal life on Earth have made you the perfect candidate to restore balance to Hell!]
Micah heard the words a second time but still couldn't make sense of them. And since they were written on the flashing red holographic screen, he even read them several times without understanding what was going on.
It wasn't his first kidnapping. But it was the first time his kidnappers used such a strange method to try and torment him. Eventually, he gave up on trying to understand the meaning of the words on the screen and began looking around for the source of the other voice he heard. Not the voice that seemed to come from the red hologram.
While looking around, Micah realized that he wasn't bound or restrained in any way, so he stood up inside the empty pale red room.
He couldn't tell where the source of light was, but it seemed like it came from everywhere, which made it difficult to tell how big the room was since all the walls were the exact same color, without a hint of shadow.
However, after a while, Micah found an exception. There was a blurry shadow on the floor a few meters away from him. And when he looked up, he saw a strange ornament that seemed to be hanging in the air with an invisible string.
"What the fuck?"
First, the strange message about becoming some kind of project manager for hell, then a weird ghastly red room, and now a four-winged eyeball larger than his fist. Micah really thought he was undergoing some weird kind of psychological torture.
"That's incredibly rude, you know? Saying 'What the fuck?' as soon as you look at someone."
Hearing the weird eyeball with batwings talk confirmed Micah's suspicions since it was scarily effective, even on him.
"Hey, I don't know what weird thoughts are going on in your head right now, but stop rolling up your sleeves like that. It looks like you're getting ready for a fight."
Micah ignored the voice coming from the eyeball-shaped speaker. The ones in charge of kidnapping him had even made it flap its wings for realistic effect. He did stop rolling up his sleeves, but not because of the voice.
When he came in contact with his arms and hands, Micah realized that he wasn't in the same body he had fallen asleep in. His worn, scarred, and rugged hands had been replaced by some delicate, untouched hands that looked like they belonged to some pianist. However, his forearms were similar to what Micah's forearms looked like when he was young.
Micah held a hand in front of him as he looked at his fist. Clenching and unclenching it to confirm that it was indeed him that was controlling it.
"What the fuck."
Micah looked at the eyeball as if he was waiting for an explanation.
"You scared me there. Now, are you willing to listen?"
"..."
"Great. First off. You're dead. You died in your sleep, peacefully."
"Okay."
Micah wasn't sure what to believe at the moment, so he decided to just listen to what the eyeball had to say. If he was hallucinating, he could at least follow along and enjoy the ride.
"And you're currently in Hell."
"Hell?"
"Yeah, the Bad Afterlife. Helheim, Hades, Tartaros, The Underworld. Stuff like that or whatever you want to call it. Though, nowadays the most popular one is Hell."
Micah looked a little thoughtful before answering.
"I think there's been a mistake."
Despite being an eyeball, Micah could tell that the eyeball held back laughter. Since it could talk without a mouth, it could laugh. That made some kind of sense, but Micah wondered why he could understand its facial expressions.
"Man, you're a hoot!"
"What?"
The eyeball was clearly enjoying itself at Micah's expense, so Micah began rolling up his sleeves again with a raised eyebrow.
"Do you know how many lives I saved during my life? How many people I changed for the better? How much I did for the welfare of my community and the world? And you think I belong in Hell?"
The eyeball noticed Micah's rolled-up shirt sleeves and flapped its wings to distance itself before it talked.
"Calm down. Calm down, man. First off, you aren't in Hell as a sinner. You saw and heard the message, right? I was getting there, but you have been chosen to help restore balance in Hell."
"Keep talking."
"What do you want me to say? Hell is losing its balance. For various reasons, it needs a human to fix it. I can't see your life records, so I don't know, but you are apparently the perfect candidate to do just that. Restore balance to Hell."
"And? Why should I do something like that instead of spending my time in the Good Afterlife? Cause there is a Good Afterlife, right? If there's a bad one, then there's a good one, right?"
The eyeball noticed Micah's growing intensity but didn't show any signs of nervousness as it responded.
"Yeah, there's a Good Afterlife. Of course, there is. Heaven, Paradise, Elysium, Valhalla. All that stuff is there."
"Well? Why am I here? Instead of that place? I worked all my life. Do you really think I'll want to work anymore?"
Micah took a step closer to the eyeball, which forced it to fly a similar amount backward.
"You can reject the position Well, I guess you can, but you won't end up in Heaven. I'm sorry to tell you. You were destined for Hell from the beginning."
"Bullshit!"