Chapter 22: After Life

  Eve instinctively moved out the way as Abeona reached out to comfort her. Even as a spirit separated from its body, her phenomenal reflexes remained intact.

  Eve’s sudden shift as Abeona leaned forward caused the goddess to lose her balance and topple to the floor. She landed in a heap next to Eve.

  “OUCH”

  Eve’s hands flew to her mouth as she saw the aftermath of the goddess’s fall, “I’m so sorry, force of habit.” Her eyes still stinging with tears, she slowly rose to her feet, before helping Abeona do the same.

  “It’s fine.” Abeona wheezed, clutching her ribs as she accepted Eve’s help to stand. “In fact, that agility of yours is exactly why you were chosen.”

  “Chosen? For what?” Eve enquired, carefully drying her eyes as curiosity overtook her.

  Putting on her most bombastic voice, Abeona proudly proceeded to make her grand reveal. “Eve Adenson, Since you were lucky enough to die by being hit by a truck...”

  “Lucky?” Eve laughed in disbelief, “I wouldn’t have called that lucky.”

  Unfazed by the interruption, Abeona continued her pitch with gusto: “But it is! As it means you have been selected the first to receive our newest, premium of afterlife package. A thrilling, Isekai experience!”

  “E...Sec...Eye?” A baffled Eve spelled out the unfamiliar word phonetically. “What’s that?”

  “Another world, one of magic and adventure.” Abeona dramatically waved her hand in front of Eve’s face. “Picture this...”

  The goddess began to weave a vivid mental tapestry into Eve’s mind. “You, a brave adventurer, battling a mighty dragon, it fires a volley of fireballs. You nimbly evade them, feeling their radiant heat as they blaze past.”

  At the mention of fireballs, Eve’s eyes lit up, finding herself swept up in the excitement. “Are you saying I’ll get to dodge fireballs?”

  “Not just fireballs, arrows, lightning, charging beasts and more.” Abeona continued, further stoking Eve’s thirst for greater tests to her dodging skills. “Challenges far beyond anything you could encounter in your world.”

  Eve was being increasingly drawn into Abeona’s pitch. She was figuratively salivating at the prospect of all the new potential dangers she could dodge. The Isekai world sounded like an adrenaline junkies fantasy playground, a dream come true for Eve.

  Yet, one thing was tugging at the back of Eve’s mind that tempered her enthusiasm. Lily, The friend Eve had left behind.

  Whether it was out of guilt for having put her dodging addiction before their friendship, or simply missing her lifelong friend, Eve felt compelled to ask...

  “What about Lily?”

  “Your friend? I told you she’s perfectly safe.” Abeona insisted before pausing, “Unless, do you want her to join you?”

  “NO!” Eve yelled while firmly shaking her head. “I’ve caused enough trouble for her already.” Rubbing her own arm for comfort, Eve's voice broke slightly as she looked away from Abeona. “I just wish I had a chance to say goodbye.”

  Abeona gave Eve a small, understanding smile. “A lot of souls that come through here ask the same thing, to say a final goodbye to the ones they care about. Sadly it’s against the rules. I’m so sorry, but I can’t break those rules.”

  A dejected Eve gave a quietly despondent “Ok.” It stung that she couldn’t speak to Lily one last time. That she couldn’t apologise for not listening to her. But it seemed that was the way it had to be.

  When Eve looked back at Abeona, she noticed the goddess had a mischievous smirk on her face.

  “Liked I said, I can’t break the rules... but that doesn’t mean I can’t bend them a teeny bit.” Abeona pinched her fingers together and with a wink, jumped onto her tablet.

  “You’d do that for me? Thank you so much!” Eve lunged forward, sweeping the goddess up into an appreciative hug.

  “I’m glad your happy but please, let me go.” Abeona gasped from within Eve’s tight embrace.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Once Eve released her, Abeona set to work on her tablet. “I just have to contact my special agent on earth...”

  While this was all going on, Wheeler had just been awkwardly parked in front of a distraught Lily, who was still clutching Eve’s broken body.

  “Please, Eve... don’t leave me.” Lily wept deeply as she cradled her fallen friend on the cold, muddy and desolate construction site floor.

  Wheeler, seeing Eve’s lifeline had stopped pulsing on his dashboard, knew Eve’s spirit had already departed her body.

  As his headlights illuminated the tragic scene, he was forced to simply sit and watch, as the brutal aftermath of his actions played out in front of him.

  He’d done as the goddess Abeona had asked him to, transporting Eve to her new life. Yet as he watched Lily grieving, he began to doubt if it had been the right thing.

  His thoughts were sharply scattered as Abeona’s voice chirped in, “Hey Wheeler, how are things going down there?”

  “Horribly.” Wheeler admitted grimly.

  “Hopefully this will help, I’ve got someone here who wants a word with you.” Abeona replied a little too cheerfully.

  Wheeler wondered how Abeona was able to sound so upbeat after what they had just done. He guessed gods really did just view death differently to humans

  A different, yet hauntingly familiar voice started speaking, immediately snapping Wheeler out of his thoughts.

  “Hello. My name is Eve Adenson. Are you Mr Truck-Kun?”

  “My name is actually Wheeler.” He sighed in frustrated response to the unwanted alias.

  Wheeler could hear Abeona stifling her laughter in the background of the radio transmission as Eve chastised her. “Abeona, you told me his name was Truck-Kun.”

  “Well technically I Am Truck-Kun.” Wheeler admitted reluctantly. “But I prefer to be called Wheeler.”

  “You were the truck that has been trying to run me over, right Wheeler?” Eve shot, in an accusatory manner.

  “Yes you’re right, sorry about that. I assume Abeona explained why?” Wheeler inquired hopefully. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to explain to Eve the reason he had run her down. Even as he sat there as a sentient truck, the situation seemed too insane to rationalize.

  “We can discuss that later,” Eve insisted, before quickly moving on to the main reason for their conversation. “Is my friend Lily with you?”

  “She’s right in front of me, with your...” Wheeler hesitated, unwilling to utter the final word ‘body’ to Eve. It was bad enough that he had killed her. Mentioning Eve's dead body while talking to her spirit, felt like it would be rubbing that fact she was dead in her face.

  On the other end of the call, Eve bit her spirit forms ghostly lower lip anxiously, “Is she upset?”

  Wheeler could still hear Lily’s wails of sorrow ringing throughout the construction site. “Upset might be an understatement,” he admitted, “she’s devastated.”

  Clutching her chest as a pang of regret shot through her soul, Eve held back tears as she processed what she had just heard. She let out a small heartbroken sigh, “Bestie...”

  With her voice shaking, Eve asked Wheeler, “Can you give her a message for me?”

  “I’d like to, but I’m not sure how,” Wheeler responded. “I can’t speak, not to any living human. I mean, besides Abeona, you’re the first person I’ve talked to since I died and she turned me into a truck.”

  “I assume that’s why you didn’t say anything to me during our training sessions.” Eve reasoned, before turning to Abeona. “So why didn’t you give him the ability to talk to living people? Wouldn’t have that been a super useful thing for him to be able to do?”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering.” Wheeler chipped in.

  Abeona rolled her eyes, “Everybody’s a critic.” The goddess complained. “Tell me, have either of you ever implanted a human soul into a truck?”

  “No...” Both Eve and Wheeler replied in unison.

  “It’s even harder than it sounds! I performed a feat of divine engineering the likes of which the afterlife has never seen before.” The goddess insisted “So I’m sorry, if in the process, I made a teeny oversight or two...”

  As Abeona ranted, Wheeler’s mind began drifting. After what he did to Eve, the last thing he could do for her is fulfil her last request. But how? There had to be some way he could communicate with Lily.

  Wheeler remembered when he first became a truck, how isolated he had felt. He’d been completely cut off from his previous life and humanity as a whole.

  He recalled how, in his desperation for contact, he had tried to communicate with his parents by flashing his headlights in Morse Code... wait maybe that was the answer

  Wheeler asked, “Eve, does Lily know Morse code?”

  “I don’t know, maybe?” Eve admitted with a shrug. “She’s super smart. Smarter than me at least, so maybe? Why?”

  Wheeler carefully explained his plan to Eve. Meanwhile Abeona continued to chatter away in the background, going on and on about the complexities of divine engineering. “I’ve packed into that truck shrinking, signal jamming, illusion projection...”

  “I guess that could work...” Eve said hesitantly, completely ignoring Abeona’s rantings.

  Wheeler could tell from Eve’s tone that she wasn’t exactly convinced. “Do you have a better idea?” he asked.

  “HEY IS ANYONE EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!” Abeona exploded. She’d been so busy ranting, she hadn’t noticed that neither Wheeler, or Eve had been paying attention to anything she’d been saying for the past few minutes.

  “NOPE.” Both Wheeler and Eve chuckled together.

  “Well that’s a shame, because I think I’ve come up with a solution to our little communication problem.” The goddess boasted proudly.

  “You do!?” the pair of human souls shouted in simultaneous shock.

  Abeona huffed dramatically, playing up her offense at being ignored, “Yes, but since you both clearly aren’t interested in anything I have to say...”

  “We’re sorry, please tell us” Wheeler and Abeona begged in unison.

  “Ok,” the goddess began, “Who better to deliver a message from Eve, than Eve herself?”

  “But you said it was against the rules for me to talk to Lily!” Eve pointed out.

  “Right you are Eve. A soul in the afterlife can’t talk directly to a living person.” Abeona confirmed, before turning her attention to Wheeler.

  Abeona, while giggling with glee at the thought of her master plan, turned her attention to Wheeler. “Which is why you’re going to bring Eve back from the dead.”