With a quiet sigh, he looked again at the mysterious post-mortem tablet and tapped the freshly arrived message.
“Existence After Death. Tips and Recommendations.”
Dear User,
By now you have probably realized that you are completely dead. Tears, screams, and curses will not change your situation by even a millimeter, so I advise you to regain your composure as quickly as possible and look around. Everything you find nearby belongs to you. I recommend carefully examining each tool or object and using them as intended.
The space you inhabit belongs to you. It contains all the provisions required for survival.
If by some means you encounter other living (dead) beings, I suggest you observe elementary rules of etiquette and communicate responsibly and politely.
A word of warning—your assigned tools are not replaceable or refundable. If you lose them and the Administration determines that you cannot continue, your existence will be terminated.
Good luck and safe travels.
? The Afterlife Administrator ?
(P.S.: This message was generated automatically; replies are not accepted.)
“Wait… what?” Noah mumbled in disbelief. His existence would be “terminated” if he lost his tools?
He clutched the tablet tighter, suddenly horrified at the thought of nearly throwing it into the abyss. Would that have counted as irretrievable loss? And what did it mean—“the Administration determines”? Were there really administrators down here? Was someone actually watching his every move?
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Looking around for hidden cameras was pointless—the cavern was swallowed by darkness. Also... could cameras even exist after death?
Then again, if tablets could exist here, why not other electronics?
Confused, Noah scratched his head. He looked around more carefully this time, paying attention to details. His clothes were the same ones he had been wearing when he “kicked the bucket.” A grey T-shirt, white sweatpants, socks, and grey sneakers. Even in such modest clothing, he felt no underground chill, though normally caves were freezing. The air temperature was just right.
That was good news—at least he didn’t need to worry about hypothermia.
The two buckets and the pole still lay where he had found them. According to the Administrator, those were his personal buckets and his personal pole. Noah suddenly realized he should probably keep such precious, irreplaceable, non-refundable items far from the edge of the abyss. Because what if they turned out to be the only possessions he had in this underground space, where he was meant to spend eternity?
That last thought struck him as terrifying. Eternity wasn’t a number with many zeroes. However many you added, it would still only be the bleak beginning of eternity. And if he was truly destined to spend all that time with two buckets, a pole, and one tablet, then those objects were priceless.
“How long will this tablet’s battery even last?” he wondered, glancing at the screen for an icon. Only now did he realize—there was no battery indicator at all. Even after pulling down the top menu, he found nothing of the sort. As though such a detail was irrelevant here.
“Post-mortem tablet, so maybe its charge is post-mortem too,” Noah mused. “Perhaps the battery died ages ago and now it feeds on some mysterious negative energy…”
Unfortunately, there was no way to check such a theory. Turning the device over, he searched for a manufacturer’s logo, but the casing was completely blank.
After some thought, Noah decided to leave such investigations for later and instead examine his “real estate.” He still doubted this underground was truly his, as the Administrator claimed. Prisoners were told their cell was theirs, too, though it really belonged to the prison, which belonged to the state. This situation, he figured, shouldn’t be much different.
On one side of the illuminated platform, he had already discovered the abyss. So this time he checked the remaining edges. At first glance, the place seemed to hang in mid-air, but then he noticed a wide staircase descending along the wall. Noah quickly gathered his “possessions”—the two buckets, the pole, and the tablet. He switched on the tablet's LED flashlight and began descending. The stairs spiraled downward, circling the abyss.
From this perspective, Noah suddenly thought the chasm no longer looked like an abyss. It looked like a giant well, encircled by steps, its opening lit by that solitary shaft of light.
“A well, two buckets, a pole…” he murmured. “However you think, it’s some kind of riddle.”
Clumsily clanking with the buckets and lighting his way with the tablet, he soon reached the bottom of the stairs.