Chapter Text
Kwan jerks awake with a gasp
Frantic, he scrambles upright, twists in the blankets, and hits the floor with a hard thud. Heart pounding, he lays there for a moment as the ceiling solidifies into the observatory, the console chair spinning slowly. Familiar wind howls just outside the window, and for one, hilarious moment… Kwan is sure that was all a dream.
He's so, so sure as he pulls himself upright, as he slowly gets himself to his feet. Kwan's so sure until something stings across the palm of his right hand. With a stifled wince, he slowly uncurls the not green fingers, and stares numbly at the burning ring.
"You know, I would have liked to have tried that Nasty Burger place in its heyday."
Startled, Kwan knocks his shoulder into the chair, nearly drops the ring. He almost falls over again, the blanket catching on his feet, heart thundering in his ears, but he manages to catch himself. The man before Kwan is pale, the sort of man with slicked back hair his professors would have advised him to stay away from on sight alone. Labor and safety violations are written all over his pressed suit that way; he's dressed way too nice for this to be real, regardless.
"That… I'm dreaming right now?" Kwan says when the man continues to observe him.
"No," he replies, leaning on one hand in the other console chair, and taps the ground with his cane. "No, you are very much dead right now."
Oh. Um. "Wasn't I already before…?" Kwan can't help but probe, even as a knot twists itself up in the pit of his stomach.
"Interestingly enough, not quite." Straightening, the man glances around. "You can stay dead now, if you'd like. Humans usually don't get a choice; it either happens or it doesn't."
Kwan… is very confused, but definitely would prefer to not be dead. "Okay, I'll choose to, uh, not be dead then. Thanks."
The man smiles thinly. "Now you know better than that don't you, Kwan?"
Yikes, he knows his name? But, ah. Well. Yeah, that did sound too good to be true. What's worse than not being dead?
There are worse things than death.
"... What's the catch?"
"Ah, good, quick on the uptake," the man says, and stands. He splays one hand and a small, white orb appears above his palm, a little tattered looking, flickering, but there. Kwan aches at the sight. "Well, your poor little soul gave up the ghost here finally. Couldn't handle the strain. So, I'll be taking that as a matter of course, but… well, the memory of you is imprinted into all that ectoplasm, and they do say you die twice. Thrice, perhaps, literally in your case."
Kwan swallows, stifles the desire to snatch back what is apparently no longer his to have, a damp greed swelling. "O-Oh, so I'll be a ghost, is what you're saying."
"Correct. You could, of course, just let go and enjoy yourself in a new life far from this deteriorating universe. Stay, and there won't be anything waiting for you if you ever 'pass on' again; ghosts like you in this dimension are fake that way. Your soul, however… will be someone or something else somewhere else."
"Oh," Kwan repeats, unsure if he should focus on the confirmation of reincarnation or not, "so, ghosts can die. I'd wondered…"
The man gives him a rather impatient look. "Everything dies one day. Even God will."
"... Um—"
"Yes, yes, anything you could believe in is real too; nothing is mutually exclusive, the universe is unfortunate like that, makes my job complicated," he says, cutting Kwan off. "But, I am actually fairly busy, no one likes ferrying souls from here anymore, and while I like to watch what happens when people make the wrong choices, this timeline doesn't have Chicago style pizza anymore either, so if you could make a decision promptly, I'll be on my way."
This is a lot. Kwan maybe can't help the tears. "Er, um," he starts, sniffling, and rubs hard across his eyes with the back of the hand he currently shouldn't have. "I, uh, I'll stay. Thank you. I hope I get a nice life despite everything."
"Hm," the man says, "unlikely, but who knows. Fortune favors the damned, trust me on that. Just know that you've done your best with the lot given to you."
There's a pause despite the man's claim to his lack of availability, and Kwan says, "Thank you," again, unwilling to ask questions he feels won't get answered.
He has the gist of it anyway, he thinks.
Death cracks a small smile. "How about that."
Then Kwan wakes up.