The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

I wasn’t religious. I knew enough about christian beliefs to hope that they were right and I’d done enough that I’d make it to heaven, but I doubted. I wasn’t special and I hadn’t set foot in a church since my mother’s funeral.

It took me a little while to realize I was still thinking. I hadn’t expected that after dying. I’d kinda expected there to be just… I don’t know, but nothing. Turns out that wasn’t right.

It didn’t feel the same. Being dead. It was kinda like being entirely numb, but that wasn’t right. I was used to feeling my body, but now there was no body to feel. Luckily, opening my eyes as a disembodied soul worked the same way as opening the eyes on my body.

I hung, no, I floated, in the middle of a strange room. I had no body to be affected by gravity, so I just hovered with my feet above the floor. Smooth columns circled the room, and a clear pool sat in the middle of the room, glowing slightly. There were no doors and the only thing in the room was a chair upon which sat a fair woman with golden hair and piercing silver eyes. She wore a white sleeveless robe of sorts, tied around the waist with a golden sash. She seemed bored but intrigued by me. Her robe covered her fully but I could tell at least that she had the right curves to be a woman, and small mounds in the correct places to be breasts, but something about her wasn’t quite human, but in a mystical and entracing way. Not in a robotic, uncanny valley way.

“Welcome to the afterlife, mortal.” The woman greeted me.

I raised my hand to wave and noticed I could see straight through my hand. I could tell where my hand was but there was no substance to see.

“Fear not, mortal, this is a place of peace. A place of transition. You may be at peace here, warrior.” The serene woman told me.

“What… What’s going on?” I asked, my voice ethereal and almost alien sounding, though it was still clearly my voice.

“You have died.” She answered simply. “But the time you have been allotted before you return to your creator has not elapsed. Each man or woman is given an allotment of time to learn and grow during their time on earth, according to their needs and the needs of those around them. When their time is up, they are called home to their creator, but there are some circumstances where your time on earth has ended, but you are still allotted time before you must return home.”

I looked at her in confusion, “So I am not supposed to be dead yet?”

“It is not so simple as that.” The woman explained with a shake of her head. “The creator values the freedom of his children because without that your lives on earth would be meaningless. In his wisdom he perceives the choices you will most likely make, but in all cases he has prepared for your existence to be fulfilled prior to returning to his presence.”

I looked at my barely perceptible translucent form. “So… what am I right now?”

“You are a spirit without a physical body.” The female replied.

“And… What are you?” I marveled.

“I am a servant of the creator. I believe ‘angel’ is the most accurate term you would be familiar with.” She explained.

“Don’t angels have wings?” I blurted stupidly.

She smiled, “Wings are necessary for lesser creatures to fly. As a servant of the creator, if I needed to move, the elements would support me at my will, rendering wings unnecessary.”

“Oh…” I concluded lamely. This was new territory. None of my training prepared me for this.

“Now, before we discuss your additional time, let us resolve your concerns regarding the life you left. Please, look into the pool.” She intoned, motioning to the glowing pool.

I found I could drift forward to the edge of the pool and look in. The water rippled, revealing an overhead view I immediately recognized as the canyon that was the scene of my… my death.

I watched from an elevated position as the situation unfolded. I pushed Jacob into the gap between rocks and my body disappeared in what was called “the pink mist” as the rocket hit my bulletproof vest and detonated.

Jacob screamed in horror and the rest of the unit did as they were trained. Hot-Rod took out the man who had shot the rocket. The hostiles scrambled, but once the initial surprise was over my unit was far better trained and more capable. They didn’t move to push in further, but extracted as I had ordered. There was nothing left of me to return, except my rifle which Jacob grabbed.

I watched them safely get back to base. I don’t know how long I watched, but I saw the deployment end and my unit return to the States. I saw Jacob tell his family about what had happened. They were the ones who received my honors and since I had named Jacob as the recipient of my life insurance policy they were set up. I saw the nice tombstone Jacob had placed for me, next to my parents. And I got to see the life I had bought for Jacob. He lived a long and healthy life, becoming a surgeon and saved countless lives. His wife stayed by his side and they had five children.

When the pool rippled and returned to stillness I felt peace. I would cry, if I had eyes to produce tears. I knew I had made the right decision. My life wouldn’t have been half as beautiful and impactful. I backed away from the pool.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

“Your sacrifice has earned you a rare honor.” The angel gently informed me.

“Oh? What is that?” I sulked, only slightly off put that knowing the beautiful life Jacob had lived that I hadn’t been able to share it with him. We could have been friends to our old age.

“The creator has made allowances for his children who pass before their time due to heroism or great sacrifice to be permitted a second existence in the realms of other divinities, as champions and chosen representatives.” The angel explained.

I looked up at her, “What?” I’d heard stories like this. Jacob liked things like this and kept trying to get me to watch shows or read books about plots like this. “A second existence, like being reborn?”

The angel held her hands out, “Depends on the realm your second existence would be on. Some realms you would be reborn on, others you would be given a new body and be called forth by users of mystic arts.”

I gaped. I had heard of this before. Cleric had talked about stories in anime. “Wait, of all the religions of the world… the WEEBS were right about the afterlife?”

The angel chuckled, “Not quite, but the diverse nature of the afterlife means that many belief systems have some degree of accuracy. In your rare circumstances, the idea of such an existence has been planted in the minds of storytellers for ages to prepare the spirits of such men and women worthy of it to receive such a blessing.”

“So, I’d be a soldier again, fighting in another world with who knows what going on?” I summed it up.

“In a manner, yes. Your skills and desires will likely lead you to conflict, but many of the restrictions and limitations you experienced in your mortal life will no longer hamper you. It is merely an option, if you so choose you may return to the rest you have earned.” The angel assured me.

I was a soldier, it was what I did. I knew old soldiers sometimes said after enough time in the force they were ready to retire. My only concern was, what would I be fighting for?

“So… If I took up this offer… What would I be fighting for?” I asked.

The angel smiled. A warm, but calculated smile. Like she had known what I would do, or maybe a few options of what I’d do, but I had selected the one she wanted. It was somewhere between unnerving and comforting, in a weird way.

“The world upon which you would live is in many ways different from the world on which you lived.” She began, “You have been selected to fulfill a mystic summoning, a call to the Universe for aid.”

“Wait. A Mystic call for aid? Like magic?” I clarified.

“Yes, magic is commonplace in the world upon which you would be granted a second life.” The angel verified. “It is a skill you could learn and develop alongside the skills you would bring from your previous life.”

“But… my previous life as a soldier specialized in marksmanship and sniping, what place does that have in a world of magic?” I demanded.

“Can you think of no way you could be of use to your new people?” The angel asked… Was she sassing me?

A memory jumped to my mind. In my memory, Jacob, his wife Sarah, and I walked out of the theater, after watching a popular movie about a wizard boy fighting a dark wizard.

“That was amazing!” Jacob exalted in my memory.

“Eh,” I remembered grunting, “A good handgun and that would have been a much shorter movie.”

“Blasphemy!” Jacob had gasped.

“Maybe not as much as you think.” Sarah had agreed, much to my surprise. “After all, the author said the reason the wizards had to be secretive and hidden was that they fought a war with the non-magic folk and lost. Who knows what impact guns really could have had on the story.”

Jacob had wailed, “No! Let me have my fantasies! I want to be a wizard! Can you imagine how amazing it would be to heal wounds with a wave of your hands? To regrow destroyed bones overnight?”

I had laughed in his face, “Dream on, loverboy.”

Coming back to myself, I began to wonder if it really would be that simple for firearms to trump magic. I mean, I knew how firearms were produced, but that would require me to be able to find ways to smith them…

The amused smile spread on the angel’s face.

“Can you read my mind?” I asked.

“No, but your thoughts are easily guessed. Now you wonder if the people you would be aiding would be worthy of your aid, and grateful.” She replied, and I swear she was teasing me.

“How… Okay, fine. Yes. That was my next question.” I admitted. God, I hated being toyed with.

“I think you will find the people who’s summons you would answer are good people, though all societies have their problems. And I think you would find them very grateful for your aid and your presence both.” Her mirth was becoming more and more evident, ruining the image of the impartial arbiter of souls.

I am sure I was glaring at her, despite lacking a physical face with which to glare. “Since you seem to know everything, what would happen to these good people if I don’t go help them?”

Her face dropped, the impartial arbiter was in place once again, “They will be exterminated. The survivors will be enslaved and abused until they succumb to their captors and die.”

I was pretty sure that if I had blood, at this moment, it would have run cold.

“No one else would help them?” I asked in horror.

The angel spread her hands, “There are infinite summon requests across infinite dimensions and while many summons are filled, some are not. Even if every spirit worthy of such an opportunity accepted it, not all summons would be answered. And many such spirits do not accept.”