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  Jack put his hand up awkwardly, trying to get her attention.

  "Um, excuse me? I... I'm a bit... confused?"

  She snorted, unbecomingly (though he could see that were she not all red and streaky from the fits, she would be an incredibly beautiful young woman), took a couple of deep breaths, and then tried to speak to him, though it was clear that she was really struggling to keep it together.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just, you're the best one I've seen in a while! Oh! I have so many good lines for this, I want to pick the best one to say to you, come on now, ask me how you died!"

  "I died?" he said, uncertainly, but well, why else would he have blacked out for a moment and then suddenly found himself in a weird place with an immature angel? Had there been a drive-by shooting or something? He'd felt nothing.

  "Yes! Oh, but it was such a good death! I promise, you'll get a fantastic afterlife for that one, it's made my week!"

  "It was an... interesting thing that killed me then? Was I killed by a famous murderer or something?" he asked, not thinking too much about how bizarre the words he was saying were.

  "Oh, don't ask it like that, it ruins the punchline! Ask just, like, 'how did I die?'"

  "How did I die?"

  She held her sides, looking like she was in pain for a moment, then squeaked out her line, holding her breath.

  "You couldn't take the D!"

  "I what, now?"

  "The D! You couldn't take it smashing into you, it was too big, and hard!"

  "I was killed by... a penis? That doesn't sound funny at all! That sounds like an appalling crime! Would you be laughing if I was a woman? You should be ashamed of yourself... there's no way you're a real angel!" Jack exclaimed, envisaging some horrible death as the result of a violent sexual conquest, that perhaps the shock had wiped from his memory.

  "No! No! The D! The letter D! It fell down from a sign and hit you on the head, you died of head trauma. But it's funny because sometimes people call it 'the D', don't they, when they're talking about taking a cock!" she whispered the last word, a gleeful grin on her pretty face, her big, blue eyes still wet with tears of amusement.

  "Oh... right... I suppose that is sort of funny..." he said, though dick jokes aside, he didn't really think it was. In fact it just seemed depressing, that something so mundane had been the end of the story of his life. It wasn't even like he felt that he'd properly started the first act, and he'd expected a bit more excitement, maybe some romance, maybe some achievements of some kind. But nope, a mediocre degree, a mediocre entry level job, and then an unceremonious bashing to death by a stupid hipster looking sign. That was his lot.

  But wait, she'd said something about an afterlife, hadn't she? If this was an angel, then he must be in heaven. That was a good start, though he wasn't really sure he'd ever done anything especially good. He'd never done anything especially bad, either though, so maybe just being kind of meh was enough. Maybe heaven's standards weren't as high as the ladies his mom went to church with had made out when he was a teenager and they'd thought he and his friends were trying to perform a satanic ritual with their Magic: The Gathering cards.

  I've never done good things. I've never done bad things. I never did anything out of the -- wait, this is a terrible time to get a song stuck in my head. Although, maybe David Bowie's in there somewhere, maybe he'll sing the rest of it for me, Jack thought, his internal monologue somewhat erratic. He would later learn that people who died from head injuries remained a bit concussed in spirit for a while, which made them much better at accepting the bewilderment of being dead, but much, much worse at making the choices Jack would soon be asked to make.

  "So, since your death was such a good one - and really, it absolutely was, I was so bored before, it was all malaria and stuff for my whole shift until you came in - I'm going to make you one of my special cases for the year! I know, I know, you have no idea what that means - honestly, we really need to get to work on letting people down in your old world know about the new afterlife so they don't keep expecting normal reincarnation. But we haven't had a chance, what with all the changes in protocols and... oh, but you don't want to hear about our bureaucracy, do you?"

  "Reincarnation? So, this isn't heaven?"

  "Oh! Well, I suppose it is, and it isn't. But that doesn't matter, since only we angels stay here. Anyway, reincarnation has always been the thing - I know only some Earth religions figured that out, but what can you do? - but recently, at least, recently for us, we kind of... lost a bet. And now people from your world also get the option to be reincarnated into a different world, designed by the guy who won the bet. Most people choose that, now."

  "Really? The future of our souls... a bet?"

  "Yeah, well, our ruler was really bored that day, and this guy who came in after he'd been hit by a truck was adamant that he could design a better world than the Earth, said he'd been designing simulations of worlds his whole life, and they were all much better than the real one. So, there was a whole new world created based on his designs - as I said, the boss was bored, in need of a project - and then there were some trials, blah blah blah, and, well, it came out that actually that guy could design a better world, so it got to stay. We thought about just destroying the Earth and migrating all the souls over to the new one to avoid too much faffing about, but we realized we couldn't process all those souls in one day, so we just keep them both running now and let people decide themselves where to get reborn."

  "A guy who made simulations of different worlds... what was he, like, a video game designer?" Jack asked incredulously, trying to imagine the swagger on a guy who'd challenge an actual god and have an entire reality built based on his ideas.

  "Oh! You know about his type of work, then? Well that will make it all much easier - usually for the special cases we have to explain quite a bit and the ones who know about video games grasp the ideas so much better."

  Is she honestly saying that now, people get a choice to be reborn in the normal world, or inside a video game? Of course people choose the game!

  "So... I'm going to go ahead and say I choose the new world, if that helps move things along. I don't care what it's like, game developers make things balanced and fair, and you get some control."

  "Oh, you don't actually have to make that choice - I told you, I'm making you a special case. I get a few a year, all of us angels do. But the special cases all go in the new world - we can't offer the same on Earth because, well, the rule set of Earth kinda... well..." she trailed off.

  She cleared her throat.

  "So, anyway, you'll be going to the new world, but you see, normally we just make people choose what class they want to be, eventually, and then we reincarnate them as newborn babies. They forget everything, of course. They don't remember their old life on Earth, or coming here, or even choosing some parts of their own destiny, and they don't know any world but the one they grow up in. As their talents begin to show, they never realize that their past selves actually chose them - but of course, they are usually very happy with their lot. At first, we set it so time would move fast there, to us, here, so even though it has only been a few years here and on Earth since we created that world, there have been generations and generations of people there, some being reincarnated back loads of times - although, they have resurrection sometimes too if they work hard to get the right stuff, it saves us a job and lets them keep a life they are really enjoying. Now we've set time there to pass in sync with the Earth, since there's history and culture now. Real stuff too, not the stuff the guy who designed the place made up to give it - what was it he said? - flavor, but things the people there have created themselves. So yeah, most people there don't know any different. But then there are the special cases. We angels get to choose a few rare people a year who seem like they'll be interesting. Then, instead of reincarnating them as babies, we send them there as adults, with all of their knowledge and memories intact. It helps the place evolve, see, to have the odd person knocking aroun
d who has different knowledge and ideas. You still get to choose your class, abilities and so on, but you'll be moderately leveled up already."

  He ran the idea through his foggy brain, looking for some kind of catch, but there didn't seem to be one.

  "I mean, you can say no if you want - one or two people have before, said they'd rather forget, or they really wanted to have a childhood again or something - but most people see how much of an advantage being a special case can give you in life there. Most of the people who have lead their parties to legendary levels of glory were special cases. And it's practically a given that you'll have no problems when it comes to finding partners. In this world, ladies love a hero. So do gentlemen, actually, if you prefer --"

  "Don't say it..."

  "THE D!"

  Keep reading now at Amazon!

  If you're a fan of sexy fantasy and sci-fi, particularly featuring harems, you may also enjoy my various other series (link is to the full catalog). Check out some of the following titles!

  Spike's Harem (finished series)

  Jet's Dark Harem (finished series)

  Magic & Melodrama (finished series)

  Space Yakuza Hit Squad Harem (finished series)

  An Impossible World (novel)

  Monstergirl Trainer: The Caves (finished series)

  Monstergirl Trainer: The Ruins (finished series)

  Santa's Harem (2018 Christmas series)

  The Devil Went Down on Georgia (standalone short story)

  The Empress’ New Clothes (standalone short story)

  That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Truck That’s Also a Death God (current series - SFW)

  Finally, look out for my novels Tiger, Tiger and Platinum Storm, published under my fantasy novel pen name NX Hunter. As with all of my Natalie Hunter books, they’re exclusively available on Amazon and included in Kindle Unlimited.