Sepeti gasped as he realized that, once again, he was conscious. He heaved, inhaling greedily. Everything felt fuzzy, sparkly, odd. He could feel himself, and yet, he couldn’t feel a thing. It was an odd sensation, it felt as if he’d slept too long and all his fine motor skills had somehow atrophied. The numbness made everything tingle, tiny electric currents running up and down his arms and legs. His body felt simultaneously real and unreal.

Was he finally dead? Is this what the eternal, blissful sleep felt like? Had that idiotically named ‘God’ actually fulfilled his deepest desire?

“How dare you refer to me as a God with the air quotations. Don’t you know who I am?” The voice that spoke to Sepeti was both youthful and ancient. It seemed confused as to what its age should be, constantly switching tones and pitches with each uttered word.

“No,” Sepeti answered gruffly, clearing his throat of what felt like millennia of cobwebs. It was hard to speak, there was a low-grade numbness tingling just below every word. He wanted to brush his teeth for some odd reason. Just thinking about his throat and mouth made those areas feel sore.

“Well,” the voice huffed, radiating from everywhere at once. “It’s me. Boba, the Most High, the Bringer of Magicks, all that good stuff. I thought you’d recognize me with all the messages I’d sent you over the years.”

“What messages?” Sepeti couldn’t remember any messages being sent to him. He was sure he would have remembered, even more so if they were messages from a ‘God.’

“Dude, I’m literally a god. I can sense your inner monologues and stuff. Please, stop air quoting me. It’s bad enough that everyone else does it to me. I don’t need a mortal hero doing it as well.”

Boba sounded like he was going through some things as the God’s undulating voice broke, just for a second. Then he quickly corrected himself with a grunt.

“Anyways, yeah. I sent a bunch of messages. My worshippers kept treating my messages as some kind of call to pilgrimage so you may have come across a bunch of them at any given time.”

“Right. About that,” Sepeti wanted to scratch his beard. It helped him think. But he found he was unable to do so. The tingling in his arms grew unbearable as he attempted to move. The mere thought of moving made everything unbearable.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Boba said, voice moving from one side to the other. The ‘God’ obviously wasn’t one to sit still. “In your current form, you’re nothing more than a bundle of nerves. There’s nothing for you to move or touch or feel.”

“Then how can I talk to you?”

“Magick, with a k. Much cooler than that wimpy stuff you mortals use. Now, back to the mystery of the messages. You never got any of them, did you?”

Sepeti moved as if to shake his head but was stopped by the unbearable tingling. “No.”

“And why is that?” The ‘God’ sounded amused, like a parent asking a child a question they already had the answer to.

“Because every time the Machina appeared, we kept thinking it was a full-scale invasion. So I beat them up and sent them packing each time.”

“Huh, so they weren’t lying,” Boba’s voice drifted away, sounding like he was deep in thought.

“Look, you’re a ‘God,’ aren’t you supposed to be omniscient and all-knowing? It was an honest mistake. We couldn’t even understand their squeaking and crunching until pretty recently. How were we supposed to know they were on a pilgrimage and trying to deliver a message?”

“Stop air quoting me!” Boba yelled as the empty expanse changed colors into a deep blood red. Electricity crackled, flames whooshed around where his head was supposed to be, turbulent water cycled beneath him.

“I am a fully realized god and I will not be air quoted by a damned mortal! You respect me now, and I mean it! Just because I refer to myself in the lowercase doesn’t mean you get to diminish my authority!”

Boba huffed and puffed, causing the space to pulsate to the rhythm of his breathing.

Sepeti would have whistled had he had the faculties to do so. He’d always thought of God’s as impersonal extradimensional beings who were untouchable, infallible, ineffable. All the ‘ble words. Whatever the hell they meant.

The pulsating slowed as the God appeared to calm down. Boba let out a sigh before muttering something to himself. To Sepeti’s surprise, he couldn’t hear what was uttered. Maybe it was a special power of some kind blocking his senses.

“It’s not a special power,” Boba said, sounding a bit downtrodden. “Your senses just aren’t as sharp as they were back on that forsaken realm. In fact, everything about you has been reset. You’re no longer the OP character that you once were.”

“So, I’m actually dead?” Sepeti asked, sounding a bit more upbeat than he should have. He was happy either way, being somewhere where Eternal Sleep might be an actual thing. Then he could laze around and enjoy a good, restful night’s slumber. There was no peace quite like getting to sleep as long as you wanted.

“Kinda.” Boba sounded nervous, like he was hiding something. Odd that a God would show so much emotion. “You’re outside the loop right now. Have been for a really long time, actually. This was the only solution I could come up with to skirt around your agreement with Journal.”

“Fuck Journal,” Sepeti said, unable to keep the sentiment to himself. “Where is that idiot? I have a few choice words for them. And if you can give me an arm, I wanna punch them in the throat.”

Boba giggled nervously.

“Journal’s… kinda dead. Has been for a really long time.”

“What? How?”

“It’s,” Boba trailed off as the lighting of the area turned to a somber yellow. “It’s a long story. Being dead for a God is different from when you die as a mortal. It’s less permanent. And much more problematic. In fact, that’s the main reason we’re even talking. All of Journal’s responsibilities got dumped on me when they kicked the bucket.”

“So, I’ve been writing to a dead God all this time? Who the hell’s been reading all my entries?”

“That’s what you’re concerned about? You’re not in the least bit concerned with the extra responsibility I’ve had to shoulder? Or the inconvenience this has caused for the rest of us?”

“Why should I care if a bunch of God’s have been inconvenienced? I barely even know any of your names. I literally just learned your name not too long before I got here.”

Everything turned a sickly shade of green as an immense feeling of nauseous annoyance pressed down on Sepeti.

“You… you… inconsiderate little mortal! Why did I even bother bringing you here? This was such a waste of time and energy!”

The surroundings brightened to an obnoxious shade of pink that would have surely burned his eyes out if he’d had any. Sepeti wanted to chuckle but couldn’t quite figure out how to do so in his incorporeal form. Being in the presence of such an incompetent and ineffectual ‘God’ was proving to be incredibly amusing.

“You’re doing it again!” Boba screeched as the surroundings reverted to a deep, pulsating red.

“Sorry, sorry, old habits die hard,” Sepeti said as he attempted to placate the God’s mercurial mood swings. “Promise I’ll work on that. I’m just awed at the fact that I’m in a God’s presence. Ya know?”

The pulsating froze as the redness of the surrounding lightened a smidge.

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.” Boba sniffled as he tried to discreetly clear his nose and throat.

“Not at all, I’m being completely honest.” Sepeti kept himself in check, trying his best not to give anything away. “Now, come on. Let’s talk about the more important stuff. Like the messages you were trying to send and why I’m here, wherever this place is.”

Boba hawked back and spat, surprising Sepeti that a God even needed to use such a mortal expression. The God sniffled again as the surroundings paled to a light orange with flickers of blue floating about.

“Well,” Boba began, voice shaky as he cleared his throat. “I can’t get into detail about everything with Journal, but the basic gist of things is that Journal is dead. All of their responsibilities were divvied up between the rest of us and, as a joke, the Others decided it would be funny to stick me with Journal’s last and only contractee, you. The problem is that I’m prohibited from directly interacting with any humans due to some… old stuff that happened. It’s not important. What is important is that I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for a very long time now.”

The empty expanse turned to a somber brown as the God continued his long-winded explanation.

“Basically, I was trying to talk to you about reneging on the contract. This would have been the only way for you to achieve your inane goal of Eternal Slumber. But the only way we could have initiated the process would have been through a direct conversation. I think. And, as I said before, I couldn’t contact you directly for asinine cosmic reasons. So, I sent my worshippers in my stead. Unfortunately, only the highest of their kind could communicate my will and only partially.”

“Mhm, a complete miscommunication. I get it,” Sepeti said rotely, trying to push the conversation without angering the God again. “So what happened after? I finally got… some of your message. And I ended up here. So, what’s going on? Why am I up from my peaceful sleep?”

“That’s the thing,” Boba said as the colors shifted nervously, flitting between a slate gray and an anxious teal. “I wasn’t actually able to kill you. I was able to pull you out of the timestream’s loop but that wasn’t enough to breach the integrity of the contract. Journal was a lot more… thorough than I’d expected.”

A familiar notebook popped into existence, floating before Sepeti. It blinked a constant red.

“This stupid thing won’t open for me. And the only way for me to access the finer points of your contract is to get inside it. I think. So, here we are, I need you to open it so we can void the contract and you’ll be on your merry way to whatever you and Journal agreed to. Again, I think.”

Sepeti scoffed as he tried to reach out to the notebook, only realizing the futility of his action when the unbearable tingling raged through what would have been his arms.

“Concentrate on it. You’ll have to open it using your mind. Magick. With a k.”

“Open, open, open, open,” Sepeti mumbled as he focused on the floating book. “Open, damn you!”

He could see the tip of his Sepeti-proof pen sticking up from the top of the notebook. He also noticed how dogeared the corners were and how wrinkled the cover was. It looked like he had manhandled it on a regular basis. Which, to be fair, he did. At one point, he’d even used the notebook as his weapon of choice. What with it being indestructible and whatnot. Had he really used the thing so much, to wear it down and make it so ugly?

“Hey!” Boba snapped in his face. “You’re getting distracted. Concentrate, dude. I have other things to do, ya know? I’m a very busy god.”

Irritation rippled through Sepeti but he kept his pithy remark to himself. If he’d had eyelids he would have been squinting at the notebook, focusing on willing it to open. He imagined the cover of the book flipping open to reveal his most recent entry. In his mind, the crisp interior revealed itself to him. It showed the rows of his blocky handwriting, one that he’d painstakingly developed over years of writing to his contracted God. He couldn’t quite picture what was written but he was sure he could recite most of what he had expressed to Journal.

The pulsating red notebook, which he had only ever seen when he would write some kind of profanity that tripped the censors, began to slowly change to a neutral gray. Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be working.

“Yes, that’s it, keep concentrating. Get that stupid book open.” Boba’s voice was right next to his ear. It made Sepeti think of an overweight shut-in who spent way too much time in their own company.

Finally, the notebook stopped pulsating as a chime dinged in the empty space, surprising Sepeti. This was the first time he’d ever heard the notebook make any sound. An invisible force laid the book flat and quickly flipped it to the very first page. A figure sprung up and out of the pages.

“Hey there Sepeti,” a young person greeted him. They were odd-looking, he couldn’t tell what gender they were because they seemed to slip back and forth between multiple faces and ever-changing features. They were well and truly amorphous. Each moment that passed, their face shifted. “Boba, good to see you. Thanks for taking over my responsibilities. I know, it’s probably been a bit hard on you since my ‘retirement.’ I’ll make it up to you soon enough. Well, as soon as I get back to our little corner of the vast Empty that is.”

“That’s Jour--”

“Shhh, talk later, listen now,” Boba hissed in his ear.

“I owe both of you a really long-winded explanation,” Journal continued after a momentary pause as if they were waiting for the pair to fully focus on them. “But I’m gonna keep it short because it’ll be a lot more fun if you guys figure things out along the way. Boba, there is no way for you or Sepeti to annul the contract.”

Boba sighed as the expanse changed color to a deep, velvety purple.

“That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to fulfill the contract. You can, it’ll just be incredibly difficult. Or it’ll be easy as pie, all depends on how lucky you guys are.”

Boba huffed, chortling as the purple surrounding deepened. A heavy melancholy pressed down on Sepeti. He couldn’t blame the unlucky God, he was feeling some type of way too. He just wasn’t sure which way that was.

“So, the only truly viable option I see available to you two is this; Boba will enter a contract with Sepeti, Sepeti will have to be ‘rehomed’ since he has been pulled out of his second timeline and would cause a cosmic disturbance if he was injected back into the old loop, and you two will figure out a way to ‘rehire’ me in the new loop. The contents of the contract don’t matter, obviously, it’s just necessary so you two can keep in contact.”

A growl rumbled the expanse. It would have been intimidating if it hadn’t reminded Sepeti of a chastised puppy.

“Now, I know you’re probably feeling pretty frustrated, Boba. But this is really the only way for you to be free of my contract. It’s that or you will have to sit with the weight of a failed contract for the rest of eternity. I’d say you’re better off being proactive and getting things done.”

The figure, which appeared much more solid than Sepeti had expected, turned to him. Despite its facial features constantly shifting, its eyes stayed the same. They were sharp, menacing, calculating. They stared Sepeti down, he could feel this so-called dead God searching the absolute depths of his soul. Or what remained of it, anyway. After a moment, the God smiled.

“Sepeti, I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my end of the bargain. Just know that some of this was planned and some of it wasn’t. You’re welcome to live out the rest of your existence in this paltry space, lazing about in pseudo-sleep for as long as your mortal soul can hold out. You won’t have to ever deal with any other sentient beings again. You won’t have to trudge through an unwanted existence. You can just be, as you are now, forever, until this space collapses and deposits you back into whatever random loop is nearest.”

If Sepeti had eyebrows they’d be furrowed right about now. Why was the God laying it on so thick? They knew he would want nothing more than to be confined to a space where he could do absolutely nothing but laze about. Sleep the sweet sleep of the unencumbered. Doze in and out of blissful repose. He quickly made up his mind.

“Now, before you make any hasty decisions. Let me float your other option by you. Just so you know what you could be missing out on. If you contract with Boba and successfully ‘rehire’ me, I will grant you what you were promised and more. I offer whatever you want, up to and including apotheosis.”

Boba spluttered as the empty expanse quickly shifted to a bright, surprised off-white.

“Don’t overreact, Boba. It’s not all that big of a deal. Apotheosis is an easy enough deal to swing given the right candidate. Sepeti, I know becoming one of us doesn’t seem all that appealing. But, if I were to grant you the formless end that you’d always wanted, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee that you won’t be popped out into another, less contract-friendly loop after an indeterminate amount of time. Becoming a God, with a capital G because some of us tend to forget that there’s actually a difference, is more than just taking on responsibilities. You would be exempt from reincarnation and you won’t get bounced around from loop to loop. You can do as much or as little work as you please and you’ll get to be a total layabout if that’s what you desire.”

Sepeti really wanted to scratch his beard. He needed his thinking technique and he needed it now. This no-hands business really sucked.

“I’ll give you a few to think it over. Boba, separate him for a moment, I have a few things to share with you.”

A dark film glazed Sepeti’s vision, casting the currently colorless empty terrain in an odd haze. This didn’t bother Sepeti, if anything it was welcome. He still felt, firmly, that staying here would be the culmination of everything he’d ever wanted.

No one else around to bother him? Check. Quiet, easy place to laze about and sleep all day? Check. There weren’t even any day/night cycles, so he didn’t have to worry about all that ‘getting up when the suns are up’ nonsense. Hell, he could stick around for as long as he was able to handle. He was pretty sure he would be able to hold out for quite some time. He was Sepeti after all, the strongest around. Right?

A niggling annoyance tickled the back of his mind. What if he wasn’t strong enough to stick it out? Would he get popped back into ‘the loop’ as Journal said? They made it sound as if that were inevitable, as if everything returned into the cloying embrace of the ever-turning wheel.

Dammit, Journal had gotten under his skin again and now he was questioning what he wanted.

The dark film retreated as Journal’s floating figure turned back to him. Sepeti noticed that the expanse was now an earthy brown.

“So, I think you’ve had enough time to consider,” Journal began, face still twitching and changing constantly. “Whatever your answer, wait until the end of this recording and you can give it to Boba. I just hope I can nudge you in the right direction. Whatever you consider to be right.”

The figure ballooned in size, soon filling the entirety of the empty expanse.

“Now, I’ll give you one word of advice. For both of you. Don’t trust any of the others. Especially not--”

The recording cut off abruptly as the figure disappeared, leaving Sepeti in confused darkness. He wasn’t sure what to say. Or think, he still wasn’t sure what the right choice was. He just knew that he would have to make a pretty big choice and that the only being that could help him would most likely expect him to choose the less appealing of the two.

“Dammit Journal!” Boba burst as the surroundings lightened into a deep blue. “That helped not one bit! Who are we not supposed to trust!?”

Sepeti could feel the annoyance rolling off of the God. Again, he couldn’t blame him, they were both left in a precarious position. The roiling royal blues quickly mellowed into soft baby blues.

“So,” Boba the God began, sounding slightly sheepish. “About that contract?”

“I’m good,” Sepeti answered. If he had arms they’d be crossed right now. This whole incorporeal thing was pretty annoying. “I know what I wanna do. I’ll hang out here. I’m sure I can last for a good bit.”

“About that,” Boba said as the colorful expanse shifted to a soft orange. It reminded Sepeti of sunsets from a long time ago. “You don’t have much time left.”

“What?”

“Your time’s almost up. Why do you think you’re in an incorporeal state? Most of your energy has already been diffused.”

“But I only just woke up. I haven’t even had any time to properly laze about!”

“Yeah, it took a bit longer than I’d expected to wake you up.” The soft orange deepened into a soothing fuchsia. “I thought it would be a simple, straightforward process of reassembling your energy after it was dispersed by the black hole. But it turned out to be a lot har--”

“Get to the good parts. Please. You’re taking too long,” Sepeti interjected.

“Right,” Boba said, chuckling nervously. The expanse tittered in rhythm to the God’s laughter. “So, the way you died messed things up. Just so we’re clear, it’s completely the Machina’s fault and not mine. I clearly instructed them on what they were supposed to do and they somehow bungled the summoning of the black hole.”

“Yes, clearly their faults.”

“Because of that, I had to use a lot of your residual energy to get you to stick to this space that Journal prepared. You lost your previous body, black holes tend to destroy any and all corporeal things. So I’ll have to stuff you into a new body when we get that contract signed.”

“If I sign it.”

“Yeah, yeah, if. Whatever. Anyways, because of that little mishap, a large percent of the energy that constitutes you was expended, dissipated, whatever. Stupid words, can never figure out which one I’m supposed to use.”

“So,” the urge to scratch his beard was strong. The gears in his mind were clicking as the odd surroundings continued to shift in color. “Using up my energy means that my time here has been shortened?”

“Severely so,” Boba said as the surroundings shifted to a smug forest green. How could colors emanate so much emotion? “Truth is, you only have hours left to inhabit this space. Fifty hours, give or take.”

“And then what happens after?”

“This space erupts, ejecting you into the nearest loop and forcing you to endure the excruciating pain of a conscripted ‘rehoming.’ Either you will get forcibly stuffed into an occupied vessel and have to fight for the superiority of the body or a new, deficient vessel will be found for you to inhabit. There’s also the high chance that you’ll land somewhere that doesn’t recognize the authority of the current Council--”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you talk a lot. So I basically have no say in the matter. I have to contract with you and we have to figure out how to ‘rehire’ Journal. Right?”

“More or less,” Boba answered quietly.

“That’s such bullshit,” Sepeti huffed. He wanted to lay down and roll around for a bit. Kick his feet up in some covers. But, that wasn’t going to happen.

“Fine,” he grumbled, watching as the expanse brightened to a cheerful yellow. “Let’s draw up this contract.”