New Normal: Utopia

"What do you think will happen if I switch my two kidneys up? You think I'll die? But that can't be. I'm already dead." Ava asked yet another weird question for the seventh time. It hasn't been long since she met the gloomy looking guy sitting by the bonfire across from her. "Well, only one way to find out."

Theodore Kinsley. A twenty-four year old artist and a biker wannabe who lived with his grandma on the outskirts of New Trevor. In his opinion, his life had been pretty normal so far. Sadly for him, that ended two hours ago.

He didn't know what happened. The only thing he could remember was being so desperate for his life for a few minutes and that's pretty much it. He remembered all except his last breathing moments. And it was messing with his head. Just like how your tongue would search for your long extracted tooth. Like a phantom itch in a person's long amputated limb.

"Hmm. You really can't remember, can you?" Ava Addison asked while tying her small intestine into a knot. There was no one else around them in that place. Just the two of them.

Theodore stared at her. If he were to be truthful, he'd admit she's kinda cute. She has wolf cut hair dyed pink. Has a slim figure, small face, V-shaped jaw, pale skin, and large chocolate eyes. She looked especially attractive in her grunge outfit.

If only their first encounter had been a bit normal then maybe he wouldn't have to feel this awkward around her.

Two hours ago, Theodore found himself diving head first into the desert from the sky. There were no trees around to hold on to and hopefully, to soften his landing. It was just an endless stretch of sand and enormous cacti here and there. It was bad news.

'This is crazy! I don't wanna die yet! I don't wanna die yet!' He chanted and screamed in his head. Even his inner voice was trembling in fear.

Everything went black for a second and the next moment, he was plummeting like a goddamn train to his death.

He tried to flail around. And when he realized it was doing nothing for his survival, he curled into a ball, his knees tucked in his abdomen, his hands protecting his head. He was hoping that by doing so, he could get away with just a few broken bones but even that sounded really painful.

And then…

"Hey! Stop there, you dolt! You're gonna crush me a second time. Veer to the left." He heard a faint voice of a woman coming from exactly below him. "I said veer to the left!"

Theodore opened his eyes and looked down, (more like 'looked up' since he was inverted) and saw a pink-haired woman buried to her neck down. She was at the spot he was about to land. It was too late to dodge. There was no way not to hit her. So he braced himself. She braced herself too. Then…

*crack!

He landed exactly on her neck, severing her head from her body.

He was alive and he didn't feel any pain. He should be celebrating but he couldn't. He didn't move. He thought that if he did then it's game over.

However…

"Uh, excuse me, sir. Can you move to the side a bit? You're sitting on me and I need to put my head back before a new one grows. That would be terrible, don't you think?" The exact same voice from earlier spoke. The hairs on his nape stood on end. And he slowly turned his head to the place where the decapitated head rolled.

"Oh! Hi, there! Looking at your face, you must be new here, huh. Welcome! Hope you didn't die a dog's death like me but anyway, you should rejoice, newbie. For you are lucky to have met me first. I consider myself an expert in this place, you see. Been here for a long time after all." In front of him was the exact head, staring at him, talking about things he couldn't understand.

And like how a normal person would react, he didn't communicate back. Instead, he scampered to look for something to hit the head with.

A golf bat appeared in thin air. It didn't really register to him yet as he grabbed it with both hands, raised it over his head, swung it into an arch, and hit the talking head with it. Completely disregarding its shocked expression. He hit it so hard it flew a few meters away.

And then he realized what he just did. His grasp on the golf bat loosened and it fell from his clutch. "Oh, no. What have I done?" Then suddenly…

"Whoa! What an aggressive way to greet a woman!" It came from the body where the head belonged, still buried under the sand. Specifically to the thumb-sized head growing from the stub of her neck. A head was growing from it in real time and it was talking to him.

Theodore felt like he finally lost it and he fell on his ass, his eyes shaking, his lips bobbing like a goldfish.

He thought watching her grow a brand new head was illegal but he couldn't scrape his eyes away. He just couldn't.

"Wha—What the hell are you?" He finally managed to squeeze out some words from his throat.

"Well, you're finally speaking, huh. You adjusted faster than expected. It took me a whole day to calm down, another day to accept I'm really dead, and another day to start looking for other people. But you know what? Why don't you help me get out of here first then I'll answer all your questions?" The head said, now at the size of an adult's fist.

Theodore was confused about the whole situation as he stood there with a conflicted look on his face. While the peculiar pink-haired woman hopefully stared at him, still waiting for his response.

Maybe his mind broke from the fall. Or maybe he was so traumatized that he couldn't think properly but he somehow decided to help her. If he was in his right mind, there was no way he would do that. He has always been the wary type. But for some reason, he seemed to have lost something important since he came to this place: The ability to hesitate and think twice.

"What's your name?" Ava asked while patting the dust off of her black laced up boots. Her head was already back to its original size.

"Theodore. Theodore Kinsley." He introduced himself.

"I see. Well, hello, Theodore. I'm Ava Addison. Just call me Ava. I've been here for over eight months."

"Where am I? What is this place?" he asked.

"You're asking that first, huh. Understandable. To answer your question. I'm not sure either but I'd like to call it the land of the undead. Not 'land of the dead'. Land of the undead. You get the idea, right? So, Theodore. How did you die?"

"Huh? I'm… dead?"

"Of course you are, silly. You wouldn't be here if you're still alive in the first place. So I'm asking. How did you die?"

Theodore stared at her as if she had a few screws missing.

"I—I really don't know. I'm sorry. I think there's a mistake. You see, I—" There was definitely no way anyone would just believe it if somebody told them they're dead. Especially if they're speaking and moving completely fine. But he couldn't finish what he was about to say when a cheeseburger appeared out of nowhere by Ava's head. She grabbed it and began unwrapping it.

"What're you staring at? You want one too? Just think about it and it will appear in front of you. Try it."

He did. But instead of a cheeseburger, he thought of some fries. And not even a second later, a whole lot of fries was dumped on him with a poof.

"Oh! I forgot to tell you it has to be very specific or this kind of stuff will happen. My bad."

"What the heck is going on?" Theodore mumbled in disbelief. A truckload of fries was suddenly dumped on him out of nowhere.

"Hmm… I don't get which part of it is hard to understand, but okay. Let me spoon feed you some the information I gathered for the last eight months but be sure to listen because I don't like repeating myself. You hear?"

"No. I don't mean that but, uh, okay. I will listen."

"Great! When a person dies, he'll be isekai'd to this place. You won't feel pain, hunger, and other stuff when we are still alive. Well, except maybe for emotions. Our emotion and mental abilities remained intact." She paused for a bit to shove the last bit of cheeseburger into her mouth.

"And like what you just saw, you can summon whatever things you think of but only the ones you've seen while you were still living. Pretty cool, right? But there are some restrictions. For example, you can only taste the stuff you've eaten before. I got excited one time and thought of caviar. You know, the expensive stuff. It appeared but I couldn't taste the shit out of it. It's like eating air but it ain't that bad. If I can't feel pain then I'm all for it."

"So, uh, in short—"

"In short, the moment we die, this is our new normal, Theodore. Pretty much a utopia. What do you think?"

"I—I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not even sure how I died. But, uh, Ava?"

"Yes?"

"Um, I wanna be alone for a bit. Can I? Please? But don't leave me, okay? I still wanna talk to you."

Ava let out a sigh then stared helplessly at Theodore. An unwanted memory suddenly flashed in her head.

"Okay, okay. I'll stay ten meters away from you."