Behind the door where all the orbs had been going to since now was a… rather long hallway with doors on either side of it, each with a placard on the front of them where the name of the occupant could be read. From as far as my eyes could see, there were an endless amount of doors with an endless amount of names… I wonder what the payroll department had to go through with this many employees in it. Rubbing my eyes at the headache I could feel from that department, I continued to follow the rather short woman who had called my name; her"s being that of Karen Streiss. If I had to place her, it would be about five foot nothing, so a good nine inches shorter than I was in life; though her long brown hair was rather striking with how soft it looked. She was dressed to impress with modern business attire, not having noticed how the others had looked when they came out for their charges…"So Mr. Jacobson, if you haven"t already guessed, but this is the afterlife in a sense. Every religion has their own form of the afterlife where everyone goes and finds their own form of final rest. Though for you, who followed in the long line of your family as a Keeper, don"t really have a place to go from our records; so we"re going to have to figure things out as soon as we get to my office." Karen still sounded annoyed from where I was walking, but the impatient tone was slowly receding; perhaps when she was working was when she was most happy. Best not to get on her bad side then, so I"ll just keep my mouth shut until we"re safely in her office so as to not add to the annoyed side of her.
Though I think that, I do want to ask how long it would take us to get to her office in this b.l.o.o.d.y endless corridor of limbo or purgatory; however one wanted to label it. I mean that is the first level of h.e.l.l, so perchance we were already there since I believed in a heathen style of belief structure. It could be a boring eternity then, as my eyes scan at the doors and just slightly look over the names on the doors to not find anything at all amusing on them…
"It shouldn"t be too far to my office, Mr. Jacobson, I do apologize over the long wait; but since my ranking here isn"t that high then that means my office doesn"t have too easy of access. I would like to welcome you to our offices though; according to your file… this is your… thirteenth revolution through here. That"s not too bad for one whose soul is that old in my opinion. Though you probably have no idea what I am talking about." And indeed, I had no idea what she was talking about on a general sense; but I could take a few stabs in the dark while blindfolded. So that"s what the d.a.m.n number at the front meant; it meant that my number there was thirteen. So I"ve been around the life spectrum about that number of times then huh… wait, then this place is not h.e.l.l then… "We"re nearly there Mr. Jacobson, then proper introductions can be given, just stay with me for a bit longer." I wish her voice wasn"t so flat and devoid of emotion as she talked to me though as I was having an epiphany.
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G.o.d how long have we been walking; standing in front of a door in this endless hallway with the name "Karen Streiss" on it, keeping myself from going insane with anger and boredom out here. All the while, Karen just flatly stated a few things about how we were nearly there, don"t lose yourself, blah blah blah. Finally we were here though; as she opened her door to the long awaited office… and I was not impressed by it in the slightest. If I had to guess at the size, it would make a cubicle embarra.s.sed by how small it was, having less s.p.a.ce in it than a coffin motel. Her desk was the oldest model found in Ikea, with what looked to be a Lenovo laptop resting on it.
Pinching the bridge of my nose with a sharp intake of breath as Karen walked into the broom closet she decides to call an office, I had no choice but to follow her. It was a bit of a tight squeeze in, but as soon as the door was closed… it vanished, I am now thanking all forms of G.o.ds that I was never claustrophobic in my life. The woman made her way behind the desk, sitting in a ragged and c.r.a.ppy chair while leaving me the thinnest and most faded chair I am sure they had to bring from the waiting room. There were soft prayers coming from me about how well this woman does her job, and if I am going to lose myself to the insanity that was now creeping into me over how much I wanted to play with that laptop.
"Okay Mr. Jacobson, we"re going to have to discuss a few things; there will be plenty of time to do so as my laptop boots everything up so we can get this process going." I now knew as to why she was so impatient and annoyed; slow computer… if it was dial-up then I am surprised she hasn"t murdered anyone. "So, the thing is that I am not your usual case worker that you have worked with on your previous incarnations… as that person has decided to throw you to the side for more influential clients. I am now your a.s.signed case worker, and hope that we will get along well with each other from now on." Karen gets up from her chair and gives me a polite bow… perhaps she was Asian at some point and that stuck. From what I could see, she was maybe Greek or Roman in descent at this point. Though a few things came to me as I heard her talking…
"I have but… a few questions about that. One, what"s a case worker? Two, why did my usual one do that? And three, what is it we are doing now?" I tried my best to keep my annoyance from leaking through at the second question, I didn"t try that hard though in the end; I feel as if I have been waiting for a good decade to get where I am now; "And for further reference, why is it we"re in such a puny office, is your ranking that bad?"
"Huh, didn"t expect that you were able to speak… you"ve been silent and kept to yourself in the waiting room for about twenty years, and the walk here took about eighty more. Well, congrats on breaking a hundred year silence, monks would be jealous of you and your solid mental fort.i.tude." I don"t know whether that was praise or not, but before I could speak she continued; "A case worker is someone a.s.signed to a particular soul imprint at the time of their first incarnation, where they decide where their first birth will be and how they"ll show themselves in the world. Usually, and you"re not the first case of this, a case worker will stay with their a.s.signed soul imprint till the day that soul joins with the stars. However, there are times where a case worker gets greedy for more fame and goes for more influential souls as they"re born into this universe; you showed promise your first few incarnations, but you dropped down as things became stagnant. I blame the forced switch to Earth that the previous case worker made you do after your first time, so it"s not your fault there. That was also why you had to wait in the waiting room till a new case worker was a.s.signed to you."
Once again, I found my face was placed firmly in my hands as I was feeling quite irritated at how the world was working itself around me at this time. From that information, I was quite competent in my first incarnation, but due to the first case worker wanting to send me to Earth then I fell off the wagon for the following twelve. I felt like hunting this person down and kicking their a.s.s into the ground with liberal use of my boot.
"Could you tell me why I was forced to switch over to Earth after my first time through? If it was for a stupid reason, then I would also like the information on my first case worker… my boot needs polishing." Karen looked at me quizzically before a dawning appears on her face, shaking her head slightly at that before turning back to her laptop;
"I cannot share the information on who your first case worker was, as that is against the rules; but the reason as to why you were moved was due to Earth being a new habitat for intelligent life and was giving extra points to the soul imprint and case worker. Though what they didn"t tell everyone was that the difficulty on earth at first was set to "h.e.l.l" and most soul imprints that weren"t in their fifth or sixth time through died as soon as they were born. Things usually went downhill from there, as things didn"t really improve and each soul that continued through didn"t get many points to improve their new life so things went… bad. As the difficulty dropped so did the returns on the returning lives; but most case workers wanted to keep them there for the bonus points that were still being given."
It was at this time that my head begun to bang against the desk with enough ferocity that anyone who saw it would become worried that the desk would break. I had to keep myself from screaming out at the utter stupidity of the whole thing as Karen just typed away at her laptop.
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"Mr. Jacobson, if you are quite done, then we"ll continue along with your reincarnation into a new life; hopefully we"ll get things going well this time around and in your favor." Karen did try to keep everything professional to quite a scary degree, which I respected a little in a dark corner of my mind; taking my head from my hands and taking in a deep breath before giving her a nod. "Good, now we"re going to get the points from your previous lives all added up so we can see how much you have acc.u.mulated, then add in the amount you got for this current or previous life. That shouldn"t take too long, but first we should decide on the world you"ll be going to, and I have a recommendation on where you should go. Before you ask, there are no extra points given for this world as it has been in the universe for quite a few years." I was going to ask that since I had already been f.u.c.ked by a case worker wanting bonus points; so at least she"s better in that regard there. Waving my hand with a sigh to motion her to continue; she does oblige, "The world I recommend is called Agenai. It"s about five times as large as Earth so it has enough room for everyone on it, has a magic system installed as well as a few other systems; skills, G.o.ds, beasts, etc. It would be quite the change from Earth, and a refreshing one in my opinion."
Taking my chin in hand, I begin thinking about the actual consequences that going to a world like this would actually bring onto me; but seeing as how I don"t really care about those, it would be a change of pace for the better. Nodding, I look up at Karen who is already typing everything into her Laptop; she"s a diligent one that"s for sure, I should do my best to get her a better office if I am able.
End of Chapter 2