"What are you doing?" My brother looked down at me with a stern face
"Nothing." I mumbled guiltily
"You can never just do nothing, because even nothing is something." My brother said
I looked at him "how?"
He smiled "If you stand there, you are doing something, you're standing, breathing, thinking."
"Ohh."
"Now what did you do?"
I bolted awake. I was sweating quite a bit. I took a good look at my surroundings. It was like an endless sheet of paper. Everywhere I looked, there was white. Bending down, I touched the floor, it felt like glass. Where am I? Wait. I grabbed my chest. My clothes were fine. I looked down where Luke shot me, there was nothing. No injury, no rip in clothes, nothing. I took a deep breath.
"D-did I just die?" I whispered
"Indeed."
I jumped, I did not expect someone to answer. Turning around, I saw a man who looked around in his late 40's, he was short, but too short. The thing that puzzled me was the big golden gate behind him. And his light purple angel wings.
"U-um where am I?" I tentatively asked
"Welcome to the gate of Haven." The man smiled at me
"Haven? Like heaven?"
"Ah, no. Heaven does not exist." He said
"Then. . .?" I looked at the gate
"Here let me explain, Haven is neither heaven nor hell, but both. It contains souls of the dead and souls of those born in Haven. In Haven, you can level your wings from white, which will be your normal color when you enter, to another. Once you upgrade, you can't upgrade again, unless you reach the golden stage. The lighter your wings, the more powerful you are." He explained
"What about God? Your saying he's not real?" I was curious
"No. We have the Creator. His children are Gods though."
I nod slightly
"There are millions, no billions, of dimensions in this world, Havens can become Guardians, protectors to the people within these dimensions, or just be regular Havenians." He explained
"So, this is like, the afterlife?"
"Yes."
I walk up to him. I see that he has a little slip of paper.
"You can either go to Haven or be reincarnated." He said
I looked at the paper.
"What are Karma points?"
"Karma points is the amount of Karma you got in your past life. If you have over 50 karma points and decide on reincarnation, your life may not be the best, but if you decide to go to Haven, you could lose your memory's of your life or if you have enough points, lose your wings." he said
Looking at the paper, it said I had 57 karma points. I gulped. Was it because of that guy I killed? I shook my head. I'll go to Haven. I decided, even if I lose my memories, I'll be in a safe place. After signing the paper, I handed it back to him.
"Great. Please enjoy your stay." The big golden gate began to move backwards, revealing a blinding light. I had to squint.
It felt like I was falling, falling for a long time. Before I stumbled out of a gateway looking thing. I looked around, there were people with many different colored wings, houses and a castle. It was beautiful.
"Hey! A newbie." I turn around to see a boy, maybe my age. He has bright red hair with white wings, like me. He had brilliant blue eyes and was pretty pale. He wore a grey hoodie with black jeans.
"Um, hi." I was unsure of what to make of him
"Hey, don't worry, I just became of age as well, no worries." He smiled
"Became of age?"
"Yeah, in Haven, at a certain age is when we get our wings." He said
"Oh."
"I'm Kai, by the way." He extended his hand
"I'm Cody." I took it.
"So, you died? What was your life like?" He asked, tilting his head.
I died? I don't remember dying. I don't remember anything really. Only what the man at the gate had told me about Haven.
"I don't know." I shrugged
"Pity, hey are you going to join the academy?" He began to walk off, I quickly followed.
"The academy?"
"Yeah, it's where we go to learn magic and become guardians." He explained
"I mean, it sounds fun." I murmur
"Yeah, well it's not easy to get in. Let's make a deal." He stops suddenly
"A deal?" I felt a bit uneasy
"Yeah. You be my friend and I'll help you study for the entrance exam." He sounded proud
I laughed, "yeah, that sounds good."
"Great! Here let me show you around. I can let you stay at my place." He began to lead me around Haven
Smiling, I followed him. That feeling of unease pushed far back in my mind.
End of chapter
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140,139 Literary Works • 673,032 Reviews
Greetings again, Col3!
I'm back to drop off another quick review!
So, getting right into it; this was a good, solid chapter than managed to transition from the mortal (?) world to the afterlife without too many hurdles, and it's a believable follow-up to the events of the previous chapters.
Good, solid description of this place! It was easy to visualise and smooth to read.
This is certainly interesting, and I like the idea of wings changing colours to indicate how powerful you are. It seems like a good system!
However, this is pretty much an infodump, and the dialogue doesn't feel believable. Cody only asked what Haven is; the angel should ideally just answer briefly, and then when Cody asks about the wings, he can explain a little. Make it more natural; don't use a single question to squeeze in as much information as possible. After all, if someone just died, why would the first thing explained to them be about this power system of wings? If they ask about that specifically it's alright, but when they've just been introduced to this realm and they're clearly jarred, it doesn't make too much sense for the angel to start explaining the finer nuances of the afterlife.
By world do you mean universe? Or are these dimensions just like different versions of the same world?
*memories
Sounds like something said at a temporary home/place to rest, not the afterlife itself xD
Kai knows that Cody just died. So he wouldn't logically ask a question like this, because he should also know that Cody doesn't know anything about this world. He has no knowledge of becoming of age, or this academy, or even guardians. It would be more realistic if Cody asked Kai to explain stuff about the world to him, and Kai obliged by sharing details on these. otherwise the dialogue feels just a little stiff and forced.
Does the afterlife not have enough homes? xD
Interesting. I get the sense that not all is well in this world.
Well, that's enough for the day! I hope my review didn't come off as too harsh lol. I definitely nitpicked a little, but rest assured that I'm quite invested in this story and definitely want to see more!
See you around.
~ Lee
Hi Col3,
Mailice back with a short review!
Wow is what I have to say about this. Somehow the story has gone from one extreme to the next and I think I also realise, at least now, that everything you've written so far in the first four chapters has been trying to get to this point. Maybe that's why you hurried to work through the points to get there.
I'm really amazed at how you've managed to surprise me with this, even after reading the title several times. I have to say it gave me a quick jolt in my stomach because I was still really convinced that maybe Cody was dreaming and now he's actually no longer alive.
I like the way the story developed here, and furthermore I thought it was a bit too rushed in some places, I mean, even though Cody has lost his memory now, he would still have to look around. Where is he? What is he doing here? Here I miss the descriptions that could help steer the story in a new direction and thus also give the feeling of having a better picture.
As I said, I'm very surprised at the way things are going. It was so unexpected and yet so expected. It was a good twist for me!
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Okayy...so this was a very interesting introduction to this afterlife here. I love how you manage to incorporate that murder that was committed into everything and make it have such a big effect here. I also like this version of the afterlife that you've managed to create.
Anyway let's get right to it,
OKayyy...well we're starting off with a bit of a dream sequence it appears. I haven't seen that happen too often lately, but these are always fun, and it looks like this particular one perhaps has a little message within it.
Okayyy...well that's cool...looks like we're cutting just straight to the afterlife and I'm loving this. This is a pretty good description here to introduce this new place. With this story being a bit low on the description in general, I was worried this might not have enough, but it looks like you've come up with a pretty good description here to show us what his new place is like.
Okay....well it looks like we're being introduced to this entirely new concept here or at least I've never heard of such a system before. Its certainly a very interesting one here...and I like the unique spin on things that you've got here instead of the more traditionally accepted version of the afterlife that get mentioned.
Okayy....having a literal points system is really fun there. One can argue that it kind of makes this whole afterlife thing feel a little less magical and otherworldly but then having an exact number and clear lines like that somehow easier to understand and it just seems oddly fitting for this age of data.
Okayyy...well that was a rather quick transaction there but I like that. There's not too much fuss, there's still a good amount of interesting description to show this process at work and we end up getting to this Haven place rather quickly. There's certainly quite a few questions to be asked at this point and I'm very excited to see how this is going to go here.
Okayy well so he's lost his memory. I love how its just very subtly mentioned here. Normally you'd see all kind of grand things happening to indicate it and it feels like too much attention is being called to it, but I like this style where it just happens and naturally gets integrated without ever being prominently mentioned...and now we're smoothly transitioning into some explanations about how this Haven place works.
OKayy...that's a very interesting offer there. We don't know anything about what this could mean here, but there's certainly a lot of unanswered questions being brought up here and I love seeing that at the start of a story. I'm very excited to see where this ends up going here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, I think this is a pretty neat chapter here. I'm looking forward to seeing where this story will go next. It almost feels like a fresh start for our main character here so I'm very interested to see if his past will end up having an impact beyond this point.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry