***The Eternal Planes***

***Jayden***

Death didn't turn out to be as bad as I had expected it.

Surrounded by my friends and family, dying at the old age of ninety-two, that was the best I could have asked for. Yes, suffering from slowly failing lungs had meant a slow death, but at least I had kept most of my marbles till the end. That was something I really liked to joke about when the youngsters gave in to their feelings and got all gloomy after the doctors confirmed that my fate was just a question of time.

To be honest, I would have been fine with just falling asleep and never waking up.

It was all the more perplexing to close my eyes for the final time and then to open them, finding myself inside a youthful version of my old body!

Death had turned out to be slightly interesting, especially after the actual dying part was over. None of the stories about the afterlife I had heard about mentioned drifting through a white space that had nothing in it.

Well, aside from air, obviously, since I was still breathing. I wiggled my arms and feet, imagining that this was how astronauts must feel.

In the back of my mind, I had harboured the fear of meeting my dear wife again, the old hag. It was a blessing when she hat left me a few years before my own time came.

I shook myself and forced my attention towards more immediate matters.

Some stout believer may have thought that this eternal white meant something positive and pure. But I had a bad feeling that this place wasn't exactly heaven.

Maybe this was something different altogether! Maybe aliens had snatched from death’s bed and put me into this new body!

I looked around as the reality of my new situation slowly settled in.

Without finding anything aside from myself in hospital pyjamas, I quickly became bored of simply drifting along. If this was indeed the afterlife, or worse, then it definitely lacked entertainment!

Okay, maybe this situation wasn't as glorious as I first thought. With more time to think about it, new horror scenarios came to mind.

For example, floating around forever with nothing to do would get quite boring really quickly and consequently drive me insane. How long could I exist in this state without turning into a complete nutcase?

“Hello,” I called out uncertainly. “Is anyone around? God, maybe?”

Silence answered me.

There wasn't even an echo.

Not that I had expected the Great One himself to answer me. Officially, I had been Christian, but that was in name only. The reality of things was that I never believed in the doctrine. Just like more or less most of the population, I was a member of the church in name only.

Like many others, I was simply too lazy to renounce my membership to have my name stricken from the roster. As long as the church didn't bother me, there was simply no reason to do so.

Likely, the church must have known that as well. Which was the reason why they avoided drawing the attention of the mindless sheep that were upping their numbers on paper.

I was about to call out again when something strange happened.

An eye opened right in front of me, followed by a second, and then a third! They simply appeared from the endless white that surrounded me. More and more. Most in pairs, others alone.

I gasped in shock when I found myself suddenly surrounded by slitted eyes that pierced the annoying white space. All were watching me – unblinking – judging.

All of a sudden, I wished the boring white to return.

“Ah...” I gulped. “My name is Jayden. N- n- nice to meet you.”

The pair of green eyes that was directly in front of me blinked, and suddenly, all the eyes merged into a single being. A black cat with green eyes.

I kept floating, since there wasn't really anything else this weird reality allowed me to do. “Nice, little kitty. Why don't you tell me how to get out of here?”

The cat tilted its head as I reached out and tried to pet it.

Looking at the situation in hindsight, that probably wasn't the smartest move. But I had just found myself in a white space after dying in a hospital bed. Then some strange eye-monster with shape-shifting abilities had appeared out of nowhere and transformed into a normal house cat.

And no, the ominous detail of it being completely black wasn’t lost on me.

There was really only one possible explanation for all of this in my mind at that moment.

Either the afterlife was more fucked-up than any of the religions predicted.

Or I wasn't quite dead yet, and the doctors had given me something that had sent me onto an epic acid trip that was better than the Crystal Meth that I had tried once in university. A foolish move that I had avoided repeating ever since.

The cat sniffed on my hand and then licked it before the creature allowed me to pet its head.

I let out the breath that I hadn't realized I had been holding. “Oh, so you are a nice guy after all. When you pulled that eye-trick on me, I feared you to be the mental child of H.P. Lovecraft.”

My new friend opened its maw wide as it suddenly started growing.

Then its maw opened wider.

And even wider until all I could see was a red throat.

I may have been screaming...

And, unfortunately, I was quite sure that I had pissed myself by the point at which the beast bit into my chest and started running. The cat was now the size of an elephant and carrying me like some chew-toy.

Howling, I beat at the beast, feeling its teeth grinding at my spine and breaking my ribs.

It didn't care about my feeble protests and ran even faster.

The wind of incredible acceleration blew at the parts of my body that weren't in the cat's mouth. It was like being one of those people who had entered a wind tunnel. The difference lay in that instead of my cheeks flapping, my hands and legs did so.

I couldn't even hear myself scream properly. As soon as the sound left my throat, it was ripped away by the rushing air.

Before my panic could give way to rational thought, we stopped and the cat spit me out!

Covered in cat spit, I tried getting to my feet, only for the cat's paw to hit me. It sent me back onto my belly and sliding across the floor.

I came to a stop in front of a pair of boots. Huge boots, large enough to belong to a titan!

Looking up, I found a genuine Demon looking down at me with an expectant expression. His golden eyes had a weight to them that made me hesitate, and the pupils within seemed to hold all of reality.

At least he looked like a Demon, but he felt nothing like it. Admittedly, I hadn't seen many Demons while I was still on Earth, so I didn’t have any reference to go by. The only thing I was certain of was that they shouldn’t feel like beings that were to be venerated.

I cursed and questioned my life's choices. “So, this is hell after all?”

“Look at what the cat dragged in.” The Demon had a book in his hand and looked from me to his tome. Strange effects and things were apparently crawling in and out from between the pages, never repeating themselves.

A drop of green liquid fell onto the ground next to me and sizzled.

A snake that wound itself out of the cover and disappeared between the pages.

Some discharge of green energy that caused grass to sprout and whither on the white ground where it hit.

Why was there suddenly a floor in this place anyway?

Just to make sure, I hit the ground with a fist. It was firm but had some give to it. Like some form of rubber.

I shook my head and looked up at the looming figure. “Hello?” I slowly got back to my feet, fearing the worst. But I found myself completely uninjured.

Hadn't the cat bitten into my chest?

I looked back up to the Demon. “My name is-”

“Jayden Hayworth,” the Demon interrupted. “You were taken out of the normal reincarnation process to join Project Ascension! You may thank me later – once you regained your memories.”

“Ah-” I gawked at the Demon.

He apparently didn't care about my mental stability and continued, “You see, after the latest war between the gods, we found ourselves a little short on hands and my wife suggested this little charity project! I don't see the point. I would have just trained one of the countless lesser deities for the job, but she thinks that verified talent is better than appropriate training.”

The Demon raised his voice in pitch as if he was aping a woman. “Just help some of those mortals to are capable of attaining true godhood if you find yourself short on hands. There must be some way to find trustworthy people to monitor all those worlds. I can think of nothing that would make them more loyal than raising them from the muck of mortality.”

Suddenly, the white ground beneath me rumbled and shook.

“Wow! Stop!” The demon, much larger than myself, fought for balance. “Stop that! The equipment!”

Then he turned, looking somewhere only he could see.

“Don't hit the soulspace stabilisation, Celes! Thank you very much! What are you going to do if it pops and the mortal's soul in here gets blown to pieces!? A trans-dimensional pocket-verse like this one isn't the easiest thing to maintain just to communicate with a soul without a real body! You know very well how long it takes to put them back together when they break! And mortal souls break all too easily.”

I had the distinct feeling of watching someone talking to someone else off-screen. And that there was something more important than just my life at stake.

This wasn't going down anything like I would have expected.

The demon grumbled and returned his attention to me as if to check whether I was still whole. “Thank the multiverse! Soul obliteration avoided! Where was I?”

“You were introducing yourself?” I asked.

“I am Chaos, but you can call me Angrod, the King of Gods, Creator of the Multiverse-”

The floor shook again, and the supposed god quickly corrected himself. “Co-Creator of the multiverse – Order helped a little. But I am most powerful of them all!”

Chaos stopped to think about something. “And patron-deity of all cat-kind!” He raised a fist and shook it as if he had achieved something grandiose.

It felt like I had just entered one of those episodes from Dr Who. The ones where nothing really made sense to me. I wondered why the cat-thing was important, but I decided to just roll with it.

“Then why am I here?” I looked at the black cat who was now back to normal size, but thankfully the monster didn't take offence to my disillusioned treatment of its master.

“To ascend and to become one of my henchmen!” the god replied without hesitation. “There have been circumstances – and my wife decided on a charity project for lesser beings like yourself. Call it a... proof of concept. I have judged your soul and found just a little bit of potential in it. With the help of a god, you might be able to strengthen yourself and become slightly more powerful than the average deity.”

I blinked. “And what if-”

The titan turned quickly and kneeled, his golden eyes hovering over me, burning with a light that seemed capable of extinguishing existence itself. “There isn't really an option when I ask people for something. When Angrod tells you to jump, you jump.” The god smiled, showing me a set of pointy teeth that looked highly disturbing. “Greater beings than a mere mortal do not dare to deny one of my orders.”

I gulped.

That guy knew how to play the intimidation game, but didn't want to back down when I still knew nothing of my situation. “Then why? Why me? What did I do to deserve...” I gestured around. “This!”

Angrod looked at his book. “Infidelity! I have seen to it that I only take souls for this project who carry the greatest of sins. After all, it involves the forced ascension of a mortal soul. We wouldn't want to use innocents for such a dangerous endeavour.”

“Inf...” For a moment, my mind refused to work.

Then I exploded. “There must be something wrong. I have never cheated on my wife! Never! Not in all of my-”

“Jayden, Jayden...” Angrod shook his head and closed the book. “It's not about what you did in this life. I know very well that you aren’t even aware of your transgressions. But trust me if I tell you that there are some sins that transcend even universes. And yours only ever grew since you forgot about your one true commitment!”

“Wha-”

I couldn't get out anything else, because Angrod flicked his fingers and everything went dark.