"I'm sorry, hon. She's gone."

And just like that, Joy's world ended.

Joy's mother held her child close. Well, "child" wasn't exactly right, but Joy being a non-binary precluded the normal gendered terminology, and "offspring" seemed too informal, not as close as they were. At 40, Joy was lucky to still have Mom hale and hearty, with most assuming Naty was their older sister and not their mom.

Joy was unlucky to have a wife taken away by a glioblastoma out of absolute nowhere. Just a few months ago, headaches. And now .... this. And all Joy could see were tears. And their frustration at themself for not seeing the signs sooner. For not being able to do anything.

Wracked with sobs, Joy leaned into their mother's embrance. "She fought so hard, Mom. I needed to be there!"

"Shh, baby, you were there for her when it counted most."

Mom, as always, was right. Joy was no doctor, and unlike most of her family, not even a nurse. Filipino-Americans were so often nurses, and Joy only barely learned to stomach needles because she'd had to use them for Kylie, at the end. If only to ease the pain when pills stopped working.

In the end, Joy's family flew in from California to help with the arrangements. Kylie's family was closer, but being rural Texans, old prejudices died hard, and while some of the younger cousins came to the service, her own parents, heartbreakingly, had not. And that entire month was just lost in a haze of grief.

But Joy had to go back to their life, regardless. They had an apartment, now much emptier yet messier. They still had a car, the sensible Japanese "bit more than a kei-car" Kylie had insisted on. They still had a job, which was better than the waitressing and retail they had in nevertheless happier days. But the bills were continuing to mount, and they'd burned through their meager savings and Joy's side-hustles with all the medical expenses which just wouldn't stop coming.

Joy felt the opposite of her name. Dispirited. Tired. Adrift. Even knowing their work at the local food bank (which paid surprisingly well for a non-profit) was doing so much good ... just didn't help. How could it? Their Important Person, their fellow traveler from Grand Bahama to Kobe, their personal college-age Manic Pixie Dream Girl and sometime cosplayer turned responsible and frugal CEO of "Rodriguez-Thayer Enterprises" - their in-jokey way of calling their relationship turned marriage - was gone.

On the way back from a workday filled with condolences from coworkers, which Joy secretly dreaded but bore anyway knowing the messages were out of genuine concern and empathy, and not a way to hurt them intentionally, Joy drove their little car up the East Austin side roads, as if on autopilot.

It was then that she saw the young girl running across the street.

If there was one thing Alegria "Joy" Rodriguez-Thayer prided themself on above all else, it was that they had never hurt anyone else with her driving since they had gotten a learner's permit way back in the mid-90s, not even accidentally, like applying a Hippocratic Oath to the road. Today would not be the day to break that oath, but that little girl was too close for the ABS to fully work. And Joy was forced to swerve left.

They noticed two things too late: a teenage boy had run out to pull that little girl out of the way, and had interposed himself in the path Joy would have taken had they not swerved.

And Joy saw a two-ton Mack truck directly ahead.

In that last moment of clarity, the absurd cliche was the first thing to make Joy laugh since they'd lost Kylie. And then the darkness came.

---

[System initiating. Soul 'Alegria Rodriguez-Thayer' detected]

Wahwaaah wah wah-waahhwaaaahwaahwah.

Joy instinctively tried to look around, but saw or heard nothing, not so much as they perceived something like a voice permeating their existence. From nowhere in particular, the sound came, somewhere between the song of angels and the weird drone the adults made on Charlie Brown holiday specials way back when. Odd. It took Joy another moment to understand what was being said, though the voice sounded clearer and feminine, for lack of a better descriptor.

Let's try that again. Greetings and salutations, Alegria "Joy" Rodriguez-Thayer. I am called Hayamisuji-no-mikoto. We regret to inform you that you are now deceased.

Joy had been an apatheist in life: it hadn't mattered to them whether or not one believed in one god or eight million, so long as that path led them to do right by others. That said, they'd secretly been fond of the idea of the Japanese kami and suddenly felt the urge to pump their fists. If they'd had any at this moment.

Oh, I am no deity, just a servant of the system. Normally, my job is to escort you to a holding area for other souls to wait for the preparation of the final judgment, but you have been granted an exemption, as your final deeds were deemed above and beyond the call of duty of humankind.

Joy intuited that this Hayamisuji-no-mikoto, which they didn't remembering about in their copious studies of Japanese folklore, could read their thoughts.

That would be correct.

I only did what any decent person should've done.

In every simulation we ran prior, we found that to not be the case.

What.

81.95% of the time, both children were hit, because the driver wasn't even looking at the road but their cellphone. 18.05% of the time, the boy alone was hit fatally, because the car or truck involved braked too late.

That's literally one hundred percent.

I rounded for your convenience, the actual percentage of neither dying was one quadrillionth of one percent.

Joy couldn't even think anything for a moment.

You broke FATE. So we have a proposal for you: you may freely reincarnate into any world you choose, with as much of your memories intact as you wish. However, the one caveat is that we cannot currently accommodate you in an afterlife.

Well, damn. So. No reunion with Kylie.

There is a slim chance she will eventually reincarnate in your world, but that would involve her leaving her current abode and I'm not sure you want to do that.

Wait. Kylie was cheerfully atheist, like, YouTube channels and conferences atheists ... but then she did work in deprogramming cultists for a living.

You have NO idea how many points that scored for her. She's fine.

Okay, so if Kylie is in ... heaven, well heaven can wait? And ... okay, bear me out here. Are there any worlds that need saving?

Hayamisuji-no-mikoto laughed.

Is that what you really want to do? I mean, that is pretty adorable but-

Absolutely NOT. I am a person, and I'd like to stay that away, and not be turned into a slime or a dungeon core or a tentacle monster or whatever. I just ... want to travel all around a world just like Earth. Just better.

Joy could almost hear the gears in the dei- system servant's head turning. Well, if Hayamisuji-no-mikoto even had a head. Or a humanoid form.

I know just the place. A just reward for an honorable life and an honorable death. May you find what you seek, Joy.

Joy could swear in that moment they perceived the form of ... a woman robed in black, her hood down revealing a pale but beautiful face framed in stark black, wavy hair, standing on a strangely elegant but foreboding boat, pole in hand. In the last moment before being whisked away, Joy heard one last ... giggle.

How do you feel about roommates?