Writer’s spot: Because Author’s corner are overrated.

SO, here we are. A brand new series made only because I needed some break from my other story. This will be a kind of Re: story, with a slight difference. But then, I’m no expert at Re: style stories, so it might get a bit different down the road (or right at the beginning? Maybe?)

BESIDES, for the next week or two, I will update this regularly, but the chapters may or may not be as long as Insania’s, since I won’t try to stick to the 4k a chapter. But this also means that there is a greater chance for double chapter while I’m updating it. After I return to Insania, I will start to update this occasionally.

Enjoy your story!

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The spirit finally seemed to stir up, moving around restlessly as he tried to make out his surrounding, trying to understand where he was and what was happening. Confusion, shock and mostly importantly…

“God dammit, this is one boring place.”

Yes, boredom.

Not that there was much that the spirit could do into such a space. With nothing extending to the front, and even less to the back, all around him was the never-ending darkness, broken only by the occasional pulsating lines of blue light that, just as the blackness, came from the infinity and went to nowhere.

Such a scene would have made many people feel despair, fear or others such a thing. But strangely, the soul didn’t seem all that bothered, and simply watched the nothingness around him.

But this did nothing to quench the soul’s boredom. He could feel as the area around him twisted and contorted his sense of time and space. He couldn’t tell if he arrived here a few seconds or years ago, and something like that did not help with his little problem.

Trying to move around, the soul finally noticed that he could, somehow, move around. Well, at least that is what he thought he was doing, it is a bit hard when your sense of space is as twisted as time.

He moved forward, trying to find something that could at least pique his interest, but no matter how long he moved, nothing at all caught his attention. A sigh would have escaped his lips, should he still have them, but even that was lacking in such a boring area.

Trying to take advantage of his lack of an actual physical body, and the sheer feeling of boredom that seemed to overwhelm him, the soul tried to see if other ranges of movements were also available to his formless body.

And yes! The soul could move in more than the usual front, back and sideways! Noticing that it could also spin itself around, the soul immediately put itself to spin around, doing loops and spinning around while shouting happily.

“Wheee!”

“Hmm… What are you doing?” A voice suddenly said, making the soul stop into its tracks and look around. Or doing something as close to looking around as it could without a body.

“Who’s there?” The soul shouted after not seeing anyone. “Rather, where are you? I can’t see anything here!” Then the soul clicked its tongue, or at least made a sound that sounded like so. “Worst dream ever. Flying is nice, though.”

“And why do you think that this is a dream?” The voice asked the soul once again.

“Well… Because I’m pretty sure I had a body last time I checked.” The soul said as if stating the obvious. “That, and I can’t help but have this feeling that I heard your voice in some other place. And I’m pretty sure that I’ve never talked to an disembodied voice before, therefore, dream.” The soul nodded, satisfied with himself.

“I must say that is quite a logic reasoning you have.” The voice said, with its feminine intonation and a slightly strange flair to it. The soul knew that it sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his non-existing finger on it.

“I know, right?” The soul sounded proud of itself, stuffing its spiritual imaginary chest out. “Besides, this seems absurdly close to a certain fanfiction I’ve read on a site. Actually, a lot of them look like this.” He said while spinning around, as if pointing to the whole world around it.

“So… You have stories like these in your world?” The voice said with a slightly amused tone. “But I fear I must refute your dream theory.” The voice said with some slight grief.

And for the first time, the soul actually felt worried. A brief moment of silence. The briefest of the moments, before it finally spoke again.

“What… What do you mean by that?” The soul asked, slightly shocked, but the voice simply said in a sad tone.

“Tell me… What is the last thing you remember before arriving here?” The voice asked.

And the soul stopped, shocked by this sudden question. A question that made it start to think back to before he popped up in this place. He could still remember earlier that day.

He had woken up in his bed, as usual, and went straight to the bathroom to wash his face to at least look a bit more presentable. Then he went to the kitchen, drank his usual mug of coffee and milk, with way more milk than coffee, to tell the truth. His friends always mocked him because of that, but he never could take on hot food anyway.

Afterwards, he went to surf on the internet without minding much about college, since it was a weekend. Some fanfictions later, he heard as his family started to wake up. His twin sisters popping up from the door and complaining about how can someone wake up five in the morning during a weekend.

He simply turned to them and stuck out his tongue, which resulted into one of their usual full-out battle, where his sisters would try to attack him, and he kept keeping them away with less than swift footsteps, and more use of his larger body-frame.

Afterwards, his father and mother woke up, complaining that there was too much noise too early in the morning, and somehow he managed to shrug the blame all towards the twins. Which only resulted into even more of a friendly war between the twins and the not-yet-spirit spirit.

Then, his sisters left, due to having a meeting with a friend from their schools. His parents left for an intimate lunch, just between the two. Something they did every two or so months. The twenty years old young-man, in a not so responsible sounding idea, decided to stay and watch their home. As well as that one show he had been waiting for the last two weeks. Not that he hid this from them, actually.

Since the show was around lunch-time, he heated up the previous day’s food, and then…

The soul paled, or would if… Oh, you get the drift!

“Then… Am I… Really… Dead?” Well, I have been calling you a soul since the beginning…

“Sorry…” That was all that the voice said, grief clearly present in that brief vocalized moment.

The soul simply stood there, quietly while he processed what he had just heard. His mind wrapping up around the fact that he truly was dead. A long time went by with only silence between the two of them. The soul lost track of time for a moment, lost in his confusing feelings.

How would his family feel knowing that he was dead. How would his friends react at the news? What could he have done to survive? No, that one he knew. But why didn’t he do it? No, that did not matter for now.

A sigh marked the moment when the self-mourning finished.

“Are you alright?” The voice asked, and the soul nodded. “Are you sure? You only had a few seconds…”

“Just a few seconds? Felt a lot longer than that.” The soul asked confused.

“Time… Is a bit strange here.” The voice said, and the soul simply nodded. “But are you really fine?”

“I see… And yes, I am fine. If I keep moping around nothing would change.” He muttered in a sad voice. “Anyway, if I follow the pattern here… Now would be where you invite me to be reincarnated in another world, right?” The soul asked as if he already knew what was happening.

“So, you already knew?” The voice asked surprised.

“Yeah… That is what actually happens in these scenarios… You come, show yourself to me, tell me you are some kind of goddess from another world, tell me I have a compatible soul or something, then summon slash reincarnate me to another world where I have to fight some kind of invading force because you can’t interfere directly. Or something like that.” The soul told the voice as if stating a fact. Then suddenly, it’s voice became… Annoyed. “But usually… The character’s death are a lot less... Ridiculous.”

The voice said nothing to his last comment, for any kind of thing she could say to him would only worsen his mood. Besides, a death because you choked on food while laughing at a comedy show isn’t exactly something people would like to remember.

As he said, a ridiculous death.

After some few seconds of awkward silence, or were they hours? The soul didn’t quite know. Stupid twisted time. The voice finally said.

“Yes. I am a goddess, and yes, I am offering to reincarnate you.” She said, and the Soul held itself to not shout out BINGO right there and then. But the goddess’ next words shocked him. “But, I don’t need you to fight an invading force nor anything of the like. What I need, is for you to free me.”

Such unexpected words shocked the soul. And taking such a silence as a sign to go on, the goddess went on to tell her story. She, along with other gods suddenly appeared on her world an eternity ago, and together, they all created their world. Each mention of world having a different meaning, mind you.

But the other gods disliked the fact that she was different from them, and thus, as soon as their task was nearing completion, and all of them were exhausted, the other gods turned against her and locked her within a seal.

Ages went by, and as the goddess was powerless, because the seal managed to not only hold her in place, but also avoid her from getting her energy back. Thus, she was forced to simply stand by and wait as the world and its inhabitants developed without her being able to guide the very beings that she created. Even when the others races started to spread out and develop themselves.

“But the seal wasn’t exactly perfect, and slowly I managed to regain some of my energy, so that I… Is something the matter?” The goddess asked, noticing that the Soul had gone quiet for a moment.

“Wha? No… It’s just that I really have the feeling that I know your voice from somewhere, and that is really bothering me. A lot, actually.” The soul said while trying to hold it’s non-existent chin with his imaginary hand.

The goddess went silent for a moment as she smiled in amusement. Rather, that is how it felt to the Soul. How he knew she was smiling? Absolutely no idea.

“I did tell you that I was locked since the beginnings of time, correct?” The soul nodded. “Because of that, right now I don’t have anyone who even knows of my existence. Even the other gods seems to have forgotten about me by now.” She said with a slight hint of sadness. “So I have nothing of what you call… Identity. I don’t know how I look, I don’t know how I sound, and I don’t know how I am called.” Now it wasn’t only a hint, but a full-fledged sadness. “Without anything like that, I had to take something from your memories to represent myself. And this voice seemed to be closely related to what I am. At least in your thoughts.”

The soul looked surprised for a moment, suddenly feeling that his own death wasn’t that much of a problem, compared to what this goddess had gone through. Steeling himself, he decided that it was about time to change the direction of the talk.

“Then, you want me to take you out so you can have your revenge against the other gods?” The soul asked, but the goddess went silent for a moment.

“No.” She said calmly, with a slight hint of anger in her voice. “Having my revenge… Would take me nowhere. At most, it would end up bringing the end of my world. I… Do not wish for that.” She said in the same calm tone. “All that I really want is to leave this place. Leave this place and travel around the world, see what I missed in all these ages I’ve spent here.” A small pause. “But… If that’s impossible, I would like for you to kill me.”

“Denied.” The soul said straight away, the goddess seemed surprised, since she didn’t speak anything. “You want me to free you? Sure, I’m in. But I don’t plan on killing you if all else fails.” He said while nodding.

“I see… Thanks.” The goddess said in a low tone.

“So, what do I get? Since you said that you are weak right now… I guess I can’t expect to be reincarnated on a blessed body with ridiculous skills, do I?”

“No… As you said, I can’t grant you that.” She agreed sadly. “With the energy I have, the body that I can create is… Flawed, to say the least.” She said with a slight hint of grief in her voice. “But I can at least give you a way to improve yourself.”

“Well… Works for me.” The soul said as if shrugging his shoulder. “So, where exactly do I have to go to find you?”

“I… Don’t know.” The goddess said. “I know nothing of the world as it is now, and I was unconscious while the other gods moved me around, so I don’t have the slightest idea of where I am, nor how the world is.” She said sadly.

The soul simply nodded in response, and a brief (or was it long?) moment of silence fell between the two of them. But different from the last time, this one wasn’t awkward, and it was mostly so that the soul could have some time to think for itself. After some time, it finally nodded.

“Okay, when do we start?” he asked, and he could almost feel the goddess beam a smile, even when he still couldn’t see her.

“Thank you!” She said cheerfully. “I’ll send you to the body I prepared right away then...” She said cheerfully before suddenly stopping. “Sorry, it seems that in all that happened, I didn’t quite get your name…” The goddess said with a slight embarrassed tone.

“Oh, that?” The soul said indifferently. “The name is Garry. AkA Gaz, a nickname my friends gave me in some games.”

“I see… I would introduce myself, but I don’t really have a name, sorry.” The goddess said with a slightly awkward tone. “Well, then I’ll send you over now. Thanks for helping me.” She said one last time, and Gaz would have smiled if he could.

And with that, he felt as his consciousness started to fade out into the blackness, being lulled into a sweet sleep. However, the moment before he finally blacked out, he suddenly remembered. Taking all of his energy to try and stay awake for one last moment, he said.

“Wait… I remember! Your voice… Is from that game’s… A.I…. Why…?” He said as he fought against the sleepy feeling.

“Hmm? Didn’t I tell you?” The goddess asked surprised. “I’m what you people would call…”

“The machines’ goddess.”