Enzo slowly opened his eyes. He didn’t hurt anymore, the burning sensation was gone as was all the smoke. He looked around and saw that he was now in an office of sorts. The walls of the room were a dark cherry wood and black, uncomfortable-looking chairs were spread along the walls. The desk at the front of the room was a block of obsidian, five feet tall and perfectly cubed with a white marble countertop. A tall, severe woman sat behind the desk and looked down her nose at Enzo.

“Name?” She demanded.

“Enzo Incando? Where am I? What happened?” Enzo shakily replied.

“Cause of death?” She continued, ignoring his questions entirely.

“What? I’m dead?” Enzo asked. I remember a fire… but I died?

“Great, another one,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Yes, you’re dead. The sooner you get used to it, the better. There’s a bus bombing due in five minutes, lets hurry this up. How did you die?”

“Uhh, in a wildfire… so I guess I burned to death?” replied Enzo. “The boy! Is he okay?”

“You came in alone,” she stated cryptically as she began filling out paperwork. “You should really avoid the wildlife department, they have been busy thanks to you.”

“Is this really the afterlife?” Enzo asked as he looked around. There seemed to be halls and other doorways but he couldn’t look directly at them. The more he tried to look, the less he could see and it was infuriating. Certainly not the pearly gates he was expecting.

“This is technically after your life, so yes, it’s the afterlife,” she said as she hammered a stamp on the papers. “Here is your registration ticket, you will be called in the order we have received you. Have a seat. Next!”

Enzo looked down at the papers. He felt the same strange sensation, that there was far more information on the pages than what he could see but the more he looked, the less he could actually read. All he could see was:

Onboarding - Complete

Debrief - ETA 10 minutes

Fate

Burned to death in a wildfire - Fire Affinity.

Perks

- Heat Resistance.

Scheduled Resurgence - NA

Scheduled Reassignment - NA

He looked back up at the woman behind the desk. He could feel a presence beginning to form behind him. Guess that was the bus bombing victims coming in.

“What does any of this mean? Fire Affinity? What is a resurgence or reassignment?” Enzo asked desperately. “Please just tell me something!”

“Sit down and wait your turn!” the woman barked. The room shook with the sound of her voice, making it clear that any further questions would not be tolerated.

Stunned, Enzo walked over to the nearest chair and sat down. As he moved through the room, he noticed a sort of fog coming over him. Was this what was affecting his perception of things? He looked around and discovered that he could no longer see the woman, and only had the barest idea of where the desk was. The presence he felt forming behind him was now a figure in front of the desk but Enzo couldn’t make out any of the details of the person.

He sat and looked down at the paper. Five minutes until Debrief, I guess that's where I’ll get some answers, Enzo thought. Kind of neat, how the paper will update with an ETA for appointments. This is the afterlife though, I guess anything is possible.

Enzo tried to think back to his previous life while he waited, but the same slippery, foggy feeling was pervasive in his mind as well. His friends were now vague emotional memories, their faces lost every time he tried to focus on them. What was it that he’d done in his past life? He just remembered disliking it and wanting to work with his hands. Strangely, the desire to work with his hands was firm in his mind, unlike the shifting fogginess of everything else. The words on pages in his hands shifted imperceptibly.

Perks - Heat Resistance.

Perks - Handy.

“Incident number 436882… Enzo Incando, please head to office three,” called a voice. Enzo had no idea where office three was, he could barely tell he was still in the same waiting room he started in. Cautiously, he stood and tried to collect himself.

May as well wander somewhere and see if there's anyone who can point me in the right direction, Enzo thought. For an afterlife, this is really poorly organized. How in the world is anyone supposed to get anything done here?

After several shaky steps, Enzo felt the room around him shift. Suddenly, walls and doors moved past him faster than his eyes could follow. Any hope of keeping track of his surroundings was entirely lost. Enzo shut his eyes and was rooted to the spot.

“Please stop, please stop, please stop,” he whispered. “Isn’t it enough that I'm already dead? Why does the afterlife have to be like this?”

The world around Enzo came to an abrupt stop. He opened his eyes and saw a heavy wooden door in front of him. There was a nameplate on the door, but the same mental fogginess from before stopped him from reading the name. Beneath the nameplate, a golden three glowed. Enzo pressed his ear to the door but couldn’t hear anything on the other side. Slowly, cautiously, he turned the latch and opened the door. As Enzo stepped inside, the door closed behind him on its own with a heavy thud.

Enzo turned and examined the large, square room. The interior was decorated with the same dark cherry wood walls, though this office had bookshelves on one wall packed with books in a myriad of languages. The opposite wall was covered in what looked like a star chart, though the constellations marked were entirely unfamiliar to Enzo. Strange silver instruments were floating in front of the chart, making marks on their own. It reminded Enzo of the tools old ship captains used before GPS, though whatever routes they were planning were unintelligible.

The office had a much warmer feel than the previous waiting room, like the primary occupant had gone out of their way to make guests feel more at home. The back wall was dominated by a large desk similar to the one in the waiting room, though this one didn’t have the marble countertop. Behind the desk was a large empty swivel chair and an enormous brick hearth, with a roaring fire burning.

Enzo was surprised to be alone in the office. Someone had called me right? I made it to office three, somehow. Pretty unprofessional to call someone to an office and not be ready for them, he thought.

There weren’t any chairs for him to sit and wait in, so he began looking through the books on the bookshelf. Some of the spines he recognized, they may not have been in English but they used Latin lettering. He pulled a dark blue book from the shelf, and opened the pages and was immediately thrust into the book.