Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it. - W Somerset Maugham

  I woke up feeling like I’d been drawn and quartered, scrambled up in a giant blender, then mashed back together into a form vaguely resembling myself. In other words, I wasn’t exactly feeling my best.

  But money was money, strange dreams and impossible cross-dimensional adventures or not, so somehow I got myself out of my bed and took the bus to my barista job. Normally I wouldn’t want to spend the cash, but there was no way I was going to walk there, and my bike was still where I’d left it the day before.

  Using public transport had me there about fifteen minutes earlier than usual, so I continued my trend of spending money I normally wouldn’t and ordered myself a tasty, hot drink to down some pain meds with. It was actually nice to just sit for a bit and watch people pass by the window. I wondered about their lives; what they were doing and where they were going. Did they have families waiting for them? Were they alone like me? Did they have a god that they’d sworn themselves to? Did they have any idea about the strange world between worlds that had been revealed to me?

  I winced at that last one. Maybe it was crazy, maybe it was just denial, but I was trying not to think of any of that if I could. I wanted to, oh did I want to, but I knew I had to get through my workday first. If I tried to dissect every little detail I’d never be able to get through two full shifts.

  Gods, I needed a vacation.

  There wasn’t one on the immediate horizon, however, and who knew when I’d be able to afford a real one. So instead of jetting off to Hawaii or some other tropical place, I enjoyed my last five minutes of sitting before getting started on my shift.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the time did indeed drag. Partially because every movement took quite a bit of effort with how sore and exhausted I was, but partially because my mind kept trying to forcefully drag me back to everything I’d learned the day before. Reapers. Dead Offices. Phantoms. It was all entirely too much! If it was in a comic book, I would have been obsessed with finding a way to buy the next volume.

  But there was no ‘next volume’, because as far as I knew, it was real life. Even if it seemed utterly impossible. And knowing that all of our souls were being siphoned off and sorted like a bunch of cosmic batteries really made serving people their morning cup of overpriced coffee seem a bit… futile.

  I started my shift in a daze, moving on autopilot as my mind tried to wrap itself around everything. I’d never really been sold on the gods. Sure, they’d appeared early during my mother’s lifetime and helped fight off the deluge of interdimensional monsters that had suddenly started breaking into our world a few years before that, but that didn’t mean that they were actual deities. They could be aliens, or maybe even monsters themselves, just better looking.

  Seeing the Dead Offices and how everything was sorted, as well as the Reapers, well… that was kind of it, wasn’t it? No more doubt. Presto, blammo, the gods were indeed gods and swearing fealty to them in worship was how one got to the afterlife. I knew many, many people would kill to have the certainly that I was suddenly afforded.

  So why did it make my stomach twist?

  Because something is wrong.

  I nearly jumped as the voice popped into my head and barely avoided spilling coffee I had just subconsciously made for a customer. Which pretty much would have ruined my day considering I hadn’t brought a change of clothes. I’d been so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I’d nearly forgotten about her.

  “What was that?” I asked quietly as I looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to the crazy girl talking to herself.

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  “That’s why I was killed. Something is wrong. I think… I think I was hot on the trail of it.”

  “You think?” I murmured to myself as I and headed into the back room. Hopefully anyone who saw me thought I was getting supplies, and I figured I could just grab some more lids and straws for a cover, because when didn’t we need lids and straws? “Feels like that would be something you should know.”

  “I’m not actually me, you know. Just—”

  “An echo, yeah, I’ve got that part.” I huffed but it was more at the situation than the voice. She couldn’t help the situation any more then I could. “It’s just so unfortunate for the both of us. I mean, more for you than me, obviously, cause… ya know. The whole murder thing.”

  “Technically it wasn’t me that was murdered but—”

  “Yes. Echo. Like I said, I get the idea.”

  “I was going to say thank you. And for the record, I think you have it worse. I can’t remember whole chunks. I don’t feel the pain of what happened to me, nor did I feel pain when you were being chased. I… exist only if you squint at the definition of what it means to exist. If anything, I’m more of an AI protocol than anything else.”

  I stood there a moment, surprised out of reaching for the lids. “That’s actually really depressing.”

  “Is it?”

  “I know you’re not exactly typical, as far as sentient beings go, but to me, you exist.”

  “…thank you, Bridges.”

  “Anytime.”

  With that, the voice quieted, and I figured I would give her time. Maybe that was a stupid thing to do considering what she’d said about not being real, but no matter what I was going to treat her like she was. Although she did have a frustrating habit of disappearing at the drop of a hat, she’d helped me quite a bit.

  With that addition to occupy my thoughts, the rest of my shift went a lot faster. It wasn’t expected, but it was appreciated, and after my shift I went to retrieve my bike from where I’d left it the day before. Thankfully, no one had stolen it or tried to jack the wheels, which either was a massive stroke of luck or my bike was just too janky for anyone to want. Either way, I was grateful, and I biked home to nap for an hour and a half before heading to my diner job.

  "You look like hell warmed over," one of the cooks, Niko, said as soon as I walked in the back door.

  “Good evening to you too,” I retorted. “I’m having a bit of a week.”

  “You finally go on that bender?” that was another cook, Boogers. The food he cooked was a lot more appetizing than his name. “I told you that ya need to relaaaaax.”

  I let out a chuckle so dry that I almost needed to hydrate eventually. “I’ve been pretty much doing the opposite of relaxing, my friend.”

  I wasn’t really close with the cooks, but we didn’t have any drama either, which was an accomplishment in the diner world. I tried to stay out of front of house and back of house conflict, but that wasn’t always easy to do.

  However, it did help to never date anyone at work. Time after time, I saw my fellow coworkers make that same mistake and it always went badly.

  And sometimes very badly.

  “That’s a real shame, Bridgey-boo. You know, if you ever wanna…” He brought an imaginary joint to his lips and sucked in.

  No matter how good of stuff he might have, it wouldn’t hold a candle to what I had experienced for real the night before.

  “I’m good,” I said, trying my server’s apron around my waist before heading to the front. “Thanks!”

  I wasn't expecting a overly busy shift, and by the time my first table left, it seemed that I was likely going to be right. But I didn't mind a ton. As long as I got about one and half tables per hour, it made it worthwhile to be there. Would I prefer a bit more? Of course. But considering that usually the cooks would sneak me a little food, and I wasn't using utilities at my house, I considered the seven to twelve dollars an hour in tips not to be a waste of my time.

  And it turned out that the slower pace was a needed benefit, because I kept getting distracted. Not by the voice, or any other sort of existential crisis that came from learning about the afterlife, but because of a dozen or so little things that I never noticed until suddenly I did.

  At first it was very subtle. I stepped out for a pretend smoke break just to get some fresh air, which was pretty ironic when one thought about it, only to notice that the temperature shifted slightly when I passed the only other server on shift with me, Amy. I don't really know that much about her, just that she was a college student, and she was nice enough. It wasn't that we were unfriendly, but we both seemed to be the type to come to work to work, then head home immediately afterwards. I respected that about her, for sure.

  The temperature shift happened again when I came in, as Amy asked me to watch her tables while she used the bathroom. I tried not to stare at her as she walked to the bathroom, puzzling over if I was just imagining the sensation, or if there had been a draft from an open door or something both times we'd crossed paths. But that didn't quite make sense, and if anything, I’d learned that lately, there were no coincidences for me anymore.

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