But just as he fell asleep, he opened his eyes again. Dave looked around, finding himself in the Department Manager's office.
'What happened? Is this a dream?'
"This is not a dream, Mr. Dave."
Suddenly, a voice came from in front of him. On the other side of the desk—where he usually saw the Department Manager—sat someone else.
It was a woman. A woman so beautiful that Dave never thought someone like her could even exist. He looked at her face, her eyes, her long brown hair… and then he noticed something that broke his daze.
Pointy ears.
'Huh? Pointy ears?'
He blinked again, focusing.
"Elf?"
The word slipped out before he could stop himself.
The woman looked at him and replied, "Yeah, I am an elf. Is there a problem, Mr. Dave?"
Dave quickly shook his head, but then something clicked. He looked around the room again, then back at her.
"This is a dream."
The woman furrowed her brows a little and said, "No, it's not."
Dave wanted to refute her again, to insist that this had to be a dream—but he stopped. Instead, he asked, "Well, if this isn't a dream, then tell me—why the hell am I in the Department Manager's office? And you, who the hell are you? I'm 100% sure there's no such thing as elves in the real world."
The woman looked at him for a few moments, then sighed.
"Well, let's just say... this isn't your world. This is the Afterworld—a place where only the souls of the dead can enter. And I'm the manager of your soul."
Dave stared at her.
'Soul? Afterworld? What the fuck are those?'
The woman responded calmly, "You don't have to understand them. It won't matter to you anyway."
Dave's eyes widened. Then it clicked.
"You can... hear my thoughts?"
The woman nodded. "Yeah. Well, let me introduce myself properly. I'm Mika, and I'll be overseeing your soul's transfer to another world."
Dave sat down slowly, his eyes still on her as he tried to process what the hell was going on.
'This was a dream, right?'
'But this woman… she said it wasn't.'
'Some "Afterworld," where only souls could go?'
'If that was true—'
"...Did I die?"
Dave asked the question quietly. Because really, if only souls could come here, then the only explanation was… he was already dead.
Mika looked at him for a moment and then sighed as she said, "Yes… you are dead."
Dave went silent hearing that. His mind raced. 'How is this possible? Did I get a brain hemorrhage from getting too angry? Was it because I ate too much? What the hell happened?'
Mika, reading his thoughts, replied, "Well, it was none of that. Let's… let's just say your luck was extremely bad. Your neighbor forgot to turn off their stove, which caused a gas leak in their apartment. And, well, a short circuit happened. The explosion was massive—it engulfed both your apartment and theirs. You were in deep sleep at the time."
Dave's first thought was, 'Oh right, she can read my thoughts', but as the rest of her explanation sank in, he didn't know what to say.
"But… my neighbors had gone on vacation, hadn't they? For more than ten days?" he asked.
Mika nodded. "Right. And for ten days, the gas kept leaking. Then, when a sudden blackout hit the building and the power flickered back on… one spark was all it took. You know what happened next."
Dave nodded slowly, a hollow feeling growing in his chest. "Explosion… huh? So… I died in my sleep? I still can't believe it."
"It's understandable," Mika said gently. "Don't worry. Most people have trouble accepting it at first."
Dave just stared at the desk, still processing. Dead. Just like that. He hadn't even gotten to finish the stories he was following. Hell, he hadn't even turned 27 yet. This is bullshit.
But Mika continued, her tone shifting. "Anyway, since you're here… why don't you tell me the kind of power you'd wish for?"
Dave blinked, looking up at her. Power? He was still trying to wrap his head around being dead, and now this elf woman was offering him powers?
"I'm sorry—'power'? Why?" he asked, his voice a bit rough.
Mika said, "Well, you see, you died an unfortunate and untimely death. You still had, let's say, years left to live, but it seems your luck was just too bad that day."
"But… we can't just leave you dead when you weren't supposed to die. So, you'll be transmigrated again as a human into a random world. And… due to the karma you've accumulated in this life and your past ones, you're eligible to wish for one power of your choice."
Dave squinted, trying to catch on to what she was saying. 'So basically', he thought, 'my time wasn't supposed to be up, but I still ended up dying. So now I have to be transmigrated into someone else to finish out my life cycle. Meaning, dying can be "bad timing" too… and when that happens, people either get reincarnated or transmigrated?'
There was also that bit about granting a wish—which seemed to be tied to karma. And the way she mentioned both this and past lives, that meant he had lived more than one already.
He nodded slowly, still processing it all. But even so, he said, "Umm… can you wait a moment? This is still too much for me to process."
To that, Mika gave a small understanding smile and replied, "Don't worry. Take your time—time doesn't exist here anyways."
Dave nodded again. 'Another piece of information', he noted grimly. 'No time here. Makes sense for some kind of soul-waiting room or whatever this is.'