Where the hell am I? Was my first thought when I woke up this morning. I was laying down in a vast white void just outside a small house, which was strange because I’m fairly confident that this isn't where I went to bed last night.

Actually, I don't even remember going to sleep last night. The whiteness of the void quickly began to hurt my eyes so I sat up and focused on the house. It was a crappy looking thing, almost like who ever was living there spent almost no time here. Weeds were growing all along the walkway up to the door and the screen-door was falling off. The door itself was open as if inviting me in. There was no light coming from the open door or the cracked windows. As I stood up I began to think of what happened yesterday to try and get a better idea of where I was.

I woke up late, took a five minute shower, skipped breakfast, went to work, had a major breakthrough, left work with friends, went to the bar with friends to celebrate said breakthrough, got drunk and… oh shit, I got drunk.

Drunk me always does stupid shit, and it looks like drunk me did something really stupid this time. Getting lost in a large white space is definitely something drunk me would do.

This probably isn’t a movie studio or something similar, I don’t think security would let a wasted 30 year-old get inside. Maybe I could check my location on my phone, hopefully I’m somewhere covered by my service provider. At least I don’t appear to be in the ruins of Italy again.

Hoping drunk me didn’t repeat the mistake of traveling halfway across the world to a highly contested militarized zone for a third time, I move my hands to reach into my pockets but I stop as I look down at my current attire. Drunk me seems to have decided that my company mandated uniform wasn’t up to par as I’m currently wearing a solid white onesie I’ve never seen before. My phone was not in any of its pockets, nor did it have pockets to begin with.

I have no idea where I am, I don’t have my phone, I’m wearing clothes I’ve never seen before, I don’t know where my other outfit is, and I don’t even remember how I got into this situation. It’s hard to say that things could get much worse.

This seemingly endless white space is starting to creep me out, so let’s go inside the house. I cautiously walk up to the house, push aside the broken screen door, and step inside.

“Hello?” I personally didn’t expect my shout to get any sort of response and would you believe it, I was right. Although I’m not sure if it was a good or bad thing that I was alone.

To my left is a staircase going both up and down, to my right is a large open room and there’s a door at the end of the hallway. I walk into the room on my right and sit down on the couch that’s positioned behind an old looking coffee table.

As I look around the room I get the idea that this was a living room at one point, but I have no idea what was living here. The wooden piano against the far wall has large burns all over it and there are feathers poking out behind furniture like the housekeeper got lazy and swept them under the couch hoping no one would notice. There were also some weeds sprouting from the carpet.

Truly the dwelling of a king. Was this the home of an arsonist who had a ton of birds or something?

There were two large bookshelves flanking the entrance to the main hallway, both were completely full with tall thin books.

Wait, are those movies? I got off the couch and moved closer to the bookshelves. Both were completely filled with old blu-ray’s, which was a little strange because physical copies of books, movies, games, and other media have been almost completely replaced by digital storage. This isn’t the 2030’s after all, we’re not cavemen.

After thinking about it, isn’t this out of place? Even if this house is rundown enough to use blu-rays there isn't a TV in this room, much less a DVD-player or whatever archaic device plays these relics. Everything else in the room was old and either burned, covered in weeds, or hiding feathers, but these shelves don’t have any sort of blemish on them.

The movies themselves covered a broad range of genres, so I had no idea what the previous tenant preferred but I could tell that he liked movies.

I’m getting distracted, I should look for some kind of phone or something. Maybe this guy still has a landline, I’ve heard from my Mom that those were popular back in her retirement home.

I leave the living room because there were no means of communication with the outside world in there. As I walk to the closed door and walk by the staircase I thought I heard the distinct sound of a laser rifle coming from downstairs.

Yeah, even though it was quiet, I definitely heard a laser rifle. For the last five years of my life, my team and I have been researching and developing plasma weapons that are a viable option in warfare. During that research project we all inevitably watched every sci-fi movie in existence and during that ordeal we became very wise in the ways of laser weaponry. In fact we just found a viable way to power the damn things after all this time, a huge accomplishment considering how hot you need plasma to be to get it to be more effective than a bullet.

Straining my ears, I could hear lots of laser rifles coming from downstairs, like someone was watching a movie.

Maybe I’m not alone. That thought was both relieving and a little terrifying at the same time. If there is another person downstairs, then I could try to talk to him to figure out where I am, but anyone who lives in a small rundown house in the middle of a void probably has something wrong with them.

“Hello, is anyone there?” I call out again, just like the first time there is no answer. The stairs creak as I lightly tread down them, the ambient light from the void becoming less abundant as I descend. Once I reach the closed door at the bottom of the stairs I reach for the handle. I visibly cringe as the door loudly creaks open.

“About time someone showed up. Come on in, the movie’s getting really good.” The door opened up into a surprisingly large room for a house like this one. Because the lighting was akin to a movie cinema it was a little hard to see all the details, but I did see the sea of DVD cases covering the floor and walls. At the end of the room was a large TV screen with a couch in front of it. Someone was sitting in the couch waving me over.

“You were expecting me?” After wading through the knee-deep ocean of DVD’s I sat down on a chair next to the couch. The man was exceedingly casual and he had a pretty mediocre face. The most I could say about it was that he had really curly dirty-blonde hair. His attire was also super casual, wearing pink pajama pants and a shirt that looked to be one size too big.

“I’ll answer your question when the movie’s over, I’m enjoying this one.” After he tells me off, I turn my head towards the cinema-esque screen. It was an old space opera, an infamous one at that. There’s nothing wrong with the movie itself, except that it spends a lot of time building up to its sequel which was majorly disappointing. That sequel ruined the whole franchise and tarnished a lot of people’s careers. A complete waste.

After an intense fight scene with the main hero and main antagonist wrestling over a blaster to see who can shoot each other first, the hero is about to end the antagonist when a bolt from a blaster suddenly shoots the gun from the hero’s hand. It’s the heroine! And she’s in kahoots with the antagonist! Honestly the hero should have seen it coming, the signs were everywhere. The heroine shoots the hero and the movie ends on a cliffhanger and the screen fades to black.

“Wow that was amazing!” The strange movie-goer exclaimed. “Let’s watch the sequel right now!” He starts shoveling through the DVD’s covering the floor.

“Um, could you answer my question?” I manage to choke out. I do not want to see that sequel right now, I’d be too disappointed and angry. “You can watch the sequel after that.”

“Oh yeah you did have a question.” It seems like he’s temporarily given up on his search and has sat back down on the couch. “Ask your query and I shall beseech you knowledge from my endless fountain of wisdom.” I think this guy has a god complex.

“Where am I?” I ask the simplest question first.

“My domain.” He nods matter-a-factly.

“Where is that?”

“The void between worlds.”

…

…

…

“Well actually it’s more like it hangs off of Lesotis’s reality, but it is technically in the void between worlds.”

I’m sorry did I miss an episode? This guy isn’t making any sense. He’s spouting proper nouns that I’ve never heard before like everyone knows it.

“I’m sorry I’ve never heard of Lesotis before, is that some new island off the coast of Australia or something?” Ever since Australia was blown to smithereens, new land masses have been found recently. Maybe one of those was named Lesotis and this idiot decided to live there. Still wouldn’t explain the white void though.

“Wait you haven’t?” He looked confused, did he think he was world famous or something? “I spent the time to write an introductory pamphlet so I didn’t have to explain this stuff. Did you not read the pamphlet?”

“There was no pamphlet.”

“Its should be in your pockets.”

“I don’t have pockets.”

“Really? Then who’s pockets did I put that in? Whatever I can wing this.” That last part was almost a whisper but I heard it. The man cleared his throat and loosened his collar. “My name is Caboose and you are dead. You have entered my realm because I need someone to represent me in some ‘summer games’. Any questions so far?”

Did this crazy man just say I was dead? I did not expect to be told I was dead today. I think that's one of the last things people expect when they wake up in the morning.

“Did you just say that I’m dead? Because I’m pretty sure I’m alive right now.”

“No no, that’s a common misconception in situations like this” Caboose wagged his finger. “You’re 100% dead. D-E-D dead.” I really don’t like people telling me that I’m dead, especially when I’m conscious enough for them to tell me.

“I’m sorry I’m still a little confused. You’re telling me that I’ve died right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Even though your talking to me right now?”

“Yes.”

“And how exactly did I die, might I ask?”

“Gimme a sec.” His eyes began to glow white. I was a little taken aback by this, I thought that people stopped wearing light up-contacts when the first guy went blind. After a few seconds his eyes stopped glowing. “It looks like you got drunk, hijacked a plane, flew to Italy and got shot down after provoking a fighter jet. Quite a way to go out if you ask me.” This story makes too much sense, dammit drunk me.

“If I’m dead then why am I talking to you, shouldn’t I be talking to god or something similar?”

“I am that god or something similar.”

“You sure as hell don’t look like one.” He really didn’t, I haven’t heard of any god that would wear what he’s wearing and live in a house as crappy as this.

“It’s the moustache isn’t it?”

“You don’t even have a moustache.”

“Exactly, back when I had a moustache nobody questioned that I was a god, now look at me. Moustacheless and naked. I only shaved it because Dad told me to. He said it was ‘too imposing’, whatever that meant.” This guy was nuts. “Anyways we’re getting off track, I am god- a god, and because it doesn’t look like you believe me…” Caboose snapped his fingers.

Caboose is a god. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. It's such a simple fact- WAIT A SECOND! Even though I didn’t believe it a second ago, now I can only see Caboose as god. If I’m in front of God, that means that I’m actually dead. That means that everything that God has said up until now was true. I don’t like this. Not one bit.

“Any more questions before we move on?” God asked.

“Wh-Where am I?” I noticed that I unconsciously adjusted my posture and tone to be a more respectful. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty. I was extremely nervous in the face of God.

“Okay I think you get the idea.” God snapped his fingers and his moustache disappeared. “Maybe the moustache is too imposing. Anyways you’re in my domain which is currently latched onto a planet called Lesotis.” Caboose leaned back into the couch. “I need you to represent me in a game.”

“What sort of game?” I ask cautiously. If I wasn't on edge before, I sure as hell was now.

“You’ll be given a nifty rock, there are five others, collect them and don’t die. That's really the gist of it.” Caboose said that casually.

“I feel like your leaving things out.” If I was going to agree to anything, I want to have a good idea of what it was. I still have no idea if this guy’s intentions for me are pure and good and all that crap.

“I am but we’ll get to that. There’s sort of a lot an I don’t want to overwhelm you since you seem a little slow. You’re following me so far, right?” I’m not sure I like this man.

“Just so we’re clear, I have yet to agree to represent you in this game.” I need to make that point clear. I feel like Caboose is the kind of guy to do whatever he wants unless you specifically tell him otherwise.

“I mean sure, but you are dead. Most dead people just die like usual, but you’re here right now. If you don't agree to the game you’ll go to where all the other dead people go.” He says this in an unusually off-putting way.

“...And where is that?”

“Nowhere in particular. Your soul just gets wiped and reused, recycling is the future ya know.” That was a lot less menacing then I thought it was going to be. “But if you agree to help me in this game then you’ll be reincarnated with you memories and a gift of your choosing.”

“What do you mean by ‘gift”? Is it that rock you were talking about?”

“No, basically you get a wish with restrictions. Just ask me and I’ll tell you if it’s okay or not.” My ears perked up at that.

A wish. I could ask for almost anything and have it? That’s really nice. I still have yet to agree to this, but I’ll see where this goes for now.

“Where will I be reincarnating into to play this game?”

“Lesotis.”

“What is Lesotis like?”

“It’s similar to Earth, as most planets with life are, but this one has magic. Actually most have magic. Earth is weird now that I think about it.” Magic is real? If magic is real then why doesn’t Earth have any? Isn’t that super unfair to Earthlings like me?

“Why doesn’t the Earth have magic?” To that question, Caboose enters a thinking pose for a few seconds.

“This is kinda hard to explain but Ima try anyways.” He claps and rubs his hands together. “Basically there’s a giant worm in your sun right, and that’s eating all the magic in the solar system.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I've heard all day, and the bar for that was very high.”

“Look there’s a lot of nuance to it and it’s already hard to understand as a god. To any mortal it would sound like your listening in on a conversation about string theory when you still have yet to learn the language. Plus Izo would be better at explaining it than me.” I have no idea who this Izo person is, but he sounds easier to deal with than Caboose.

“Giant worms aside, could you tell me a little about this magic stuff?” If I was going to go through with this, I wanted to know more about this magic business.

“Sure.” Caboose cleared his throat again. “Basically, magic is the manipulation of the world through thought and stuff. The energy you use to do that manipulating comes from your soul and how strong that is, usually. There are a ton of exceptions to the rule and you’re one of them. Usually reincarnating would mean that you have a full lifetime of experiences under your belt, making the soul generate more energy. However because of that worm hiding in your sun, your soul is unable to go through that process. In short, you really can’t use magic as well as you should be able to, with your life experience and whatnot.”

“I’m sorry, what? You’re saying that a giant worm in the sun has made me magically inept?” This was unfair. Not only did I not know that magic existed all my life, but now I can’t even use it properly!

“Yeah, the worm feeds off of the, oh how do I explain this in a way you can understand?” Caboose put his hand on his chin while in clear mental agony. He clearly wasn’t used to thinking this much. “Growing in magic power is a lot like breaking into a new pair of shoes that light up the more you use them. It’s supposed to go like this right, you use the magic and your soul becomes more familiar with it, making more energy than it used to. But because that worm was drinking your magical energy like a smoothie, your soul never got used to that energy and it really doesn’t know how to make it. If that makes sense.”

“So no one on Earth can use magic, because this worm is eating the magic before we can use, so none of us can get used to magic. And because we can’t get used to magic, our souls never develop?” I try to sum up what Caboose just said and it sort of makes sense, in a ‘This is all completely new to me so it’s okay if I don’t fully understand it’-sort of way.

“That’s basically it, but there is another type of magic that you’ll probably have more success with.”

“Wait what do you mean? My soul isn’t developed, how can I use any type of magic properly?”

“That’s because you don’t have to use your magic for this kind. I had a graphic for this somewhere.” Caboose starts shoveling through the DVD’s, clearly looking for something. “Right, it was in the pamphlet. Gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.” Caboose stood up and disappeared.

Well, what now? This whole situation was completely absurd, but it’s definitely real. Caboose was a god, I believed that now. And if Caboose was god, then I really did die. That was really unfortunate. It’s not that I’ll miss Earth, that shithole has been going downhill ever since the downfall of the American dollar. I’ll miss my friends, but I was never that close with any of them, they were just friends from work. What I’ll truly miss the most though was my workshop. Everything just made sense to me when I was working on some project, the feeling of having tangible progress was comforting in a world of constant wars.

Honestly, I was unhappy that Earth was where I had to live my life. It fucking sucked. I don’t know much about this Lesotis, but it has to be better than Earth right?

After a few minutes Caboose reappeared with a small whiteboard and a marker. He sat back down on the couch and started to draw something.

“You know what electrical circuits are right?”

“Yeah, I worked with them frequently.”

“Good, so this is sort of like that but magic.”

“That explains almost nothing.”

“I know.” Caboose flipped the whiteboard over so I could see it. There was one circle connected to another by a series of lines. The circle on the left was glowing and Caboose’s finger was touching the middle of the other circle.

“This is a simple magic circuit. It collects the magic energy in my finger and moves it to the other circle. Once the energy gets to that circle it performs an action predetermined by the one who wrote the circle.” Caboose erased the circuit and took some time to draw another one while explaining further.

“When you write a magic circuit you have to have a clear idea of what you want it to do and properly section it off into different functions that perform the actions that make up the larger actions. If you don’t do things properly then the circuit won’t function properly, if it even works at all.” Caboose flipped over the whiteboard again then handed it to me. “Just to give you an idea, why don’t you try.”

There was already a magic circuit written on the board. The circuit was simple looking at first, but on closer inspection the lines were covered in different markings. I had no idea what they did, but it looks like Caboose wanted me to just copy what I saw. It took awhile but I did it. My circuit is an exact copy of the one above.

“Now put this rock in the top circle of your circuit.” Caboose tossed me a small crystal looking thing. I almost dropped it in the DVD’s because of how suddenly he tossed it. As I held the rock, I could feel a small tingle in my finger. I put the rock in the circle and waited.

Nothing happened.

“Now put the rock in my circuit.” I did as I was told. Once the rock was in Caboose’s circuit, the circuit lit up and started spinning, the colors of the light changing every so often. Once the circuit stopped I picked up the rock.

“Why didn’t mine do that? It was exactly the same as yours.” The rock I was holding no longer tingled my fingers, like whatever was in there had left.

“Because of what I said earlier. You have to have a clear idea of what you want the circuit to do, and what all the parts mean. You had no such intent when you wrote the circuit and because of it, the circuit didn’t even activate.” Caboose took the whiteboard back.

“What are the limitations of magic and magic circuits?” I wanted to know just what I could do if I got my hands on this.

“There really aren’t any, well if you have the magic energy for it at least.” Caboose snapped his fingers and the whiteboard vanished. “If you’re asking, them I assume you’re interested in my game?”

“Not so much the game, more so the idea that I get to go to a planet other than Earth. You said Lesotis was similar to Earth right? What way is it similar?” If this world was in the middle of a huge war and nukes were flying every which way, I’d prefer to sit this one out. I don’t want to go through that again.

“This is just a rule of thumb when going to other planets, but don’t expect them to be as advanced technologically or philosophically as Earth. Earth may not have had magic, but there were only ever humans there. The fact that everyone was the same race got people working together much sooner than other worlds. The fact that they couldn't use magic made them look at the world with a more perceptive eye than others would. Think of it like the 1950’s but with magic and the cold war isn’t happening. Most of Lesotis is actually at peace now that I think about it. Anyways i haven’t really been keeping too many tabs on the place, so that's all I can really give you right now.”

This sounds promising. A decently advanced world with magic, the world isn’t at 11:59 on the doomsday clock, and there are these magic circuit things. At this point, I really had nothing to lose here. Not only do I get a second life, I also get to play with magic, but there was something I wanted to ask before I fully agreed.

“Caboose, you said that dead people have their soul wiped and reused right?”

“Yep, you’ve really been a good listener so far, you should be proud.”

“Great. So why am I here and not there?”

“Because I need you to represent me in this game. I thought I explained this already. I take back what I said about you being a good listener.”

“Fantastic, But that's not my question. What I want to know is why am I here? Why not literally anyone else?”

“Oh that, I set up a dreamcatcher for souls and you got caught.”

“So it was by random chance.”

“You know it baby.” Caboose winked and shot finger guns. I’ve decided, I don't like this man. So anyone would have done? I suppose that he doesn’t really need anyone specific, he just needs someone. And if that someone gets an extra life, then count me in.

“Fine, I’ll represent you in this game.”

“Great!” Caboose claps his hands and stand up with a smile on his face. “Now gimme a sec to get everything ready, we have some paperwork to do.” I frowned at that. I hate paperwork.

“I hate paperwork.”

“So do I, but we have to get the specifics down. Don’t worry you won’t have to do any of the actual writing.” Caboose clapped his hands and the sea of DVD’s parted. A table with a stack of documents and a blank spin wheel rose out of the floor. Now that I actually saw the floor for the first time, I can say that the carpet was blue.

“So first off, gender. I’m sure my siblings would ask you or just use your current gender, but that wouldn’t be any fun.” Caboose snapped his fingers. The face of the spin wheel glowed for a second then showed four new quadrants, all with different genders. Male, female, both, neither. I don’t like where this is going.

“Hey Caboose I think your siblings have the right idea, why don’t we just use my current gender and not do what I think your about to do, okay?” I plead with him not to do this. I am not going to be spending my new life as a man, or anything weird. That would be too much.

“Too late.” Caboose spun the wheel. It spun for ten seconds and I was incredibly nervous the whole time. When the spin wheel came to a stop, it landed on the female quadrant.

“Oh thank god.” The tension eases up and I fall back into my chair.

“No need to thank me, we still have more to do.” This man is going to kill me. The next hour or so was just Caboose spinning a wheel to determine various things about my coming reincarnation into Lesotis. I have no idea what most of these things mean, and I got no real say in anything. I just hope I don’t end up with any birth defects.

“Now we need a name. What did you have in mind?” I glared at Caboose like he was an insane man.

“After all this time, you’re only asking for my opinion NOW! For fuck’s sake you didn’t even let me change anything when you arbitrarily decided that I would be allergic to any fruit that starts with the letter “C”! I don’t even understand how that allergy is supposed to work!”

“It's a magic allergy, don’t question it.”

That just makes me want to question it more!

“I’m asking you what name you want because I can’t come up with enough names to fill the spin wheel.”

I was pretty mad about that allergy, but I’m choosing my name right now. If I give Caboose enough time to think of one, I’ll forever be known as Trogdor or something worse.

“Oh! How about Julie? That’s a good one!” Julie, that was the name of the heroine in the movie Caboose was watching. The one that was completely ruined by its sequel. How about no.

“Why don't we go with something else, like Adriana or Samantha?”

“Too late my dear Julie.” Caboose wrote down the name Julie and the paperwork disappeared. Goddammit now I’m named after a complete failure. Well, it could be worse.

“Anyways Julie, here’s the skippy. There are five others being reincarnated just like you, and unlike you they won’t be magically inept. Remember, keep you rock safe and collect the rocks from the other guys. Do your best not to die, I have a lot riding on you so don’t lose. You can find the rock under a larger rock that has no business being where it is. If you have any other questions you can use the rock to call me once a year. Bye bye Julie, good luck have fun.”

“What about my gift?!” Caboose was about to snap his fingers but I shouted before that.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. What do you want?” Caboose put his hand down and waited for my answer.

What do I want? Well if there are five others, then they’ll also get gifts and they’ll be amazing at magic apparently. I’m already at a disadvantage. Maybe I could wish for more magic?

“Could you make me a prodigy at magic or something?”

“No can do.” Well there goes that idea. “To do that I’d have to make your soul used to magic, and because of your worm situation you’re already worse than a toddler. The only real way to fix that problem would be to throw you in a time capsule for 100 years, and time manipulation isn’t my strong suit.”

Caboose entered another thinking pose, I could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. I was also trying to think of something, but when you can have potentially anything, it’s hard to figure out what you want.

“You said you worked with electrical circuits right?”

“Yeah, electrical engineering, mechanical engineer, robotics, thermodynamics, programming. Pretty much anything that would help me at work.”

“That’s impressive, anyways why don’t I just give you a complete understanding of all forms of magicology? That way you can make magic plasma rifles.” That was a very attractive proposal. I don’t remember telling Caboose that I was working on plasma rifles, but he is a god. It wouldn’t be hard for him to figure out.

Magic plasma weapons, I really liked the sound of that. Powering them might prove to be a problem, considering that the method me and my team found on Earth may not apply, but I’ll figure something out.

“Let’s do that then.” I was really excited. Magic plasma weapons. I don’t even have to stop there! I could make tons of things with these magic circuits. And because I didn’t have to go through the bothersome process of learning it, I could get started right away!

“Your wish is my command.” Caboose spoke in an overly dramatic tone and clapped his hands together. As everything started glowing Caboose said one final thing.

“Remember, the rock is under a larger rock that shouldn’t be where it is. I could just give you the rock but that wouldn’t be any fun. If you have any other questions, you can use the rock to ask me once a year. Good luck and don’t lose.” I was bathed in light, and lost consciousness.

And that was how I met the stupidest god to ever exist.