1 Chapter 1: Death/life

I screwed up. I shouldn't have taken their money, I was down in the gutter, lost my job, my girlfriend, everything, I needed that money to survive, so I took the worst possible option, a loan shark. I missed one to many payments, and now I had two shady looking men following me. As they chased me, I walked into a dead end. "The gigs up pal, you put us on quite the wild goose chase. We even ended up at some rich Yuppies place, shared the same name as you or something." snarled one of the men. "so, where's the money?" sneered the other. "I-I can't pay yet, just please give me another month, I'll pay up I swear" I said nearly crying. "Pal, this is the 11th month, how much longer do you expect our guy to wait? Next it'll be another month, then another, we've given you all the chances in the world, scum like you are the type I hate the most" said the first. The second man (I'll call him "Hat", as he wore a mafia-esque hat and the first "Pal"due to his use of the word) kicked me hard in the stomach, knocking all the air out of my lungs. Pal proceeded to stamp on my chest multiple times while I was knocked down, causing me to puke up blood. "I'm sick of this shit" said Hat while pulling a switchblade out of his jacket pocket. "Wait" said Pal, "I'm not through with him yet". Pal also pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and grabbed my left hand. I immediately realised what was going to happen. "Nononono please" I begged. "Shut up" he snarled, kicking me square in the jaw with his boot, and breaking nearly all my teeth. He grabbed my hand as I begged him to stop, and he proceeded to cut through my thumb. I screamed in pain as he ripped what was once my thumb, off my hand. "You do this every time man" said Hat. "I've gotta have my signature quirk when I kill people, you know how when some serial killers leave messages behind on the wall, well this is my thing. "Ok fine, let's get this over with" said Hat as he moved towards Me. I tried to beg for my life, but my jaw was broken, so all that came up was a gurgle, he moved the knife up next to my neck, and then out of nowhere, blinding light covered everything.

Black. That's all I saw for the next few hours. I wasn't exactly unconscious or conscious during that time, It's more like when you wake up early in the morning with a light headache, and you're half conscious and very tired, but can't get back to sleep. After around 7-12 hours since I saw that light, I very suddenly came out from unconsciousness. I was in a huge room, there was a very fancy looking set of couches and chairs, a glass door which looked like it belonged to an elevator. There was a balcony at the far side of the room. I decided to go look outside to take in my surroundings. I looked down and saw a huge city down below. The first thing I noticed was how, mechanical everything looked. Buildings were covered in gears and looked like structures ripped straight from that game, "bioshock Infinite" I think it was called. I decided to continue looking around for a bit, the city seemed to be floating on clouds. When I looked on the Northern side of the city, I noticed some suburban looking areas, streets lined with houses on each side. I could make out one suburban street and maybe half of another one. They both looked near identical. I was dragged out of my thoughts when I heard the door behind me slide open. A fairly young man stood there. The man had a grey beard and hair, despite looking like he was in his mid-twenties. "Hello Mr. Lunge, my name is Zachary Williams, but people around here like to call me god. And I'm here to welcome you to Paradiso".