after dying god informs you that hell is a myth, and “everyone sins, its ok”. instead the dead are sorted into six “houses of heaven” based on the sins they chose.
We arrived first at the House of Lust. “House” is a misleading term. It was more of a camp, spread over acres and acres of lush forest. There was a white sandy beach (nude, of course) full of copulating couples. There were little cabins sprinkled all along the path, from which orgasmic moans regularly came belting out. Men with six pack abs and women with perky breasts strolled by without even noticing me and God. They only had eyes for each other, tickling and pinching each other with flirtatious giggles.
“What do you think?” God asked as we passed a nineteen-way taking place in a pool of champagne. Little cherubs flitted overhead armed with mops and cleaning supplies, thankfully. “Lust is our most popular sin.” I eyed the supermodel-like figures of a couple passing nearby, and could easily see why. “You can look however you want. Hell, you can be whatever gender you want. No fetish is too taboo, and no desire can be denied here.”
It was quite tempting, but I wasn’t ready to make a permanent decision here. “Let’s see the others,” I told God.
We carried on to Greed. We passed rows and rows of mansions, each more opulent than the next. Some of them were so large that they would have had enough bed rooms to fit my entire hometown. And so many different styles: one second, we were in a beautiful French vineyard in front of a gorgeous chateau with the Alps in the background. The next second, a warm tropical beach with a modern mansion atop breathtaking cliffs. After that, a ski chalet in Colorado with a roaring fire in a hearth large enough to fit an ox. Each one had various Italian sports cars and Rolls Royces parked in front, with the occasional smattering of boats, helicopters, etc.
“Any material desire you ever wanted,” God explained. “Your own world, where you can have everything. You want the Hope Diamond? You can fly to Washington DC in your own solid gold helicopter and buy it from the Smithsonian. Hell, you can just buy the Smithsonian.”
Also tempting, but I decided to keep looking.
Gluttony was next up. Tables and tables of the very finest foods: beautiful steaks cooked medium rare; butter-poached lobster tail; fresh oysters on a half shell; exotic wines in dusty bottles that had been hiding in the cellars of the world’s finest restaurants. Everyone had a glass of champagne in hand and simply lounged on couches and chairs near the tables, eating endlessly. As soon as the inhabitants took a bite, the food just instantly came back. My mouth watered even watching them.
“In every other House, the food is practically sawdust compared to Gluttony,” God explained. “You haven’t truly experienced heaven until you’ve been to Gluttony.”
I shook my head, and we kept moving.
Sloth was as you’d expect. An endless sea of the softest mattresses, stacked with cushions and pillows that made the story of the princess and the pea seem minimalist. Little angels visited each resident, giving them massages that made them all melt into their blankets.
Wrath was… well, a lot like what I’d expect Hell to be like. Fire, brimstone, whips, torture.. you know, the works. Except here, you weren’t the one being tortured. Every enemy you’d ever made in your real life was now under your thumb. “Lots of people choose their fathers,” God explained. “Lots of grudges against parents in general, you know. But you’re not limited to that. Someone beat you out for a big promotion back on Earth? Take your pound of flesh here.”
Then we arrived at Envy. It looked… well, a lot like home.
“Go on in,” God said, gesturing toward the door. I turned the knob and walked in… and found Emily waiting inside. She ran forward, wrapped her arms around my neck, and planted a kiss right on my lips. “Welcome home, honey.”
I looked back toward God. “Oh, don’t be coy,” he said. “You have no secrets from me. We all know that you were in love with your best friend’s wife.” She didn’t seem to hear him at all; she went back into the hall. “We all know that you just settled for your own wife while secretly pining after her. Well, this is your chance to live happily ever after.”
I peered into the kitchen. Emily was baking something, wearing nothing but an apron. Her curly black hair fell softly over her shoulder as she whisked ingredients. She turned back, noticed I was observing her, and an enthusiastic smile spread across her face.
“It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?” God whispered in my ear.
I wanted to take it. God damn did I want to take it. But I shook my head.
God seemed puzzled. “You need to make a decision,” he told me.
“I haven’t seen Pride yet.”
He scoffed. “No one ever wants Pride, trust me.”
“Well, I want to see it.”
_________________________
Pride was boring. Just a row of workbenches in a bare white room.
“I don’t get it,” I told God.
“Yeah, no one does,” he answered. “That’s why no one ever chooses it. Doesn’t cavorting in Lust sound better than sitting here building little trinkets for the rest of eternity? Wouldn’t you rather gorge yourself in Gluttony? Or spend time with Emily in Envy?”
I considered the options again. “I pick Pride,” I finally told him.
He narrowed his eyes. “What? Look at it!” He gestured around the room again. There wasn’t much to look at. “Why would you choose this for the rest of time?”
“Because you don’t want me to pick it,” I told him. If he was really God, he’d know what a contrarian I can be. And I knew he was hiding something, trying to pretend like Pride didn’t exist. There was something special about it.
God scowled back. “Fine.” He led me over to one of the workbenches. In the center, there was a black space. A blank, empty void that went on forever. “Here’s your universe,” he said. “You’ve got seven days to get started.” He took his seat at the bench next to me and went back to tinkering in his own world. After a long pause, he finally spoke again: “You know, it might be nice for me to actually have some company for once.”
concept: I am granted one wish by the universe, which is to live long enough to see the continents form back into one large supercontinent. For hundreds of years, I bide my times meeting new people, learning new hobbies, taking apr tin life and culture. For thousands of years, I explore new planets now that space travel is easily accessible. Eventually, I am grounded on earth for good, for millions of years. Mostly alone.
With no humans left to make conversation, I wander at my leisure, sometimes sitting for a very long time, sometimes walking for months on end, swimming across seas, cataloguing the rise and fall of plants and animals, doing cartwheels up mountains, and napping for millennia at a time near fault lines so I can be rocked to sleep by the rumble of the Earth.
Every few million years, I make my way back to the very edge of one continent and watch the progress of the convergence. I swim across the gap and take a look at it from the other side. I try to remember my geology 101 class from 50 million years ago. I can’t remember why continents move in the first place. I decide it doesn’t matter why. They just are.
Eventually, it’s been 125 million years. I don’t know that exactly, of course. I haven’t been keeping track. But there is only about 10 meters left between the final land masses that need to meet to satisfy me. Of course, by now, the land is one large mass, but I’ve been waiting for it to meet in this particular spot. For more than 100 million years. So I sit and wait.
Some sort of insect hops onto my knee. This is amazing, I think. I haven’t seen an insect around here in 10,000 years. Where did it come from? I’m staring at it until it eventually dies, and then I stare at its body until it becomes dust. Finally, I look back up.
The continents have come together. I wasn’t paying attention. I fuckin’ missed it.
“oh my god” the universe says. “to fulfill your wish you have to SEE it happen, you were VERY specific. now you have to wait for them to separate and come together AGAIN.”
Man: Siri, what is 1 trillion to the tenth power?
Siri: Calculation. The answer is one zero zero zero zero zero [continuing]
Man: *starts beatboxing to the rhythm.
Woman 1: *joins in*
Woman 2: *starts singing to the rhythm*
Inverted doki doki literature club where you think you’re playing a psychological horror game but it is slowly revealed to be an upbeat dating sim/visual novel
I thought I was playing silent hill but suddenly pyramid head asked me on a date.
Honestly nothing would make me happier than a big scary monster poping out from around a corner only to blush and offer me some of the snacks i mentioned liking in a previous level.
A zombie apocalypse game would be a SUPER good setting, you could have people and dead people and enemy people all be suitors. It would rule! And put a FANTASTIC twist on all the near-death situations, because it’d turn out that what’s really being hunted… is… UR HEART
The survivor who’s heroic and helpful and always has everyone’s back, but everyone seems to die on him… except for you; the zombie tangled in Christmas lights which you notice really early on and keep noticing, and via which you notice before anyone else that some of the dead are undergoing L4D-style changes… and which eventually, as its priorities slowly mutate along with its form, in return notices you; the vicious queen of a deceptively sprawling and well-policed fortification, who’s like totally risen to power with a weighted cudgel and lots of murdering, and whose thugs always cause problems for unsettled survivors by raiding caches… until one day you realize it’s you who’s stolen her heart!!!!!!!! and now there’s a standing order that you’re to be apprehended and indefinitely detained.
just moving along like everyone else 