The Devil's Ante Chapter 2: Chapter 2 - Death Is Not The End

Read chapter 2 of The Devil's Ante by Lerion on NovelPedia.

My head was spinning and I felt that everything I had ever eaten was trying to exit the same way it entered. My eyes were open but I couldn't see anything except the blinding white light coming from everywhere. The ringing in my ears was slowly fading and once again I heard a voice, not the same as i did before. "Mr. Kai, please get a hold of yourself. We both want to be done with this process as soon as possible." I looked in the general direction of where the voice was coming from. Still nothing but a blinding white light. My hands instinctively moved to my face and I started rubbing my eyes, hoping that maybe it would help. It did and instead of a beautiful, busty blonde angel that would guide me to my "forever-after", I saw a clean shaven young man in a white suit. He was sitting at an equally white desk and, surprisingly, so was I. After the initial shock, I managed to blurt out a couple of words. "Am I dead? Alive? Bureaucratically in between? What's going on man?" "Please stay calm Mr. Kai. You will have your answers in due time." I looked around. To my left and right was a never ending row of similar looking desks with similar looking clerks. At each desk that I could see, people were seated the same way I was. I saw an old man with a turban and a beard that stretched to his feet. I saw a balding fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt with an empty glass in his hand. I also saw a young boy. Unlike the rest of us he wasn't alone. By his side I saw an angel, comforting him and caressing his hair. "Please stop looking around and focus on yourself." The man in front of me was calm and firm in his commands. I looked at him once again and at his table now lay an open book. "Mr. Kai, to answer your previous questions - yes, you are dead and yes you are in between life and the afterlife, or as your kind used to call it - limbo. My name is Luciel and I'll be your caseworker for this lifetime." "For this lifetime? You mean I had lived before?" "Well yes, of course, there's a limited number of souls you know? We can't produce more so we have to recycle and reuse the souls we have. In fact, let me check your file." The man leafed through the book at a speed I couldn't keep up with. The pages flew from one end to the other and then back again. A couple of seconds later, the book closed and the young clerk once again looked at me, smiling in a polite yet clearly fake way. "So. Mr. Kai, you're a very interesting subject. You've indeed lived previously, and to my surprise, you were always assigned the same universe. From what I saw, your first life began during the Eoarchean era of your world. You lived for exactly thirty-seven seconds before you were consumed by a bigger organism." "Mhm" "Your second life happened during the Mesozoic era. You were born as a Troodon, but perhaps born is not the correct word here as you lived for thirteen days before your mother crushed your egg with her own weight." "Mhmmm" "Your third life began during the medieval period. You were born to a lovely couple of Burgundian peasants. They were related and it led to you being born with hydrocephalus. They thought that you were cursed by Satan and your father threw you off a cliff during your second day on earth." "Mhmmmmm" My god, was I always such a fucking loser? "But don't worry, your fourth life was much better, I promise. You were born during the Victorian era and even lived in the capital of the British Empire - London." Okay, hold on, that sounds pretty good. "On your seventh birthday you started working as a chimney sweeper. You fell a week before your eighth birthday and died on the spot." "Does that actually sound 'much better' to you, you slicked-hair twat?" "On second thought, not really. But your fifth li-" - before he could finish, a loud, repeating chime sounded. Luciel's smile faded as he started looking around and behind himself. Suddenly, large walls emerged from the ground, surrounding us both and a ceiling descended and locked into the walls, boxi