And then... There was light.
In a field of nothingness, light almost blinded Victor's eyes. He felt a pang of nostalgia rush over his head as he arose, the memories of his death recreating his fear. Looking around the sudden vicinity, he found nothing. He was in a grass field that seemed to stretch out to infinity.
The afterlife? Possibly. But he himself knew he shouldn't end up in a place of peace. He had lived his life as brutally as possible and even until the very end of it. He had expected to be in a place that brimmed with smoke and fire, where sinners burned but never died.
At least, that's what he had read in books.
But what was this place? An endless arena of light... And there he thought the books never lied.
"They did not." Victor traced the voice to a girl standing by a cliff edge that had suddenly appeared. The girl's golden hair was the only thing apparent to him since it was her back that was turned to him.
Her hair was so long, that it stopped at her knee, hiding her physique.
"Who are you?" Victor question came like a ringtone. "What is this place?"
The girl swirled over to face him, but Victor couldn't keep up an eye contact with her. He managed to grasp a glimpse of her face, an etched figure of beauty. Her eyes were golden, matching her golden hair. They were squinted like two tiny orbs over a large brush of golden brows. Her round face was another word for perfection, and the way they remained smoothened like it was carved by the greatest sculpture ever. Insane.
Her lips were alluring, demanding for a kiss. The lust made his eyes look down her body, stopping at the curve of her tits. They weren't small, neither were they too big, but they were balanced perfectly over her chest. She wore a high school uniform and a skirt that was shorter than his pinky finger, he could see her thigh, and curiosity hinged it in him to know what was beneath. He knew he was dead and was probably in for a deadly surprise, but he couldn't help the lust that clouded his mind.
How could someone look so alluring. The sight was unbelievable. He wanted to wake up from his slumber, however, he wasn't even alive.
"This is my domain." She said and folded her arms. "Your lewd thoughts are just the qualifications to be here."
"You can read my thoughts?" Asked Victor.
The girl nodded. "At least that's one of the few things a goddess can do, gods usually get all the attention."
"Goddess?" How did he end up in the domain of a goddess?
"The goddess of Lust. Dementia."
Victor tried to think about it but he already had the answer. He himself was so lustful that that had led to the suddenness of his death. It was so no surprise that he had ended up here, even ogling the goddess for that matter.
"And why am I here?" He asked.
"I've been assigned to banish you to your eternal punishment." Dementia replied.
An eternal punishment from the goddess of lust? Was this the kind where he could have all the girls he wanted?
"Don't you think about other things?" Dementia asked, an irritated look betraying her expression.
You could stop listening to my thoughts then. Victor wanted to say, but he figured she already heard that too.
"So, what's the punishment?" Victor demanded, his voice rather laced with urgency.
"Wait!" Dementia yelled. "Do you really want this?..."
"Want what?"
"A whole eternity of pain. There's no turning back if you decide that." The goddess explained.
"What's this about, is there an alternative?" Victor's brow formed a wry.
"I'm offering you another chance at life." She said. "A chance to redeem yourself and start over."
"And what would make it different?" Victor abruptly asked.
"Huh?"
"Life itself and an eternity of suffering... What's the difference?" He continued. "Living itself is hell enough."
For a minute, Dementia stared blankly at him. And then she smiled. "Life is but an arena of decisions. What you decide becomes your fate."
"Yeah? Well I didn't decide to be born as a poor person. I did not decide to live a miserable life. I did not decide that my family had to be killed!"
"You did." Dementia smiled at him. "It's too complicated for a mortal's understanding but you decided all these."
The goddess snapped her fingers and the scenery changed. Victor suddenly found himself in a library, one so big that it smelled rawly of books. He wanted to gasp and show surprise about the sudden happenstance, but in the first place, he was already having a heated conversation with a goddess.
Nothing was bound to be normal.
"What's this place?" He asked, looking up at the giant shelves where millions of books arrayed.
"The library of Life and Death." Dementia replied. "Here, you can find the stories of every mortal, living and dead."
"So you guys just write our lives in a book and keep them here?" He asked.
"That would be improper, these books are written by the main characters themselves." The goddess said. Her stretched out her hand and then out the nothingness, a book flung towards her.
She raised the book towards Victor and he manged to read the heading inscription. It read, "VICTOR ALBRIGHT." As his eyes met the book, a blurry memory suddenly flashed through his head. It seemed to remind him of a familiar moment, but yet he couldn't tell when that happened.
"Looks familiar?" She asked.
"I wrote that?" Victor asked.
"Yes. And then it was directed to the god of Misfortune." She explained as she went through the pages of the book. "He edited and published it."
What the - the god of Misfortune got a hold of his life? Now it was all starting to make sense.
"But you still aren't convincing me." He said. "What's the chance that my returning to life won't be hell again?"
"It's always your choice." The goddess snapped her fingers, and from nowhere, a clean manuscript appeared in Victor's hand. "You could write a new story."
Victor studied the blank sheet in his hands and yet, he still wasn't convinced. "And if my life ends up in the hands of another lame god?"
Dementia smirked. "Avoiding that is really simple you see." She said. "All you need to do is become contracted to me."