"ARGH I CAN'T DO IT, I CAN'T TAKE THIS SHIT ANY LONGER!!"
Having heard similar words before, I picked up my eyes just in time to watch the man a few spots in front of me turn and jump off of the white marble staircase we stood on. His face was warped into an expression halfway between relief and insanity as tears streamed from his eyes. With a terrified scream, the man plummeted through the air before he was swallowed by the thick layer of clouds that surrounded us at all times.
"1,437,939." I muttered the number under my breath as I looked away from where the man had disappeared and focused on spacing out again. I had gotten rather good at it since I had appeared on the staircase some time ago. The exact time was anybody's guess since there was no way of keeping time beyond counting each second but I had given up on that after reaching a million on five separate occasions. The reason why there was no way of keeping time was that nothing ever changed. The clouds were all the same, with consistent lighting filtering through from an unseen sun, and the narrow marble staircase was always the same shade at a continuous 45-degree incline.
The last memory I had before suddenly appearing in the strange world was falling asleep in my bed, tired after another day-long shift. When I first saw the clouds and the staircase leading up into them, I made the obvious assumption anyone who had heard of Christianity would make, I had died and gone to heaven.
The relief I felt at the time was overwhelming, as I imagined dodging the biggest bullet after not being sent to hell and instead going to spend eternity in paradise. However, my initial impression couldn't have been further from the truth, and now I was certain that the bullet had hit me center mass.
While it may not have been an eternal pit of hellfire and brimstone, whatever deity rules over the realm had made it to torture its inhabitants. The first thing was that the staircase was extremely narrow, with only enough space to take one step to either side, and without any railing, your only option was to stand in place or shuffle back and forth, hoping you didn't fall off.
But the true torture didn't come from the physical discomfort, but the mental anguish of not knowing. There was no explanation or pamphlet to tell you what was going on, leaving you with only two options: stay on the staircase or jump over the side into the soft embrace of the clouds and hope whatever fate awaited you was better than standing around for all eternity while your sanity slowly eroded away.
I had debated the decision over and over in my mind, sometimes getting so close to giving up that my entire body went numb. But I had never gone all the way, not because I was scared, but simply because I was too stubborn to give up. I couldn't get the possibility out of my mind that somehow the clouds and the stairs were a test, one that I needed to pass to get the reward I finally deserved. If there really were a heaven, a place of absolute paradise, nothing would stop me from passing through the pearly gates.
My life had been painfully boring, because I had followed what I believed was the tried and true path, which was to work hard, keep my head down and focus on realistic goals not dreams. I did what was boring and safe, getting good grades in school to go to a decent college that I could afford, to get a job that actually paid well and wouldn't set me up for a life of constantly paying off debts and living paycheck to paycheck.
Every step of the way, I had played it safe, bringing everything down to probabilities and making the safest choice possible or the one with the greatest return on investment. But with that stability came mediocrity and before I realized it, I had wasted my life away in some accounting firm managing more money than I would ever possess and could name more companies that I managed the portfolios for than people who I actually cared about.
And if there really was a God, I would wait for a million years on a stairway to heaven if it meant I could give he, she, they, it, a piece of my mind.
"Next!"
I blinked and looked up to find that, for the first time in forever, my surroundings had changed. Instead of a staircase, I was standing on a marble platform suspended within the clouds, and a few feet in front of me, sitting behind a desk, was an angel, complete with white wings and a golden halo.
"I-Is this real," I muttered, scared to move, afraid that I might break the illusion and find myself back on the stairs.
"Yes this is real, and I know your shocked but I have other people to see so if we can keep this brief, that would be great," The angel replied as they opened a drawer on their desk and pulled out a file which they promptly opened, "Can you please confirm your name is Ramon Young."
"Y-yeah, that's me," I answered, still somewhat shell-shocked and trying to put my thoughts together.
"Well, congratulations, Mr. Young, you have successfully rid yourself of all earthly bonds and can now begin spending eternity in your own personal heaven."
For a long moment, I just stared at the angel, "All earthly what?"
"They always want an explanation," The angel muttered under their breath with a sigh before resuming, "The place you just left was called Purgatory, it's the realm where all souls who don't deserve eternal damnation go after they die to prepare their souls for heaven."
I slowly digested the Angel's words trying to make sense of it all, "But, what about the people that jumped off, what happened to them?"
"Oh their souls are just reincarnated to live out another life on Earth, after a couple of ten or a hundred cycles, the soul naturally grows weary and manages to make it through Purgatory, like you did." The Angel explained with a shrug as if they hadn't just outlined the entire process of the afterlife.
"Alright, so what happens now that I'm no longer in Purgatory?" I asked, hoping to move the conversation along and keep me from considering the fact that everyone on earth was recycled like plastic.
"Now, you get to spend an eternity in your own personal heaven," The angel answered with a cheerful expression as they clapped their hands, "The possibilities are quite literally endless."
"A personal heaven, you mean it isn't just one big cloud world where everyone flies around on white feathery wings," I asked, feeling like I needed to sit down, only for a leather chair to rise up from the marble platform.
I stared at the chair for a moment before I simply gave up trying to come up with an explanation and took a seat for the first time in years. I sank into the leather with a sigh, closing my eyes for a moment before opening them and meeting the Angel's understanding gaze, "Sorry about that…where were we?"
"The concept of a personal heaven," The angel reminded me before resuming where they left off, "While there is a common heaven where you can visit and converse with others who have passed along, most souls spend their infinite time within customized worlds that are shaped to fulfill what they think of as a paradise."
"I can visit other people?" I suddenly sat up with a start, latching onto the Angel's words like a lifeline.
A sad smile crossed their face, "Yes, but I'm afraid no one from your last life with whom you had a close connection has managed to break free from the cycle of reincarnation. Though it's only a matter of time before they join you in the afterlife."
"Oh," I replied somewhat disappointedly before shaking the thoughts free from my head, "That's fine then."
"Great, then we can get started on making your personal heaven," The angel cheered.
I nodded as excitement replaced my melancholy, eager to see what real paradise looked like, "Alright then, is there a questionnaire or something I need to fill out?"
"No, we haven't used those things since the first century, we switched to something more modern and far more streamlined," The angel replied before waving their hand over the table summoning a twelve sided prism constructed out of a pale yellow crystal surrounded by a golden ethereal light that drifted on an invisible breeze like fog or smoke, "All you need to do is place your hands on the Soulcrystal and it will read your soul creating your perfect paradise."
The idea sounded too good to be true, but I guess that was a literal definition of a paradise. Reaching out with both hands I placed them on the crystal and was immediately filled with a pleasant warmth that sank into my bones, "Alright what do I do now?"
"Just think about what makes you happy while the crystal does it work. It should only take a moment." The angel advised.
Following their directions, I thought about my life, and the few moments of happiness that decorated my otherwise drab existence. For a moment, I lost myself in the exercise as, with a level of mental clarity that had always eluded me, I relived my entire life with startling accuracy.
"And you're all done!"
The angels voice broke me out of my memories and I looked up from the entrancing light of the crystal and found them staring at a thin stone slab scrolling across it like it was an ipad, "Let's see, seems like your ideal world is mainly a farm/restaurant life simulator where your granted reality augmenting powers through the use of a system. You also heavily sprinkled in components of a nsfw r-18 dating sim using characters from various cartoons and tv shows you watched throughout your life."
"Wait what?" I blinked as the Angel read off the tablet, "T-that can't be right."
"Oh no it is, and there's no reason to be ashamed, this is far from the worst I've seen," The angel replied waving aside my words with their hand, "Now while the crystal has a 99.9% percent accuracy when creating the perfect paradise do you have any final amendments to fill in that last 0.01%?"
I fell silent for a second as I mulled it over before a random thought crossed my mind, "I don't want to be human."
The Angel blinked, clearly caught off guard by my request, "You don't want to be a human?"
"Yeah, why not switch things up a little," I replied nodding to myself as the idea started to grow on me, "Or maybe give me the ability to switch between a human form and a non-human one."
"Very well then, what kind of animal or other creature were you thinking about?" The Angel asked.
"Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of like fantasy races, you know elves, dwarves, the classics." I corrected somewhat awkwardly though the Angel seemed to be relieved, "That actually makes a great deal more sense. I'll make the necessary changes so you can choose what race you want when you create your new body. Anything else?"
I thought for a moment longer before shaking my head, "No, that's about everything."
"Perfect, then I can send you along your way. Have fun in heaven," The Angel waved their hand once more and the Soulcrystal flared, generating a powerful pull that tore me out of my seat as my body compressed, going from three dimensions into a stream of light as I felt the world around me change.