One Good Soul, Chapter 0

[Dual]

It all began the day I died.

“Oh, fu-“ was my last utterance before I kicked to bucket. Or, rather, hit the ground. You see, I didn’t get a normal death. I didn’t get murdered protecting children and puppies from a goddam clone of Hitler, I didn’t die on my death bed at the age of eighty four surrounded by my crying family.

No, such a death is apparently just too fucking noble for me. Instead, I hit the ground.

One minute, I’m flying in a goddam plane, enjoying a nice complementary coke, and the next, I’m falling through the sky, with the life expectancy of a small puppy in front of a steam roller. Down, I fell, and I reflected philosophically on my new situation.

To wit, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I’m going to die, what the hell is going on, gah, no, oh shit.” More or less repeated over and over and over again as I fell, with maybe the odd, “Fuck,” as I fell farther and harder then Lucifer himself. The prick. Actually, come to think of it, they’re all pricks. Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Michael, Gabriel…and, of course, God. Not the Christian God. Not the Muslim God. Not even the Jewish God. No, Ol’ Yahweh is someone completely different, though he does seem a bit old testament to me. I’ll get to all this later, by the way, so if you’re confused, bear with it.

I’d always been taught not to take the Lord’s name in vain. I reflected on this for a moment as I fell, and considered the state of my immortal soul, then proceeded to cuss like a sailor regardless. Ironically, I don’t think it’d have made an ounce of difference in where I’d end up after all this.

The wind whistled past my hair, and my eyes were pretty much crushed with pressure. I couldn’t see a thing. I think I preferred it that way, to be honest-none of that, “I can see the ground coming closer,” crap.

I was suddenly aware of a brilliant light in front of me. Time seemed to slow down, and my falling came to a halt. Surprised, I opened my eyes, and found that I seemed to be frozen in time or something. To this day, which is actually less than a few hours over back then, I have no idea what happened. I do know that I saw the plane sitting in the air and not moving, so that might help.

Moving on, I looked at the brilliant light. And there, calmly sitting in front of me with a smirk that would have given Damian nightmares, was the first prick I’d meet in a long string of pricks.

“Hello,” he said, with a charming voice. Well, I say, “He,” but in reality the creature, naked and golden, was genderless. I wondered vaguely if I was hallucinating, but responded regardless.

“Hi there.” I looked downward, and was both distressed and a bit shocked to see that the ground was about five meters from my head. People were all around me, staring and shouting with shock. They were frozen. So was I, but for totally different reasons.

“G…Gr…” I sputtered dumbly.

“Yes, I know,” said the prick with a bored tone. “You’re going to die, Cane Saintcrow. That is, unless you do something about it.”

“An…an…anything,” I continued to sputter, utterly dumbfounded and scared as hell. “What do you want?!”

“Your immortal soul. I’ll save you here, and you pay the price by going to hell when you die.”

I regarded him thoughtfully, still shooken.

Then I broke his nose with my fist.

He gasped, and clutched his nose, now more red than golden-fancy that, they do bleed-and he smiled.

“Nice answer,” he said in between gasps, and he snapped his finger.

I barely had time to register this fact before I let out, screaming, my last curse.

[EndOfTheEarth]

It's interesting, amusing enough, and the prose is good. I don't see much room for plot growth yet, but I'm sure you will stick some in somewhere.

[Contradiction]

:D

[Dual]

Thanks to the both of you for reading it. :D

End, keep in mind that this is hardly even a chapter. He spends 99.999999999 percent of the time, excluding the odd flashback, deader than a thirty year old pop star. This is the only part that actually takes place pre mortem.

[o0_flying high_0o]

*terribly intrigued*

It's really very good. At times the phrasing seemed... well, not quite perfect. But that might just be me being finicky and I didn't notice anything actually wrong. Plus, the overall effect was rather lovely, regardless. I like your narrative voice, and well the plot seems incredibly interesting.