I was laughing to myself as I stepped out of the diner onto the sidewalk. They had never seen it coming. Who signs something without even reading it? I mean, sure, I’d bought them breakfast and everything, but two eggs and toast should never have been enough for them to sign over their life savings to me.
They actually believed there was gold in Detroit. Even I had thought that one was a bit insane. But here we are. I’ve got a check for twenty grand to finance my gold mining operation in the former salt mines under Detroit.
Honestly, my life should be harder with the existence of Google. But somehow no one ever thinks to look up anything. Dad would be proud of me. Well, assuming he was still alive. I wasn’t actually sure after the time in South Africa.
I’d have to look him up. We could probably finance a big one with this money. Smiling as I
daydreamed about what the next few months would entail, I didn’t even notice the truck before I felt the pain.
And it was a lot of pain.
It turns out that when a truck crashes into you at low speeds, it isn’t enough to kill you instantly. No, that comes slowly as the force of the front bumper mangles your body into the brick wall of the diner you’d just had breakfast in. The last thing I saw before my vision was blank was the check on the windshield, now a lot more red than it had been moments before.
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Lucas Anthony has died.
Your life has been deemed interesting by the god of contracts.
Would you like another chance?
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“What the hell?” I asked, confused about where I was or where the words floating in emptiness had come from.
The memory of the pain was still fresh in my mind. Was this the afterlife? Wait, I had amused a god of contracts, had I?
That was interesting. A fellow grifter, but this one was a god. Now that was something I could work with.
“What does ‘another chance’ mean? Do I just start the day over or something?” I asked, having no idea where my voice was coming from. As far as I could tell, my body wasn’t here with me.
“Oh, no, we can’t have that. I’m not a god of time or anything quite so powerful. Not that you were special enough to get anything like that anyway. But I’ve got some pull, and one of my stupider followers just got himself killed trying to rig a card game. I figure I can put you in their body and we can see what kind of show you can put on over there.”
The voice came from everywhere, with no source that I could find. Not that I understood how I could see anything; as far as I could tell, I had no eyes.
“But I get to live again, right?” I asked. That was what really mattered, of course. God or otherwise, I could work the levers on him later.
“Yes. Even if I could imagine some fun with you being undead, I don’t really want to waste the energy on that. Do you agree or what? They’re gonna burn the body soon, so hurry up.”
“I agree!” I yelled. Any thoughts I had of trying to get a better deal out of the god vanished in a rush to not lose the chance. After all, now that I knew gods were real, there was plenty I could do with that information later.
__________
Lucas Anthony has been resurrected.
Your life is now contracted to the god Elron.
Should you die again, your soul will be forfeit to him.
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Dammit, he hadn’t mentioned that part. Then again, if anyone should have known better about looking a gift horse in the mouth, I suppose I should have. Oh well, I was alive again.
I could feel the warmth nearby, the cold of the slab below me, and the screaming of someone nearby. I opened my eyes just in time to see a man standing over me with a large rusty saw.
“Hey, I’m alive, let’s put the saw away for now!” I yelled, rolling off the surface I had been placed on. My bare feet hit the rough ground below with some pain, but at least I had had the table between me and the man with the saw.
“What the fuck? Bob, we got a zombie problem again!” the man yelled.
“I’m not a zombie! I’m just alive!” I yelled back, not sure he cared in the slightest.
“If you’re not a zombie, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Lucas.”
“Bob, it’s worse than a zombie, it’s another otherworlder!” he yelled, louder this time.
Not wanting to find out just what they did to otherworlders, I shoved the table hard into my would-be dissector and ran for the nearby staircase. The lack of windows convinced me I was in a basement, and as I didn’t see any other doors, it looked to be the only option.
The problem with that idea was the large man standing at the top of the stairs with a bloody apron. It seemed I had found Bob. And Bob came equipped with a meat cleaver.
Why they needed a cleaver in what I thought was a crematorium, I didn’t really want to ask. I did want to ask why Bob had green skin, tusks, and was taller than any human I had ever seen, but now really just didn’t seem the time.
“Bob, there’s a zombie down there. Help!” I called. Hopefully, he was as dumb as he looked.
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Charisma +1
You now have a Charisma of 1.
__________
“Dammit, Gorg, I told you not to let any more zombies in!” Bob screamed as he pushed past me.
Not wasting time contemplating the message that had appeared in my vision, I ran through the door, grabbed a large coat off the back of a chair, and hastily threw it over my naked self before escaping from the building into a new world of freedom.
It was really too bad I couldn’t have brought the money with me, but at least I was alive again.