"The story's pretty straightforward."
"It all starts with the little 'there was a light' cliche."
Jane pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Then exhaled with more force than necessary.
"Except I couldn't remember shit and I had this aching feeling in my head."
She said, fanning her face exaggeratedly.
"Oh! And this feeling... this feeling of regret."
There was a pause—a brief one, as if to take a moment to think too hard over something useless.
She shrugged, shaking her head to dismiss whatever thought was brewing in that overheating little head.
"Looking back on it. Whatever it was, they were probably side effects of... I don't know? Being dead?"
She mused to herself quietly. Maybe it was the heat getting to her, or whatever psychotic tendency she managed to drag with her even in death to this hellscape.
"Speeding things up, I was like..."
Jane took an exaggerated pose, ready to recount her story for the listeners, as if still in a high school drama club. And with a sassy tone, she spoke.
"So let me get this straight. You want me—someone who barely made it to twenty-one before dying—to rebuild an entire fucking planet?!"
With each bleeding pause in her story, unnecessary gestures were thrown out like candy on Halloween.
She inhaled, preparing to continue.
"And on this planet, there is nothing? Like, no water, no animals, not a single plant!"
Jutting out her hip and resting one hand on it, Jane waved her free hand uselessly in front of something that resembled a face, clearly trying to gesture ahead of her.
"In front of me was literally an angel... or, a god?"
Thinking for a moment, she eventually shrugged, having reached no definitive conclusion.
"Whatever it was, I couldn't tell if it was a girl or a guy. All I saw was that blinding light, and a voice that basically assaulted my ears from every direction it could."
Then she blew up. Her face twisted in an expression of frustration, and her skin shone beet red.
"And the bitch just hummed like I made its day!"
She yelled, throwing her hands up at some unknown being that'd be above her.
"Saying some shit like 'So you understand? That's just perfect.'"
As if to mock the deity, she made a dumb face, purposefully failing to mimic the voice and rocking her head left and right.
Finally, Jane cooled down. Taking a breath to calm herself.
"Anyway. It said something about running out of time and saviour or whatev's, basically ignoring anything I tried to argue, and proceeded to flash me with a light even brighter than itself, making me land on my ass in the middle of this scorching arid heap of shit — desert... I mean desert."
That thought alone made her scrunch her face. Whether it was remembering the interaction or remembering where she was, both seemed to put her off.
"Same damn thing."
She grunted, sitting down against the heated sands with grains so fine that they squeak when you run on them.
"That's more or less how I ended up here. Can't lie, though, I definitely cut out a lot of the story, since otherwise, you'd be listening quite literally forever. Especially with the whole purgatory burning into hell and demonic uprising thing."
... What?
She sucked in her lips and twisted her body to make sure that nobody overheard her. Lying against the red sand when she confirmed it.
"Moving on!"
She turned her head to the closest listener of her performance.
"So what about you? How'd you get here?"
Just next to her was a long-dead skeleton.
It was a great listener. Not a great contributor.
"... What the hell am I doing?"
Jane groaned lowly, letting it continue as she shaded her face from the sun with her hands.
That groan then grew louder, until she proceeded into a fit. Kicking her legs, smacking the ground, and whining like a child that didn't get its way.
Around, for miles, was nothing. All you could see was the distorted horizon that melted like it was a distant lake that surrounded from all directions.
Littered around the desert were messy lots of dunes, interrupted by bones and rocks. Commonly, the two would go together. Skeletons, rarely complete, would be nestled beneath where shade could be found.
Rocks on top of rocks, on top of rocks, on top of dirt and sand.
It didn't change. Likely never would.
Over the horizon, the sun shifted slowly.
And here? An irreverent, whiny little girl with the next eternity to do whatever she wants.
And for now, she wants to complain.
"You assholes could of at least made the sun bearable! Even the shade is hot!"
The skeleton seemed to agree.