1 The Idea of Death

At the tender age of 23, Dabria died.

If the thought of death hadn't silently choked her every night, she could have been many things. Among them, a writer or even archeologist was top on the list, but she would have never become a virtual reality creator.

Do what you love. Love what you do, they all said. But with the very thought of one day leaving the world behind with simply nothing, she had taken matters into her own hands.

More than anything, she feared the unconscious. The idea of not being able to control her thoughts or the lack thereof altogether made her bones shudder.

She needed a way to reconcile with death before it was too late.

With this impending anxiety chasing after her, she channeled all of it into her creation. Five years and 3 months. She blocked out all else around her and dedicated all of her time into her sole innovation, what she liked to call the Underworld System. It really wasn't her passion but rather a burning necessity.

When she took her final breath, she wanted to be immersed in her own virtual reality world. There was a certain comfort knowing that there would be a custom-tailored world for her at the end. It would draw from her fondest memories and automatically generate what she wanted to see most. Perhaps it would light up those darkest times.

That way, she wouldn't know when it was all over. And she could relive her best moments in her virtual world. In there, she would be once again embraced by friends and family, and the world would know her genius.

But before society acknowledged her brilliance and memorialized her for ages to come, she died with only her headset to accompany her. There was nothing else—no family, no name, no nothing.

At her final moments, she wordlessly put on the machinery that had consumed her youth. And with only her virtual reality headset, she slipped off into the unknown that had plagued her entire life—nameless, hopeless, and terribly broke.

They all say that your life flashes before your eyes at the final moment, but all Dabria saw before the world faded to black was her precious machine.

She took her final breath. Her heart had stopped beating. Only the dreadful silence and overwhelming nothingness greeted her.

So this is what it felt like to be dead.

It was black for a long time. But suddenly, like the movie theater lights turning on after a two-hour feature film and blinding you, it was flooded with light.

It was almost as if someone had shoved a giant flashlight right against her eyes. Literally, who had the indecency to do that to a dead person? She paused. Wait. She was dead. She shouldn't see light.

"Shoot, shoot, shoot!" A string of curses echoed through the before-still air. "How are we running so damn late? We're going to get fired for sure."

"Yo, look at this cool gadget!" A second voice noted excitedly. "I've seen giant jade balls stuck inside people's mouths, Ferrari-shaped tombs, and you name it. But this?" Someone prodded the headset that was resting on Dabria's head, and her hair roots screamed for help as the moving headset caught against her hair.

She would have shouted a million curses, yet then again, she was dead. Or at least, she was supposed to be?

"You think she's the one the Boss wanted?"

Dabria snuck a peek, seeing two men dressed in tuxedos hovering over her. One was donned in midnight black, the other in the whitest of whites. Moreover, they were half-transparent.

A shrill scream pierced the night air. "You're ghosts!"

The two looked down, not at all amused. With a swipe of what looked like a tablet, the one dressed in white blatantly ignored Dabria's exclamation and announced, "Yup, she's the one."

"U.B.I., you're wanted by the Boss. We're on a limited time schedule, and we want your cooperation."

Their silver badge read: Underworld Bureau of Investigation.