In a world of bright white light Ashton awoke with the most excruciating headache he’d ever had.

His entire existence pulsed with agony that prevented any coherent thoughts from forming.

The odd pulsing sensation continued for some time, perhaps minutes, possibly hours, and maybe even days until it finally faded away and he could barely perceive his surroundings again.

“He… …lo… …H… …o…” an odd, muffled voice whispered to Ashton.

Pain muddled his senses and Ashton could just make out a blurry figure looming over him, calling out to him.

“HELLO!” yelled a suddenly crisp and clear voice straight in his ear.

Ashton jerked back in recoil, shocked by the sudden noise and now a high pitched ringing buzzed in his ear.

“Ah, sorry about that, here let me help you… and… there,” the figure said, clapping his hands in success.

The pain faded away instantly, his perception of reality returned and with that Ashton returned to the world of blinding white.

As his perception adjusted to the light, the dark figure slowly cleared up and the blur faded…

Standing over him, with a smug grin etched on his face and wearing a fancy suit was an exact replica of himself.

Or rather and exact replica of his past self, his features exactly copied, right down to the small scar above his left eye.

The mimic-Ashton cleared his throat and looked right at the original, now only a floating ball of blue light, and he said,

“Hello there Ashton, how’s it goin’? I apologise for earlier, that whole passing out from pain was kinda my fault… I was just so caught up in reading I forgot that I kept my aura on, it keeps the lost souls away ya see. So yea… um real sorry, how ya been?”

Ashton hovered there in complete shock, overwhelmed by the man’s eccentricity and unable to answer in the first place as he was just a floating ball of light.

“Yeah, I don’t really care too much. So I’ll let you in on the facts and you can hurry up and get out of here so I can get back to reading about you.

Firstly, if you’re not an idiot, which you shouldn’t be, you’d have realised you’re dead, cause you are.

Secondly… what was it again? Oh yes, you just travelled through the void, it’s a fun place where souls wait to be reincarnated, even the special ones like you, so that’s that out of the way.

Thirdly you are actually god. I know right, pretty cool! I’m sort of the temporary replacement that you created during your absence. What are you doing in your absence you ask? Well you found creating and doing whatever you want forever to be kinda boring, so you sent yourself through your own system of reincarnation. Fourthly…” the god took a long sigh and paused for a few seconds or perhaps it was weeks, before continuing his long explanation.

“Ah that’s right, fourthly, you’re to keep reincarnating until you trigger a certain condition which you set yourself and as it stands now, this will be cycle thirty-seven million, eight hundred and eighty eight thousand, four hundred and twelve. So um, good luck with this one I suppose,” wished the god.

“Not that anything will happen anyways,” he quietly whispered underneath his breath afterwards.

“Anyway!” yelled the god, “moving on, there’s not much left, I promise, and I can see you have many questions to ask. Fifthly? No that sounds wrong… Well next up is a quick question, you have the option to continue into the next life with your memories or not, so is that a yes or no from you?”

Ashton knew what he wanted to say but just hovered there in silence, desperately thinking the answer towards him.

“Well, I don’t actually need an answer because I know everything and anything that’s ever happen in your life so I know what you would have said. Finally… yes finally, the last thing, it’s a bit of bad news, or I don’t know it’d not necessarily bad, but… I kinda split your soul in half… the you listening now is only like, Ashton point five, so yea, there are sorta two of you. So when you’re reincarnated look forward to meeting your other half, he’s like… ten times more fun than you are. Well, I think that’s everything, the rest you can pretty much work out on your own, besides we don’t really have much time left till you’re soul collapses in on itself, so see ya later sucker. I’ll be here waiting until you die again.”

The god winked at him before turning around and walking away into the distance, leaving behind Ashton, floating in the middle of nowhere.

As he floated there, his mind trying to make sense of everything that the god said a wave of drowsiness hit him and everything slowly faded away and he faded away from the world of white and tumbled through the void again, unconscious the whole way.