I opened my eyes.
White.
The whiteness was everywhere, crushing and absolute. There were no shadows to give it depth, no edges to mark a beginning or an end. It was just a flat, infinite void pressing against me from every side. Beneath my feet, the ground looked like crystal-clear water, reflecting nothing but that same terrifying blank space.
In the middle of all that nothing stood the slot machine.
It was the only thing with any color. Old. Heavy.
A relic of tarnished chrome and cracked wood that hummed with a strange, living energy. Suddenly, my hand rose toward it without my permission.
I watched my own fingers move, tracing the familiar scar across my knuckles. I saw the short cut of my nails. It was my hand, but it felt like someone else was wearing my skin and testing it for a fit.
My body stepped forward. I couldn't stop it.
A gold coin appeared in my palm. It was warm and unnervingly heavy.
"This is where it all started," I muttered. "Gambling. The first mistake."
A weak, lost laugh slipped out of me before I could catch it. I gripped the lever and pulled.
The thing resisted at first, feeling stubborn and intentional, before it finally gave way. Deep inside the machine, the gears began to grind. The glass wheels blurred into streaks of red, gold, and black.
Symbols flashed past. They might have been bells, or maybe they were faces I used to know. Then the voices started. They echoed inside my skull, layered and distorted. Crispy. Wrong. I didn't understand what they were saying, and frankly, I didn't want to!
Clack.
The wheels locked into place one by one.
JACKPOT!
The word bloomed across the glass in letters of gold fire. The machine shook violently, pouring blinding light through its seams as the voices rose into a piercing scream.
I woke up gasping!
I wasn't in the void anymore. I was lying on something hard and rough that scraped against my cheek. The infinite white was gone, replaced by a cramped, low ceiling and walls that leaned inward as if the room itself were breathing.
Papers were everywhere!
Thousands of them drifted across the floor and stacked in leaning towers against the walls. Every scrap was covered in writing. The walls themselves were carved with symbols that shifted and crawled whenever I tried to look at them. It was a prison built out of secrets.
"Where..."
My voice sounded wrong. It was lower, rougher, yet it carried an energy I hadn't felt in years.
I felt younger. Lighter.
I touched my face and the skin was smoother than it should be. Then I felt it. The deep horizontal scar was still there, cut right across the bridge of my nose. Exactly like my old body.
In the middle of the mess sat a wooden table scarred by knives and cigarette burns. Written across the center in dried, rust-colored red was a single word:
HEAVEN...
The moment my fingers touched the letters, the iron taste of blood filled my mouth.
Then came the pain.
It started as a pressure behind my eyes and moved down my spine until every nerve was screaming in agony! Information began to flood my brain. The papers on the floor and the symbols on the walls lifted off their surfaces and poured directly into my skull.
Every secret and every memory etched into this room forced its way inside me. All of it!
Blood poured from my nose and ears.
Tears of red blurred my vision. The room ignited in colors that don't even have names. It wasn't just light. It was the weight of a thousand lives being pressed into a single, fragile soul.
My feet left the floor. The light wrapped around me like a cocoon, pulling me upward. I screamed as the light poured out of my eyes and mouth.
Then, total silence.
I fell hard to the floor. The chanting was still going, low and steady. I closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath, but my thoughts were a mess.
Through the fog, I heard a voice. Small. Familiar.
"One more step, beta."
My mother. The voice that tucked me in. The one that told me God was watching a million times until I actually believed her.
I let out a raw, hollow laugh. It scraped my throat.
"One more step to what?"
There was no answer. The symbols continued to crawl up my arms and neck while the papers rose into a cyclone around me.
Deep inside, I felt it. A heavy presence watching from the dark. Something was watching...Something was waiting for me.
The Ghost of Death had just been given a second chance.