CHAPTER 3 - AFTERLIFE BUILDING

[2336 words]

Locus and Tempus had already finished executing their order, so Locus was on Jonah's right alongside Mortem, and Tempus was on Jonah's left.

Waiting for just 5 minutes more, Chao returned and also went to Jonah's left with Ordo standing beside Locus.

Removing Vita from his shoulders and setting her beside Chao, Jonah walked forward to address all of them at the same time.

All of the siblings were perfectly lined up beside each other, attentively waiting for their next order. Everyone simply floated in the now not so empty universe. All over the place could be seen red and blue waves of energy that clashed with each other; it was Chao's and Ordo's making. There weren't any planets or galaxies yet, but they would be created soon.

"Once again, hello, my children! To formally introduce myself, I am Jonah. You can call me Creator, Father, Dad, Sir, Jon, Jonah, whatever you like. You, of the Primordials, are all siblings and my children. Locus and Tempus are the eldest, Chao and Ordo are the middle twins, and Vita and Mortem are the youngest. The place you are in now is my first universe and the one you will call home. For now, this will be the only universe, but later I might add more and build an entire multiverse. In a few minutes, I'll be creating your actual home, where you will be able to relax and live when not at work. I hope that you can all get along well and build loving relationships with each other.

"Each one of you represents one concept of existence, so naturally, you are on the very top of the cosmic hierarchy, only behind me. Now that all of you are free, you can choose to either stay by my side and watch as I bring creation to life or wander around the universe. If any of you choose to wander around, I'll make sure to notify you the moment I create your home." Jonah finished his introduction and waited for their response.

Without even thinking, they all chose to stay by him and watch as he creates everything.

Vita happily ran up to him and jumped on his shoulders again. It seems that Jonah's shoulder had quickly become her favorite sitting spot.

"Well, since you all have decided to stay here, make sure to pay close attention!" Jonah then started to move his arms randomly as if he was a maestro, and with every swing, one part of the universe was filled with countless galaxies, planets, stars, moons, solar systems, and a lot more.

Every single one of these was different from the other. One may be a gigantic water planet, while the next might be a small lava planet. Everything was random. Some of them are already able to sustain life, while some will never be able to. A few planets had magical energy, while others had Qi or Ki. There were, of course, the usual boring planets with nothing magical, but some of those had an abundance of minerals that made it easier to develop the technology. There were the unlucky ones that had no magical energy, Ki, Qi, and very few minerals, so they were basically worthless planets.

After 5 minutes of random swings of his arms with a piece of classical music playing in the background - he added this for the atmosphere to be nicer -, quadrillions of galaxies had been created, and a simply colossal number of planets and stars had been brought to life.

The space that Locus had created was about 300 billion light-years in diameter, so it was quite big, and everything fit very well.

Now, the universe was booming with light and beautiful shows of colors. There were billions of beautiful nebulas showering the vast universe with light. Trillions of giant suns with dozens of planets in orbit. All in all, Jonah's first universe was a masterpiece.

As all of the Primordials observed their Father create everything, they were only filled with more and more respect, worship, and reverence for him. Seeing that he could do something like this with a simple wave of his arm was something that made them baffled. Even though their power level was actually insane, they could never even hope of reaching him. All 6 of the Primordials could easily destroy the entire universe, but they could feel that the bottomless power that Jonah radiated was something far above their own.

"There! Now it's time to create your home. Go decide on a spot that you all like and let me know where it is." Jonah told them and moved his attention to something else.

'Should I add the Infinity Stones here? Or maybe add some artifact that will boost the user's powers... yeah, I'll do something like that later. First, I need to add some necessary aspects of life.' He thought to himself.

As he wondered how to make his universe more fun, the Primordials - including Vita, who wanted to stay with Jonah but was dragged by Mortem - started traveling together across the universe, seeking the perfect place for their home.

Knowing that it would take some time for all of them to agree on one single spot, Jonah was sure he had the time necessary to add more things to his universe, starting with the afterlife.

There would be 3 afterlives in this universe, and all of them would be in a different dimension and infinite in size. 1st will be Heaven, the one which good, kind, and honest souls will go and enjoy a paradise filled with peace and virtue. 2nd will be Hell, where all the evil, corrupt and wicked souls will go to, and in there, they will re-live their worst fear and nightmare over and over, with no end in sight. Lastly, the Void. Not many will get the honor or shame to go there since it'll only be the place where the worst of the worst will reside. The child molesters, mass murderers, and rapists will call that place home after their deaths. The Void is an infinite empty space. An absence of everything. Pure darkness. Those who go there will suffer alone forever. They will forever be unable to breathe, suffocating every second. Unable to eat, starving every minute. Unable to do anything but suffer. Jonah also added that the souls here won't be able to go insane and that the pain they feel there will be multiplied by 1 trillion times. Oh, and they will be physically tortured every day too!

Planing out everything in his head, Jonah decided to create the Void first since it was the simplest of the 3. He literally just needed to create an empty and infinite dimension while adding some modifications.

Making this new dimension and connecting it to his universe, he set for the souls here to feel 1 trillion times the pain they would feel normally, so even a small pinch to your neck would feel like getting stabbed, shot, fucked, raped, destroyed, burned, frozen, electrocuted, poisoned, bitten, fried, pierced, slaughtered, and cut, all at the same time multiplied by a lot. Then he made it impossible for the souls here to go insane and then created a few 'caretakers'.

These caretakers were demons. The red-skinned, black wings on the back kind of demon. These demons would feel pleasure and happiness from the souls suffering in this place, so they had no reason to stop torturing and destroying them.

They weren't evil, though; it was only that their pleasures were slightly twisted...

He created only 1 demon for now but made it so that with each soul that arrived here, 3 demons would be born to torture this soul.

Jonah talked to this demon for a little bit and explained his job and everything that would happen here. The demon was deeply honored and glad to be of assistance to his creator, so he happily listened to everything. At the end of their conversation, Jonah named this demon Astaroth, The Demon Progenitor. Astaroth would be the ruler of this dimension and the king to all demons, making him the highest in command in the Void besides Jonah and Mortem since no one had a higher spot than Jonah on the hierarchy of everything and Mortem's domain was death and the dead.

After granting Astaroth minor reality-warping abilities to at least create a home for himself in the Void and not get bored waiting for souls, Jonah headed back to his universe and set on to create Hell.

This universe's hell would be a little different than the usual burning wasteland of eternal torture. It would simply be an impossibly cold hallway with countless doors on it and the name of the soul on a small sign at the door. Each of these doors would hold 1 soul, and in there, they would repeatedly face their biggest fears, and if they ever somehow get used to it, they would face their other biggest fear and so on forever. These rooms had a space-time distortion so that that time would pass very slowly, and the space inside one would be as big as the nightmare in question required.

Hell's hallway would be an infinite straight path that leads nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and at every step of the way, there would be doors to the left and right of the path. The hallway would be unbelievably cold so that if somehow someone manages to escape their damnation, they would rather stay suffering in their rooms than walk this chilling hallway.

There would be no creatures to supervise Hell since it was a pretty straightforward process. Die, go to hell, suffer. The rooms were automatically going to adjust themselves to the soul's nightmares and replicate them, so there was no need for someone to rule Hell or something.

With Hell finally created, it was time to make paradise. This universe's Heaven would be just, tranquil, and supreme. It would be, like the others, an infinite realm. Heaven would have millions of cities and towns, but the capital would be a city called Valhalla. Valhalla would be where the supervisor of Heaven, Theo, would stay in. (I don't know how to describe this heaven, so here's a pic)

Theo was going to be what Astaroth is to the Void, but to Heaven. He will be Theo, The Progenitor of Angels. He was, well, an angel. Standing at a tall 8ft, Theo had messy and curly blond hair with a baby-like face. He had a pair of bright hazel eyes that made anyone feel as if his gaze entrapped them. On his back were 3 pairs of feathery white wings, giving him the ability to fly. His wings enabled him to fly so fast that, for an outsider, it would seem as if he had teleported. His well-muscled body was covered in a long white robe that went from his left shoulder down to his knees, and on his feet were a pair of simple, crude sandals. The firm grip on his hands held a small, narrow, smooth blade made of a metal that never existed. The sword's small pommel is decorated with precious gems, which is to be expected from such an elegant weapon. The blade itself is intricately engraved with various decoration patterns.

Bringing Theo to life, Jonah explained everything that was happening and what Theo's job was. Theo deeply appreciated being created by Jonah, so he respectfully agreed to everything he said and vowed to do his job perfectly. Jonah then gave the same powers that he gave to Astaroth to Theo and made it so that Theo could create Angels. He told Theo to start creating Angels when souls started to come here.

The Angels would serve as warriors and, sometimes, would bring souls from the universe to the afterlife. Not all souls would automatically go to the afterlife. Some would stay as ghosts or spirits due to their regrets or hate for someone. The Angels would transport these souls to the afterlife, be it Heaven, Hell, or the Void, after they'd been set free.

Jonah made it so that Astaroth, Theo, the Demons Astaroth would create, and the Angels Theo would create were all able to freely travel between the 3 afterlives and the universe. Maybe someday Astaroth would be bored of being the King of Demons and would spend some time in a world, who knows? Jonah gave them all the freedom to do that if they wanted. He only told them to make sure that everything was in order when they left, meaning that if any mishaps happened to the afterlife system when they were gone, they'd suffer consequences.

Now that the supervisor part was all said and done, it was time for the actual realm building.

Heaven would be a completely peaceful place, where even predators and prey would be buddies and talk to each other. Yes, animals would also have their souls sent to Heaven or Hell. No animals will be going to the Void since Jonah doesn't want them to. All animals who had no intelligence and simply acted on primal instinct would automatically go to Heaven so they could enjoy the afterlife in a tranquil place free of hunger and fight for survival. Those who had intelligence and knew the clear difference between 'evil' acts and 'good' acts would go to Hell if many 'evil' choices are made, such as killing and stealing without proper reason, stuff like that; and those who made many 'good' choices will naturally go to Heaven.

The specifics of who gets to go to Heaven or Hell or the Void are complicated, so Jonah would leave that to Mortem. His domain was death, so it was only natural that he did all of the job. Still, Jonah had already done the 'afterlife creating' part; now Mortem only needed to actually set the boundaries between how many 'evil' or 'good' acts leads you to which place.