"Those guys... they were cruel." Sylvan remarked as he walked down the empty prison hallway with the other guards.
They had just passed by Cellblock 4 and were on their way to meet up with the other officers.
His superior officer, Glenn, laughs.
"Kid, you've been here, what, a day? You don't know shit."
Sylvan frowned. He knew some people were capable of doing bad things, but... he had a hard time believing that so many humans were as bad as his superior officer was making them out to be.
"I don't believe you, sir," Sylvan stopped. "I think it's the environment."
Glenn also came to a stop and turned to look at Sylvan.
"We're greedy, selfish, and barbaric. The moment one of us has power over another, our true selves shine through. It's like putting a cat in a room full of mice."
Sylvan didn't believe it. His parents were kind. His brother was kind too.
Glenn took out his keycard and put it against the digital reader.
"Access denied," a robotic voice called out.
He frowned.
"What's wrong?" Sylvan asked.
"It won't open."
He swiped and swiped, but the door remained locked.
The sounds of glass breaking in the distance caught their attention.
"Is that..."
"Cellblock 4," Glenn's face hardened.
A guy in an orange prison suit rushed toward them. He was bleeding all over. He held his stomach, and his face looked drained of blood.
"Please help m-e," the convict said as he fell on his knees.
Glenn grabbed his radio.
"Open the door! Open the fu**ng door!"
A voice on the other end answered, "We're trying! The whole system's bugged. Someone's coming to open it on the other side. Just buy time."
"How long?" Sylvan asked.
Crazy laughter could be heard from down the hallway.
"About a minute."
Glenn frowned. "I don't think we have a minute."
The guy in the orange prison suit started crawling towards them, leaving a blood trail behind and muttering 'help me' over and over.
Sylvan felt pity. "Sir, please, he needs help."
Glenn nodded. "Go help him."
And he went back to trying to open the door with his keycard.
Sylvan rushed up to the bleeding convict and helped him up.
He was heavy. Yet lighter than a normal human.
The laughter was getting louder until he started seeing orange prison suits.
He saw one of the inmates carrying a pipe.
It was a bloody pipe.
Sylvan grabbed the injured convict's left side. "Sir, grab his other side."
Glenn didn't come to help him.
"Sir!"
"Come on, come on. Open, you goddam piece of shit."
The inmates got closer and closer, taunting the fresh meat.
Sylvan's adrenaline was through the roof.
"Leave him!" Glenn yelled. "Get over here."
Sylvan looked back and forth. The man was dying, but the convicts' footsteps got louder. Sylvan hoped Glenn would help him, but he only saw his back.
He squeezed his eyes shut and left the man behind.
When he got to the door, he stopped dead in his tracks.
His superior officer gave up on the door. No, instead, he pulled his gun and pointed it right at him.
"Stall them," Glenn ordered.
"What?" Sylvan stuttered.
Disbelief washed over him.
He looked at his superior officer. Surely, he was joking, Sylvan thought.
But there was one emotion in his eyes: his own survival.
Glenn's hand wavered slightly, but then he pulled the hammer of his pistol back.
Sylvan's heartbeat raced. He felt he wasn't getting enough air.
The sound of footsteps running towards him made him look back. They were mere seconds away from him.
Sylvan held his hands up.
He was hit by a metal pipe.
Then another.
And another.
Glenn did tell him humans were cruel.
The smell of piss, terrible alcohol, and smoke attacked his nose as he lay on the ground with blurry eyes.
The door opened, and Glenn ran inside.
Sylvan felt his head being lifted, then smashed against the concrete floor.
The door slammed shut behind him.
He felt cold. His thoughts were getting slower and slower.
The voices got further and further away, as if he was sinking underwater.
And then it turned pitch black.
----
The room was white.
A room so white.
So blindingly bright that it might as well have been the color of snow during a blizzard.
He could barely see until his eyes adjusted.
The first thing Sylvan heard when he woke up was a familiar voice.
"Bro?" Sylvan turned his head.
"If it isn't the warden."
His brother, Erian, looked down at him. The same brown hair, the same green eyes. It was definitely him.
"I told you I'm just a guard," Sylvan said, pushing himself up.
"Right," Erian smiled and pulled him into a hug.
"How've you been, brother?"
The warmth he felt in Erian's embrace was enough to put him at ease.
"Goo—" Sylvan paused. His last memories came back. He looked to his brother.
"I... just got killed by a bunch of inmates."
They were both silent.
Erian sat down next to Sylvan on the ground.
They didn't look at each other for a moment.
"You're..." Sylvan said.
"Yeah, drunk driver."
Silence again. Then Erian laughed. Sylvan was confused until they were both laughing.
Laughing like a bunch of madlads.
"At least we won't have to worry about those debts," Erian said.
"Right, right. I don't have to pay the bills anymore," Sylvan chuckled.
"No more asshole bosses."
Sylvan recalled his last boss. "Amen."
They were silent for another moment.
Sylvan opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by a booming voice.
"Are you two done?"
Sylvan and Erian stared at each other.
They both saw it.
That abomination; a human with a tree for a head.
Neither of them wanted to talk about it. So they ignored it.
"So, I heard mom's getting remarried," Sylvan said.
"Yeah, the carpenter," Erian nodded.
"She's moving on from dad."
"I'm happy for her. Can we visit her as ghosts?"
They ignored the god that was standing in between them.
The tree-head god sighed and clapped.
Roots grew from the floor, making their way to the brothers' necks and locking it in place.
Erian and Sylvan's heads were fixed onto the god.
No more interruptions.
"You two are now dead," The tree-headed god said.
"Yeah. We established this earlier. I got clubbed to death by inmates, and my brother here—" Sylvan began, but the tree-head cut him off.
"I'm the God of Nature. This is the realm of the gods. You both are dead, and you have been chosen to be reincarnated," he said.
"As humans, you two have a special understanding of your kind's destructive capabilities. This new world is on the brink of merging magic and technology. And I cannot have that. So I'm sending you two to this world."
"Can I ask a question?" Sylvan raised his hand.
The God of Nature nodded.
"Why two?" Sylvan asked. "Don't most gods send one and give them overpowered skills?"
Erian nodded.
"Yes, most gods send one," the god's eyes lingered on Erian for a bit, "but for my plans, two works better. And yes, they usually give overpowered skills."
Sylvan's eyes lit up. "Did you gods by any chance write those books?"
He looked to Erian, who looked just as excited.
"No," The God of Nature frowned. "They're just stories."
"Oh..." Sylvan said, disappointment in his voice.
And Erian frowned.
"I want you two to spread nature. You can make peace with the humans if you like or enslave. I don't really care as long as nature continues to thrive."
"Can I ask a question next?" Erian chimed in.
The God of Nature looked frustrated, his brow knitted into an even deeper scowl than it already was.
"What skills do we get?"
"You won't be needing any," The God of Nature answered, and he clapped his hands.
A green liquid appeared below their feet.
It rose up and wrapped around their bodies, pulling them into its current.
Throughout space.
Through the realm of gods.
Then they came to a world.
They zoomed by the clouds and slammed into a tree, more specifically into the fruit of the tree.
Sylvan's fruit was red, ripe.
Erian's fruit was red but had brown spots already.
Their fruits grew and grew until they turned into a humanoid shape and finally fell down.
Erian and Sylvan were reborn.