Beyond the Veil - Ch.2 - What Happens Next (Patreon)

"The first option is just hang around as a ghost," Cassandra began.

I was sitting in my chair by my desk, and she'd conjured up a matching seat so she didn't have to stay on her feet. She was sort of sideways next to me, with one leg tucked under the other. She still had her oversized blue hoodie on, and looked oddly relaxed and comfortable as we talked about my recent death and the various options I had to choose from for my newly-departed soul.

The young Goddess continued, "Being a ghost isn't actually that great though, so I really don't recommend it. Usually it applies to folks with unfinished business, but it can also happen when someone has a particularly traumatic end."

"And that applies to you," she added with a sad glance towards my bed.

I didn't like the sound of any of that, but I was curious so I had to ask. "So what does that mean, if I was a ghost? I'd be stuck here, haunting my parents or something?"

Cassandra nodded, "Yeah, more or less. The main thing about spirits like that is the whole 'not moving on' part. What I said earlier about your after-image fading would still apply, but not completely."

"You'd fade," she added softly, "And I don't just mean your appearance. You'd forget things, forget parts of yourself, until all that was left was whatever emotions were driving you to stay. Maybe that would be anger at your parents? That might drive you to become a violent, dangerous spirit. Or it could be sadness and grief, at the lost opportunities. Another possibility would be guilt or regret, for having thrown away any chance of a better life."

She continued, "Another big reason for spirits to hang around is unfinished business. Like maybe you'd end up fixated on transitioning, or just getting your folks to acknowledge the real you? Those kinds of hauntings can be tricky though. They sometimes leave spirits in a sort of catch-22 where they can't move on until they finish whatever they're fixated on, but can't complete that task because they're dead. So they get stuck, until someone else can come along and help them."

With a sigh the teen deity finished up, "Any way you cut it it's not a great existence. It might seem fun at first, but you really would be stuck. And most hauntings eventually fade away completely on their own. That can take months, years, even centuries. Although I have friends who are in the business of helping spirits like that move on."

I made a face as I suppressed a shudder, then shook my head. "Ok that definitely doesn't sound like a good choice. So what's next? I guess that's the whole 'moving on' thing?"

"Considering gods and goddesses are real I'm guessing heaven is real too?" I added. Then I frowned, "Wait does that mean there's a hell too? Is hell really real?"

The Goddess of Chaos looked almost amused, like she was trying not to smile as she leaned back in her seat. Then she shrugged slightly, "Yes and no? It gets a little complicated."

"Before we get into the ideas of heaven or hell let's take a step back," she decided. Then after a deep breath she began a deeper explanation.

"We haven't talked about reincarnation at all yet, but it's actually a thing. In fact, it's kind of the default thing. Despite what certain mainstream religions claim, when a soul passes on without any particular faith they don't go to some concept of 'hell'. They simply fade into the great beyond, ultimately to return again renewed in another life."

Cassandra continued, "That appears to be a completely random process by the way, no fixed rules as to where or when. A soul might return immediately, within a few days or months. Or a soul might take hundreds of years to come back. And oddly enough, souls might sometimes return earlier as well. Like imagine dying now in twenty-twenty-five, and reincarnating back in the middle-ages?"

"What?" I frowned. "How's that even possible?"

The teen Goddess shrugged, "Time is linear here in the mortal realm, and it's linear in several other realms too, but it's not linear everywhere. And even in the other realms where it is linear, it's not necessarily on the same line as it is here. Put it simply, your mortal concept of time only applies to the mortal human realm."

That left me feeling confused, as I tried to imagine what that would be like or how it could work. It was hard though, the concept of time moving or working differently was pretty hard to grasp. Like if time didn't move in a straight line it would break the whole 'cause and effect' thing, and I couldn't really get my head around how that would work.

After a half minute I gave up trying to understand that and instead asked a related question, "So I'm guessing reincarnation means everything's reset? Like if that's the default then it probably happens a lot, but you barely ever hear about people remembering other lives."

"Correct," Cassandra nodded. "I won't say it's a slate-wiper, because nothing's truly lost. It's more, if you're a gamer think of it like saving your game to an archive somewhere then starting a brand new game. And your new character is completely auto-generated for you. So it's got a new name, with new class and stats, and you start building new experiences and new memories. The old character's experiences and achievements and memories still exist somewhere, but none of that is directly accessible to the new one. That's sort of how it works."

She paused for a moment then added, "Having said that there is a way us gods can let you cheat. Like I said, normal reincarnation involves resetting everything and rolling the dice in terms of who what when and where you come back. If you wanted to start over but wanted to keep your memories, or wanted some control over who or what you came back as, then I could do that for you."

"So you could make sure I came back as a girl in my next life?" I asked.

"You were a girl in this life too," she reminded me. "But yes, I could make sure you were born with the right kind of body next time around. And I could also ensure you were born in whatever country or area you wanted. I couldn't send you to another world though, this isn't an isekai thing. And I wouldn't be messing with your new family, that'd be luck of the draw. And no time shenanigans either, since like I said it's linear here."

I thought about that as I slowly said to myself, "But I'd be born into the kind of body I wanted? And I'd still be me, memories and all?"

The Goddess of Chaos nodded quietly as she watched me.

It was tempting, but the more I thought about the less I liked the idea. I didn't want to be a tiny helpless infant, I didn't want to be in diapers and have to eat cold mushed peas or whatever. I didn't want to have to repeat all those years of school. And worst of all, I might end up with shitty parents again.

The normal reincarnation stuff sounded even worse. Like having all my memories and stuff gone, even if it was still my soul it wouldn't be me anymore. And being completely random, I could end up stuck with another AMAB body. And I still hadn't got my head around the thing about time being random, but the possibility of being born into something like the black plague was more than enough to tell me that wasn't an option either.

"Nah," I finally shook my head. "I don't think reincarnation is the right choice for me."

Cassandra smiled, "Alright then. So let's talk about 'heaven and hell'."

I asked, "They're real? Is heaven really all white fluffy clouds and harps and stuff? And hell's fire and brimstone and pitchforks?"

"No, not even close," the Goddess laughed. Then she admitted, "Ok maybe that's what it's like for the Xtian pantheon? That's where western popular culture gets those ideas from. But those gods are pretty xenophobic, they barely tolerate each other so there's no chance they'd let an outsider like me get a look at what sort of afterlife they're offering."

She continued before I could ask any of the dozen questions I suddenly had, "There's hundreds of gods and goddesses out there, and dozens of pantheons. And that means hundreds of different afterlifes, different versions of heaven or paradise or whatever other words they use to describe it. Like the Norse gods have their Valhalla, the ancient Greeks had their Hades, you get the picture. I'm part of a very new modern pantheon, but we all come from different backgrounds so we don't really have a unified afterlife yet. That means I can't get you into the other afterlifes, but if you want a tour of the Chaos version of heaven we can go have a look at it."

I frowned, "Can we back up a bit first? You're talking about different heavens, but what about different hells? Unless video games have lied to me, the ancient Greek Hades had different levels to it. Some were better than others. So if you have a Chaos Heaven, is there also a Chaos Hell?"

Cassandra relaxed on her chair as she shrugged, "Not really. I can't really speak for other mythologies, but I can tell you what I know. So for instance one of the goddesses in our new pantheon is all about trans and queer people, but in the past she was a small-town farming goddess. And that's what her heaven is based on, although over time it'll slowly change to reflect her new domain."

"What's that mean?" I frowned. "What would heaven be like for a small town farmer? Because I'm picturing some sort of redneck paradise, and it's not pretty."

The teenage Goddess suppressed a giggle as she shook her head, "Sorry I meant like, old-timey stuff. It's all very rural and pastoral and kind of pretty? Think like, medieval village surrounded by farmland surrounded by pristine lush forests. The weather is always perfect, the crops are always bountiful, farm animals are always healthy and numerous. There's never any famine or drought, no plagues or sickness, nobody ever gets hurt. Neighbours are all friendly and kind, there's no worries about money or debt, no-one goes hungry or thirsty."

I frowned as I thought that through, but I quickly realized she'd only answered half of my question. "So that's this other Goddess's version of Heaven, what's her version of Hell? I'm guessing the bad version is all sickness and famine, starvation and thirst? All the bad stuff they don't have in Heaven?"

"Not exactly," Cassandra shook her head. "But not a bad guess. Her worshipers all go to the same place, regardless of how 'good' or 'bad' they were. The only difference is the souls who've been 'bad', the ones who've done more harm in their life, those ones have to work harder. They face more challenges, more struggles, and consequently have more opportunities to learn and grow and improve themselves. How long that takes depends on how much they have to atone for, but eventually their circumstances improve until they're in 'heaven'. Then it's all perfection like I was just talking about."

"Ok," I nodded slowly. "So there's no eternal torment, bad people gradually get redeemed until they're in the good place. And how long it takes depends on how bad they were, and how hard they work to improve? That sounds pretty fair."

I tried to picture the sort of farmer heaven she described, and while it sounded nice it didn't take long before I started to see some flaws. "If it's always perfect then wouldn't that get boring? And um, wouldn't it get crowded? Like people are always dying, if they all get packed into a small village it's going to run out of space. Or it won't be a small village for long."

The Goddess of Chaos nodded, "Bingo. It gets boring. Some souls might be content to exist like that for ages, others will be ready to move on in only a few months."

"Move on to where?" I frowned. "Heaven two-point-oh?"

Her expression got more serious again as she slowly shook her head, "When they've had enough of heaven, then it's back to reincarnation. I know that might sound like a rip-off considering you already rejected that, but ultimately that's what happens."

She continued, "You're young so this may not make much sense to you, but think about old folks? Someone in their eighties or nineties. They've seen it all, done everything. Their bodies are old and weak, maybe they're in a retirement home or something, and every day's the same. They get tired of it, and eventually they're ready to move on. It's kind of like that in the heavens. Folks get their reward for a good life, then when they've had their fill of that they're ready to move on. A new life's like a new adventure."

I was left frowning, "It still sounds like a rip-off to me. And to be honest, a medieval farming village doesn't sound like my idea of Heaven."

"Same here," Cassandra smiled. "Chaos-heaven is a lot more dynamic and exciting. So what do you think? Wanna go see it?"

While 'old-timey farm heaven' sounded boring, I wasn't sure I liked the idea of heaven being 'dynamic and exciting' either. I was curious to see it, but I wasn't ready to commit to it yet.

So I asked, "Just visit, right? You're going to show it to me, but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily choosing that as my final destination."

"Of course," the Goddess of Chaos agreed. "I'm just spelling out all your options, but you'll get to choose what you want."

I nodded slowly, "Ok then. Uh, sure, I'm kind of curious to see what 'Chaos Heaven' looks like."

"Cool!" she grinned. Then she got out of her chair and held out her hand to me, like she wanted me to grab hold.

When I got to my feet I realized how petite she actually was. My dead AMAB form was just under six feet tall, all awkward and lanky. The Goddess I'd pledged my soul to was a good seven or eight inches shorter, the top of her head barely came up to my nose.

I felt more than a little self-conscious as I took her hand in mine, and immediately noticed how soft and warm her skin felt. That's all I had time to think about though.

It suddenly felt like reality itself twisted and warped around me. Then my bedroom, my desk, my chair, and the bed with my body still laying in it all shrank away like they were at the bottom of a long dark tunnel.