Chapter 1: Chapter 0: Fate

Life after death.

Such ideas have been around since the beginning of time. People in ancient Egypt even thought that death was only a momentary break in life, rather than the end of it. They thought that after death, the gods would assess you and grant you everlasting life if you were worthy.

How can the worth of a person be determined? Are the actions a person does while alive sufficient to provide everlasting life?

What is the cost to be paid?

Numerous dark figures appeared to be mourning the deceased while standing on what seemed to be a procession. As the coffin lowered, it appeared as though the deceased was entering eternal peace.

…

Paul Brown, who had just passed away, thought about this as he felt the coffin being carried continue to rock back and forth. He was now empty. His mind was unable to govern his body, and he was unable to feel anything. He was just aware that he was still conscious. He felt as though he was a prisoner caged in his own body, and the inability to move his body made him feel as though he had plunged into the darkest abyss.

"I gave them my word. I promised them I'd be there for them. I don't want to leave this world or my family. "

As the darkness seemed to creep in slowly, the rhythmic sounds of footsteps reverberated in the background. His death was not an accident, nor was it the product of a crime. But it was the fact that everything happened so quickly and his helplessness to do anything about it that made him feel powerless.

He had a very successful career as a financial broker and was now quite wealthy. He planned to save money over time to support a comfortable retirement. Above all, he desired to tour the world. It was what kept him going and what he was most enthusiastic about.

He was a huge hoax, though, which no one knew about. He created a large fortune by deceiving and manipulating his clients, earning a lot of money in the process. He was someone who was born without a father and was raised by his mother; he was skilled at trickery and tricking others. He battled to live on what little he had while growing up on the streets amid great poverty. He had mastered several of these methods for deceiving others, and by gradually moving up the social scale, he finally became wealthy. But when he got older and started raising his kids, he realized what he needed and at last gave up his dishonest practices. But in the end, fate took him...

He complained to himself, "What a joke! Is this retribution for my actions, or is God saying that I can only exist as a conman?"

He could sense that his mind was in disarray and that his thoughts were drifting away. The sounds coming from outside likewise appeared to have been gradually ceasing, and a strange, eerie stillness appeared to have taken its place as if it were intended to be there.

Paul experienced extreme terror for the first time since he believed this was his final moment. After this, he was likely to vanish entirely, disappearing from existence, he knew. This was the power of fear fear of the unknowable—the same force that governs all of mankind on a universal level and is as holy as time and space. But before he could even think, he heard the sound of a ticking clock.

The sound, "Tick Tok...Tick Tok...Tick Tok," seemed to come from nowhere but was actually coming from everywhere. He was jolted out of his confused stupor by the strange sounds, which appeared to have a resonating impact on him.

He was perplexed because he was meant to die now. Although he had some remorse about what he had left behind, he had already accepted his death and was even looking forward to it. Thoughts he had previously had seemed unclear, but this bizarre scene seems to have made them more clear. His attempts to move his body were unsuccessful since there didn't seem to be any reaction.

Suddenly, a dazzling and blinding light seemed to overwhelm his gloomy surroundings and forcefully combine his dispersed thoughts into one.

Awe!

He appeared to be surrounded by illusory circles as he was forcibly taken out of his body into the unknown.

Paul felt as if he were in a fever dream, as his surroundings became fuzzy and illusory.

"Is this what occurs after death? Your soul gets to go on a beautiful astral journey?" His train of thought brought him to consciousness, but he soon felt as if he was breaking apart, and he eventually stopped thinking and fell asleep.

***

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A vast area. It stretched all the way to the ends and seemed to go on forever. There appeared to be many lights of various colors that looked to sparkle, and various events appeared to be occurring in this wide expanse. It was beautiful and seemed like a vast symphony playing indefinitely.

At the center of it all stood a translucent silhouette, which appeared small in comparison to the enormous and breathtaking backdrop over which it floated.

Paul remained there in a stupor, seeing this unusual spectacle. He, who was ostensibly on his way to the afterlife, was left trapped in this empty area, as though abandoned. But it was the horrifying scene in front of him that rocked him to his core; he, who had first assumed he was in outer space, had abandoned that notion after witnessing this.

It was a circular golden object. Although it appeared to be shaped like a wheel, its magnitude was just too great to be described in words alone. Even he, who was a soul and could see even the smallest molecule of this weird space, appeared like a dust particle in comparison to this wheel.

It looked to be spinning as it rotated slowly but steadily.

"Is this some sort of nightmare? Or am I even real?" Paul muttered something self-deprecating as he proceeded to examine this construction.

His eyesight abruptly altered, as if he were now hanging above this weird area, and he was finally able to gain a decent picture of the entire wheel. The wheel appeared to be revolving clockwise as it transported a liquid-like material across to the opposite side.

"Isn't this a water wheel used in dams?" Paul was pleasantly delighted as he remembered a structure he saw in his past life.

The bizarre water appeared to come from a large body of water that appeared to flow in a single direction onto the wheel and continued to flow when it reached the other side. The water appeared nearly translucent as it flowed to ends he couldn't see with his eyes.

He had already given up attempting to grasp this scenario logically since he suspected that the scene in front of him was a product of his imagination and that he had already returned to nothingness.

Paul then waited for an unknown amount of time, keeping his attention only on the bizarre edifice in front of him as he relaxedly stood like a spectator.

He noticed something unexpected and it immediately caught his attention. It resembled a reflection and appeared to be there in the water that was flowing out of the wheel. It showed a prehistoric human-like primate hunting and biting apart a wild animal with its bare teeth.

His breathing increased as his mind began to race. As he quickly looked for other passing reflections in the water, he quickly grasped something. It was time that moved through this weird golden wheel instead of any form of water! The water that appeared to flow in the direction of the wheel symbolized the future, while the water that had previously flowed through it symbolized the past. In addition, a large number of the reflections appeared to be not from Earth but rather from several distinct races, each of which appeared to have its own history, culture, distinctive traits, and most crucially, an evolution that took place across a variety of epochs.

But he couldn't concentrate, he couldn't pay attention to anything else since this discovery had left him feeling empty in his heart, and the sentiments, the unwillingness he had towards his death appeared to have burst in his head and led him to go absolutely insane.

He witnessed civilizations' achievements, their power, their beauty, the glory of their conquests, and the happiness of their residents. But he also witnessed carnage, brutality, torture, genocide, and, most significantly, its conclusion. That's correct, the end of everything. Anything that is born will perish. This is fate, and it exists for everyone and everything in the universe. He even witnessed the end of mankind and the catastrophe that followed, which added to his insanity.

He heard a chiming noise as if a clock had struck twelve, and the majestic wheel in front of him abruptly stopped whirling, bringing everything to a halt. The startled Paul stared as the dazzling lights from all around the scene stopped sparkling, as though space-time had come to a rest. As though a play was coming to a close and all the lights in the theater were being turned out, the sky's lights gradually became black.

∠ ❝ ❞ # & ℃∨ ∩

Then he heard a sound, a sound that a human's throat could never generate and that could only be imitated after being heard. It seemed to rhyme and resonated around the weird space, reaching almost everywhere. Just hearing it gave him the bizarre impression that worms were invading his mind.

The golden wheel that was positioned around him also started to gently break, giving the impression that reality was about to cease as the entire area started trembling and cracks started forming everywhere like glass being slowly broken.

He felt as though his mind had disintegrated before he could judge what was occurring, and he started to gradually disappear as well. He comprehended the significance of the unusual sound made earlier as he faded away with the last of his sanity still inside of him.

It was "Fate."

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