Ch. 2 - Grief

I looked at the handsome geezer, who had frozen at this point. His skin was getting so pale that I had to squint my eyes to not lose sight of him with those white walls as a background.

'Gaylord Williams, what kind of shitty parents would do something like that? They pretty much set the guy's life difficulty to Sisyphus.'

He would automatically become a target at school, the butt of most jokes, and later in life, even finding a job would be much harder than it already is.

'At least he would be able to change his name and sue his parents in due time... Though it wouldn't compensate for his youth...'

Lost in thought about the poor guy, I almost didn't notice when the old man finally restarted.

He stood up, his back straight, his clothes in perfect state. He could pose for a symbol of dignity if not for his trembling hands and drops of sweat slowly forming on his forehead.

'Looking like him after my sixties would pretty much mean that, not once in my whole life, anything negative impacted my body.'

Suddenly, my eyes lost sight of him.

'Wha-?'

Yet he appeared again, this time facing the massive stack of papers that was 1.5 times his height, and thrust his right hand straight into the pile, yet the air pressure from his movement lifted the excess papers, allowing him to catch the single page he wanted while the rest fell back perfectly in place.

The whole display looked splendid. I would give it some more points if my glasses hadn't been blown away. When I picked them up, I found out that my left lens wasn't in the frame anymore, and the right one was spotting a small crack.

As soon as I was able to assess my losses, the serial glasses' breaker stopped reading the single page over and over and finally addressed me.

"For the love of the Ancient Primordial Immortal Dragon Star Ancestor, how would you be able to get here, youngster?" He asked.

'This grandpa can pretty much move so fast that, for me, it's like teleporting, and his clothes are still without any creases. I just might want to be careful with my words.'

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I will be able to answer your question. I don't even know where we are at after all." I replied, not sure about just what might happen to me.

"Well, right now, you are at the reincarnation center, young one. Here, once every one hundred years, one person gets reincarnated. Also, every one of those papers corresponds to one person that got reincarnated or will get reincarnated in the future."

His explanation was simple and clear, a welcome change from professors who speak in what seems like calls of Cthulhu, leaving students to decipher their meaning.

"Then I shouldn't possibly be here," I said, trying to somehow grasp the situation I was in. "I haven't died after all."

"I don't know about the not dying part, young man, but just like you said, you aren't supposed to be here." He said it in a matter-of-fact tone. "After all, this century is already reserved."

"Gaylord Williams?"

"Correct. He was supposed to get here in ten, maybe forty years."

"Then why am I here?" I asked as the conversation finally neared the most important point.

"Well, even if you ask me, I have been working here for just a bit over 15.000 years, so I am still 5.000 years short of my first paycheck."

'Work ethics here just might be more hardcore than in Japan. That's amazing in quite a sad way.'

"Then what happens next? Do I get reincarnated? Sent back? Cease to exist? Or wait here with you until you get your paycheck, senior?"

"What were you doing before you died?" He asked.

"No, I am pretty sure that I didn't die. I was, after all, just playing something on my computer. The change of view, from the monitor to the tube up there," I pointed up while continuing, "was so smooth that there's no chance of me dying."

"Then you shouldn't be here."

"I think so as well."

For a moment, silence ensued in the room.

"What were you even playing?" He asked, hoping that somehow my answer could help in better understanding the situation.

"A game that has been plaguing humanity for over fourteen years."

Suddenly, his eyes went wide because of a sudden realization.

He began, "Not so long ago, the higher-ups wrote something about upgrading the security, mostly the censorship, to fight against the rising hate. Just what did you do that the system of the omniverse decided to get you out of your world?" The geezer asked me, disbelief hearable in his tone and a tiny trace of fear in his eyes.

"I'm Draven's main." Something prompted me to smirk, not in the way a brat would, thinking of himself as your better. The kind that would be used for a villain compilation.

"That's... that's not possible!" He raised his voice, the poised tone now serious, showing how much of a problem my kind is.

Though he was in this state for only five seconds, after which I heard a thoughtful "Wait a second" from him. "There was something about sending the worst haters to the Ohio, Brazil, or Shadow Realm, and yet, you are here."

"Your story—I want to hear it. Your life. It is not lost yet." His words were so soft. Filled with hope, kindness, and reliability. Just like my grandpa.

"I'm Zilean's one trick pony, but my duo - he... left me. He had chosen a hoe over the bot lane we were playing on for five long years." I started, still hurt by that act of betrayal.

"I launched the game once more, not knowing what to do with myself when such a big part of my life had ended forcefully, without any input from my side. At the lowest moment of my life, a trap was waiting. From a chest dropped a skin..."

"In just a week, I learned their language. Salvation no longer being an option..."

At that moment, a warm hand landed on my head and ruffled my hair, freeing some of my tied hair. "What are you saying, brat!? You ended here, and that means that you are worthy of a second chance!" His warm hand and rough yet joy-invoking words were worth much more than all of the motivational quotes and channels you could ever hope to find.

"Thank you, Grandpa," I said with gratitude. On my face was an innocent smile, one that shouldn't even be possible for me anymore, with no trace of sadness left from just a second ago.

"That's what old folks are for anyway."

The conversation was now much lighter and carefree, simply peaceful.

"So, that whole Star Ancestor is just your higher-up getting a little too much into Chinese entertainment?" I asked, not quite believing him.

"Yes, it is, brat, and that ain't even the worst part! Remember the guy, the Gaylord Williams?" He asked, visibly getting more and more cranked up.

"Yes, what of him?"

"His whole life was written by that superior. Everything! And believe me, being named Gaylord is just the tip of an iceberg!"

"That's freaking scary!" I freaked out. "Does that mean that my life was also written by some random dude, each of my highs and lows?"

"No, don't worry about that; if you were, there would be a page about you somewhere here, and I am sure there isn't."

"Huh? So, all of those papers aren't humans that got chosen for what they are, but just simple stories written by those higher?" 'I don't even know what to think about that. The fact that human lives are just stories...'

"Away with that sad face! Do not worry, we; they aren't as bad as it seems on the first look." He took a long breath and continued, "All of those, as you said, stories would end up even worse if there wasn't any intervention from our side."

"Now that's just... tragic."

"It is, but let me tell you what the first one of us said to me." His voice once again gained seriousness, his posture feeling more imposing, all of that showing just how important the words he was about to say were.

"Those destined to suffer will suffer. I once tried saving a child. At first, I was sure of my success, but the next day, a whole village was to become a place of slaughter. I intervened once again. The next day, the stakes rose even higher: a whole city. Country to continent, continent to a whole planet, finally a galaxy, and after that, a whole universe.

My intervention doomed everything there, but I was able to save that child.

Do you know just how important that was? With that, I learned of two extremes.

If nothing is done, one suffers all the pain.

If too much is done, the pain will make the world collapse.

Why? I have no idea. But if I can't stop all that tragedy, I will be sure to lessen it."

As he stopped his storytelling, his body was visibly trembling. He looked straight into my eyes to drop the last bomb. "I was that child. With fate so tragic, a higher being decided to intervene. My life exchanged for a whole world."

"Now, day by day, we are getting better at reigning the heartbreaking fates. Knowing how a confrontation would end, we use creativity instead, lessening tragedy with comedy and absurdity, and knowing it isn't enough, we also give a second chance to those with especially lamentable lives."

"That's much to take in..."

"It is. However, it's funny how, after so much time, we still don't know why that happens. Why so many must veil in sorrow is that just what makes them humane, or is somebody even higher enjoying all those struggles."

He wondered, his sight resting on the ceiling. Looking up, instead of the white ceiling with a tube, I saw stars. Stars so big and beautiful that their brilliance might one day save a whole world.

"Gramps, what if we are looking at this from the wrong side? What if all of those situations are created in the hope that humans will be able to change their fate by themselves? In hopes that they will shine just as bright as those stars." I asked, wanting to know his stance on this perspective.

"As much as your words sound beautiful, at the end of it, wouldn't that be artificial? I refuse to believe that all of that is just an experiment to get the most out of humans. There's far too much happiness in the world for the root of grief to be just a simple cruelty or an experiment."

'Happiness... maybe I should focus from time to time on the good things'.

"Okay, everything is nice and all, but we should probably start focusing on the topic of your reincarnation, rascal."

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Words: 1852

How is the fanfic? I hope it isn't too cringy.