by Noam Oswin
“Listen, you have a gun, and they most likely have a gun.” I said quickly, putting my hands down. “You have surprise on your side, so that’s good. Open the door, and shoot them before they shoot us.”
“I – no – I can’t.”
“You can, because they are most certainly going to –”
“You don’t understand – I can’t shoot them.”
She rose her gun, her expression going from uncertain to worried in seconds. It hit me.
“Your gun isn’t loaded.”
She looked away, biting down on her lower lip.
“Wonderful.” I cursed. “Simply wonderful.”
“I didn’t come here intending to kill anyone!”
“No, simply to drug them.” I let the pill slip out from my sleeve and held it in front of her. “Which, might I add, you failed to do successfully.”
Five angry thuds slammed against the door and she grimaced. There was no time for this discussion.
“Get dressed. Quickly. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?”
I pointed to the balcony. I always picked a room with a verandah or balcony.
“No.” she shook her head. “This is the thirty-third floor.”
“I wasn’t asking.” I said. “Get. Dressed.”
The knocks on the door became full bangs, and the knob was moving furiously, followed by the sound of a body slamming against it. I dashed for the balcony, pushing aside the large doors and standing out in the open night breeze.
Searching for someplace to hide or something to use brought my attention to a familiar object off to the side. It was a lift. A lift used by the window cleaners. I was familiar with it. When I was sixteen my father forced me to clean the windows of my brothers offices every day throughout the summer as my punishment for getting suspended.
“Hurry!”
She followed me, dressed back in her sensual nightdress that was part of the reason I chose her at the bar. Thankfully she had enough sense not to wear her heels.
“There’s a cleaner’s lift over there.” I pointed. “We’ll move across the edges and make it straight to it. From there, we can get to the ground floor.”
“Move across the edges? I – I can’t – I’m not a god-forsaken circus act –” she turned to me. “How can you say something like that so calmly?”
If there was enough time, I would have explained to her that walking on the thin edges of buildings was something I mastered because I would never have been able to escape my room as a child otherwise.
However, I’d never attempted it with stakes this high before. The thirty-third floor of a hotel was a bit different from the fifth floor of a mansion.
“Are – are you sure the people after us are going to kill us? Wouldn’t – wouldn’t our odds of surviving be higher if we just gave them what they wanted – I can’t –”
“Then I’ll leave you behind to your fate. I’m sure when they realize that I’m gone, you’ll be happy to give them whatever they want.”
She went pale.
“I – I don’t understand, why – why are people after you?”
“My father’s name has been on the Forbes top ten list for two consecutive decades. You don’t get to accomplish that without making a few enemies along the way, intentionally or otherwise.” I said, turning my eyes to her. “Like women who try to drug you because you laid off their hardworking fathers.”
She bit her lip. “I – My plan was –”
“There’s no time.” I pointed to the nearest foothold. “Just follow my lead. Don’t look down. Press your body against the wall and shuffle. Pretend you’re a spirit that can’t let people see her back or pretend you’re playing a realistic version of the floor is lava.”
“I – I can’t – this – this is too much! All I wanted was –”
The door burst open with the sound of wood shattering. A clap not unlike thunder echoed throughout the room and my ears rang. She screamed at the sound of the gunshot, panicked, and slipped over.
I grabbed her right hand. Her bodyweight slammed my ribs against the protective railing. She shrieked as my hasty catch dislocated her right shoulder.
But at least I caught her. It was a rather long way down after all. Grunting from the exertion of holding her entire body weight with one hand, she was too incoherent with the pain of her dislocated shoulder to realize that I just saved her life.
Why am I saving her life?
It would be easy to just let go –
“I don’t want to die – Idontwanttodie – Idontwanttodie –”
I pulled her up without thinking. I tried to avoid doing more damage to her dislocated shoulder as I did, and ignored the potential threat of an armed man behind me.
I underestimated what people would do to survive.
She grabbed my tie, cutting off my flow of air in her desperate attempt to climb up. It became leverage. Like a see-saw, an exchange occurred. One person went up, and the other went down.
My descent was filled with more surprise than terror. Surprise at the lull of falling, the sensation of weightlessness, and surprise at my own folly. Had I focused on myself and nothing else, left the woman to whatever fate would find her, I would not be weightlessly embracing the wind.
I could not fly or sprout wings to stop the rapidly gaining concrete from making contact with my body. I found myself cursing my tendency to frequent a particular bar to pick-up women for casual sex. Perhaps being in a stable relationship, or changing my habits would have saved me this encounter.
I wondered what her plan with drugging me was. I supposed it no longer mattered.
You could have let her die.
My decent was endless. I felt as though I was falling from space, instead of from a marginally tall building. I was hearing words in a voice that did not sound like my own voice.
Why did you save her life?
“Instinct I suppose. Instinct and the fact that her death would be problematic for me in the long-run.”
You have no value for life?
“I did not state that. Even thieves, conmen and criminals have value; insurance investigators and prison wardens would be unemployed otherwise.”
I was certain that one’s subconscious did not suddenly start asking people questions like these when they were falling to their deaths.
“What exactly is going on?”
Do you believe in the existence of a higher being?
My first instinct was to laugh. “Which one? There are hundreds, thousands, with contradicting faiths and perspectives and arguments even within their own belief systems. No – I found myself sorely lacking in faith.”
“Although, finding myself falling off a rooftop for what feels like several minutes is clearly not a normal occurrence. Are you god? A god? Some god? Am I to believe that some being beyond my perception and form of existence has prolonged the seconds before my death in order to have a casual conversation with me?”
“I am honored. Amused, but honored.”
Amused?
“Oh, yes, certainly amused. Do you do this for everyone about to die or perhaps there is something that makes me special?”
The circumstances of death:
Dying to save an enemy.
To save a person who wished you harm.
To save a person, who, by all means, you did not need to save, but choose to.
Dying to save a person, who ends up killing you, accidentally or otherwise.
“Accidentally?”
Disoriented, panicked and in severe pain, she reached out blindly and pulled you to your demise.
“That... does not entirely make things better. Had I known – ”
Had you known, I would not be speaking with you.
“I suppose one positive thing came out of this.”
One positive thing. Confirming the existence of higher beings. Not that it had any value at this point.
“How many people die in these ways you’ve listed? Dying to save an enemy, to sa
ve someone who hates you?”
Not many. Most are martyrs. Others are souls with empathy your world does not deserve. You however –
“Yes?”
You are an oddity. You do not harbor hatred or loathing for the woman, in spite of her actions.
“Should I?”
Had you never met her, you would still be alive. Had you not tried to save her as well, you would still be alive.
“Her brother died of cancer, her father committed suicide and she slept with the man she held responsible because... she wanted to drug him? Honestly? I never understood what her and her sister’s plan was, and considering how badly it ended up failing... I pity her.”
There are few humans so arrogant, or perhaps so sympathetic, they pity their own murderer.
“Thank you.”
It was not a compliment.
“It validates my uniqueness. So I count it as one.”
Do as you will. Your test commences now.
“Test?”
A series of questions and trials that shall determine if you will have a peaceful afterlife or one of eternal torment.
“I’m not interested in either.”
I stopped falling. Time, the world, everything around me froze as I was suspended in air.
You do not desire an afterlife?
“Other than not wanting eternal torment for obvious reasons,” I began, “I am not keen on a peaceful afterlife either. A peaceful afterlife is... pointless. Of what purpose is there in a world where I have everything I already want? Or of a world where there is nothing I want? Or of a world where the things that I desire are not allowed?”
“I would rather take oblivion.”
The things you desire? What makes you believe these things will not be present?
“Even assuming I can have unprotected sex with no risks of children or contracting STDs in this afterlife, I doubt I can possess extravagant wealth and power to laud over others. But more important than my own vanity, the struggle to attain said wealth and power is what I want most.”
“A peaceful afterlife defeats the point of struggle. It defeats the purpose of competition. If I have nothing to struggle for, and no reason to compete... why would I want to keep existing?”
You desire... competition?
“Ask anyone who has ever bested their friend at a sport, defeated a rival at a game, or even so much as lip-synced to a bad song better than their cohorts. Competition is an innate part of man’s existence. Conquering not only your fellow man but yourself, delivers an immense satisfaction that can ever be imitated or replicated in an afterlife – in a place where there should be no need for competition.”
This... is unexpected.
“You can’t expect me to believe I’m the only person who has brought this argument to you.”
Those I meet tend to oft be religious or openly trusting. I suppose it is because there are few pragmatics who would bother saving someone wishing them harm.
“I am honored... and insulted.”
So would deny a peaceful afterlife, because you desire competition?
“At the risk of being smote by lightning, if you are indeed a form of omnipotent, omniscient being, should you not have known this before meeting me?”
I never claimed to be all-powerful nor all-knowing.
“So what are you? ‘God’ would be a bit of a misnomer, and as a being who seems unaware of my responses, thoughts and ergo destiny, calling you a ‘deity’ would be... inappropriate.”
“The manner in which you offered to grant me access to an afterlife almost sounded rather as though I was not having a conversation with a god, as more I was being offered a deal by –”
The Devil?
“Not really. That would be attributing to you some level of omniscient power you do not have. I mean, if you were the devil, you could have tempted me with things you knew I would fall for.”
I thought it over.
“How about I call you Oblivion?”
Oblivion?
“In lieu of your obliviousness, and my preferred method of existence after death.”
I have rendered tests and judgments of millions and none but you have had the gall to give me a name, yet alone call me oblivious.
“Seeing as how I have proved my uniqueness time and again, I take it this means you will grant my desire of eternal slumber?”
You did not bother attempting to plead for a second chance at life. Have you no desire to continue in the world of the living?
“Second chances are on the table?”
They are not. Once you die, you can never walk this world as a living being again.
“So why bring this up?”
Because you did not. Most, would at the least, attempt to know all their options before choosing to forever end their existence. Yet you made the decision hastily, almost as though you have long decided upon it. Why?
“I don’t have to answer that.”
No. No you do not. Nevertheless, I have heard all that I wish to hear.
“Good talk Oblivion. Now, is this the part where I stop existing?”
Earlier, you said you said there was no purpose to living in a world where you have everything you desire, where there is nothing you desire, and where the things you desire are not allowed.
“Where are you going with this?”
I take it that means, a world where you have nothing you want, a world, where you want to gain everything, and a world, where even the worst of your desires are allowed would be suitable to your tastes?
“No – no no no – that is not what I want – you are misinterpreting my words –”
My decision has been made.
“Wait – Oblivion – you –”
Try not to die prematurely this time.
Time continued. There was ne’er an opportunity for me to scream or curse as my body succumbed to gravity, resuming my fall, and the cold pavement appeared before me.
Chapter 1
Oblivion
When I woke, I was hit with an inexplicable sense of wrongness.
I was intimately familiar with my body and my senses, for it was my body, and they were my senses. My sense of balance, of temperature, of the space around me and even of time... all were eschewed. I knew, immediately, that my body, was wrong.
I could not feel my arms. I could not feel my legs. I could not feel my shoulders nor my fingers nor head nor my mouth nor anything. All I could feel was that my body was small, unnaturally compact, and narrow. I was an armless, legless, headless being, and my ability to move was confined to pitifully writhing across the ground.
I quelled my desire to scream. I failed, realizing that I did not desire to scream out of horror, but rather, out of rage. So, I desperately wanted to scream.
But I had no mouth.
What I had was a narrow, tiny passageway that disgustingly was incapable of so much as a whimper. I tried, again and again and again to scream, to be able, to have that right, the right to communicate my rage and indignation to the world. To be deprived of my limbs, I could endure, painstakingly, I could endure that. But to be deprived of my ability to express anger?
OBLIVION! I roared. I tried to roar. Nothing. No sound emerged. Save for the small recesses of what I knew to be my consciousness crying out, the world did not stir.
I moved, wriggling my body however I could, desperate to slam myself against whatever rough surface I could find and end this farce of an existence. I wanted an eternity of dark nothingness, as such would be far more preferable to an unknown amount of time as... this.
It was hard, to move. With no eyes, I could not see. With no ears, I could not hear. With no arms or legs, the only thing I could do, was fold my ‘stomach’ against itself, then push forward, skidding against the moist coldness. Again, and again, I did this, blindly, this body, moved. I was unsure how long I went. In what direction, I went. All I knew, was that I moved. I kept moving, spurned by the overwhelming desire to end this lie of a reality.
; And as I moved, it became... easier.
[Skill {Crawl} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Crawl Lv. 2} acquired]
The words, bright, brilliant, floating on a translucent blue screen, appeared. Simultaneously, the words preserved my sanity, and at the same time, they served as the one thing that almost shattered it.
OBLIVION! I roared again.
I knew what it was. My younger self was intimately familiar with them. The days when I was a reclusive child who sat in front of a computer consuming wish-fulfilling, escapist fantasy seemed to have finally come back to mock me. Did Oblivion know about my childhood? Was this the being’s way of mocking me? Of telling me that he was not as ‘oblivious’ as I thought?
The screen both damned me and saved me, and I knew, I knew, intimately, that if I possessed a mouth, a throat, and I was capable of using them, this would have been the moment I laughed. Laughed in a manner that would have me in straitjackets, with bulky men in white robes holding me down and pushing me into a room that stank of sterilizers and antiseptic.
I needed information. Urgently, I needed to ascertain that this was indeed the situation I believed that I was in. Being unable to speak, the first thing I did was to think as hard and as loudly as I could. I did my best to remember the terms, and went through them. Menu. Help. Tutorial. Status.
Status
It seemed it was as I suspected.
Status
Name: [Unnamed]
Race: [Lesser Annelid]
Specie(s): [Common Earthworm]
Level: 1
HP: 5/5
MP: N/A
HP Regen: 0.5/Day.
MP Regen: N/A
Negative Effects: [Starved]
Positive Effects: [N/A]
Title(s): [Reincarnated] [User]
I was now glad, for my inability to speak. I was not sure what I would have said, to the information that appeared before me. I did not know what sort of response would be apt, to the realization that it was exactly as I suspected. No, it was significantly, tremendously worse than I suspected.
Common earthworm.
Earthworm. I was an earthworm. As a creature that crawled upon the soil and shriveled up under the sun. As the very being that was synonymous with feebleness. A creature that was used as unit of measurement for the pathetic, the spineless and the laughable. I was that creature.