I was sleeping peacefully until a light started flashing against my eyes. "Five more minutes..." I mumbled. I was so sleepy and I didn't want to wake up, but the light became brighter and brighter and eventually, I woke up and yelled:

"CAN'T YOU TURN OFF THE FUCKING LI-" I stopped immediately. I was lying on a grass field and there were other people, standing up around me and looking at me, with crazy-ass eyes and huge terrific smiles that reached up to the ears. They were all tall, at least more than 2.5 meters (more than 8 feet) and they had the same clothes, eyes and hair colour. 

I was still on the ground, terrified. I looked between the legs of those "people", I could see many more legs; I didn't want to try counting since the situation was already surreal and scary, counting them wouldn't have helped me.

Suddenly, one of them tried to touch my leg but his hand passed through, while I could still fell like a cold sensation, I was relieved and thought 

‘If he isn’t able to touch me maybe I can…’ 

I finally dared to get up and tried to pass through those creeps and it worked! I calmed a bit and I continued to walk forward. As I continued passing through, they all started following me but I didn’t care since they couldn’t do anything anyway.

A while passed and that horde of "people" seemed endless, but as soon as I started to lose hope, I found the end of it…and something else too. Wooden stairs that were going up into the sky and I started seeing someone slowly coming down. I couldn’t see his appearance at first, but I had to wait another while to finally be able to.

He seemed to be at least 30 years old, had long orange hair reaching down to the hips, red eyes and had a grey shirt and pants, both full of holes and scratches and he was barefoot. He had some lines on his face, blue, red and yellow, and through the holes in the clothes, you could see that they were all along his body, with their extremities just stopping under the eyes and above the ankles.

I was going to think “Who is he?” but some noise behind me captured my attention, it was like somebody fell on the ground. I turned around and all those “people” were on their knees, some were praying, others were crying and others seemed angry, hitting the ground.

“What…are they doing?” I questioned and the guy that was on that stairs appeared on my right and answered me:

“They are in despair.”

His appearance caught me off guard. He was taller than me(5,4 feet/1,64 cm) but not as tall as those people. The lines seemed to follow the veins, his gaze was bright and just by looking at it, I could say that he seemed kind.

But I still took some steps back for precaution. 

“In despair? Why?” I asked while being on the defensive.

“Because they regret many things. Not living a happy life, murdering people, killing themselves and more.” he stopped, looked at me and asked 

“Do you remember who you were before waking up here?”

I thought for a moment and said

“I’m Sarah, 25 years old, before dying I was in an American prison because I killed pedos and other murderers, the judge gave me a sentence of 50 years, but I only spent 5 years there because I died…but I don’t remember how.” I started trembling a bit because I remembered the first person I killed was my father and what he did to me. I could feel him touching my leg while slowly going up towards my-

“Hey!”

Arismis's voice woke me up from that nightmare. 

“I thought you went deaf for a moment.” he said while looking at me with curious eyes, almost like I was a rare species or something like that, and asked: 

“I’ll repeat the question. Did you regret murdering those people?”

I quickly shook my head “No. They were all fucking criminals and I only did what was the right thing to do!” I said with a bit of anger since to me that was a stupid question.

“...I see. It seems that you are one of the few humans with a strict sense of justice..” he said while keeping those curious locked on me.

“Exactly! I just wanted to kill all those bastards…but I can’t anymore…” I said while the anger was leaving its place to a sense of dissatisfaction.

“You already accepted the fact you die. That was fast.” he said while his curiosity towards me seemed to grow more and more.

“Well…I expected this to happen one day or another. But I didn’t expect to end up in this knock-off version of heaven.” I said while looking around and continued: “There is seriously nothing here…”

“This is the Realm of the Start. A place where people without regrets can start a new life and those with regrets get trapped forever, people like them” he said while looking and pointing at the people in despair. “Staying forever with nothing to do other than regretting things over and over again is the only reasonable punishment and…”

Arismis continued talking about those people but I didn’t care so I stopped listening when he started talking about them. When suddenly I realized 

“Wait!” I interrupted him “I’m not despairing and I don’t regret anything. Does that mean I can get a new life??” I asked with sparks of hope in my eyes.

He smiled and nodded. “Exactly. And I have a special request for you. Let’s make a pact.” he said to me while looking me in the eyes; for the whole time, I tried to avoid our gazes meeting because…there was something odd about him. I know, I said that “he has a bright gaze and seems kind” two minutes ago but the more he was talking to me, the more suspicious I was becoming, but I didn’t know why.

“What kind of pact?” I asked, curious.

“I’ll give you my powers in your new life, so you can continue with your murdering but, in exchange for this, you will have to kill someone for me.” he said and became serious when he said his condition.

“Can’t you just kill them yourself? You are some kind of god no?” I asked

“Well, I could but I can’t interact with the human world directly, this is why I need someone else to do it.” he said.

I started thinking about this pact and asked: “This person you want me to kill…they aren’t some normal human, right?”

He nodded “He got powers from someone evil and you can guess what will happen, once he starts using those powers.”

“Mh…I don't know. Did he do something that bad to get those powers?” I wasn’t totally convinced.

“He’s something called Nylict because he was the worst human possible in his past life. I can’t give full details since the entity who gave him the powers has hidden much information about him. I don’t even know who this other entity is and the guy’s aura just appeared out of nowhere but we are probably talking about someone strong.” he said.

I was starting to be confused and asked: “Too much info…first of all, what is this aura?”

“To make it simple, it’s an extension of your soul and it determines how much power you have. The greater your aura is, the stronger you are. If you accept the pact, you will get the ability to see them.” he explained.

“Ok, understood. Another question, are these “entities” gods or something like that?”

“No no. Entities, or as we actually call ourselves, Zonnikies, are sons of the gods. You, humans, would call us “angels”...but we are still really different from them under certain aspects..” he explained while trying to hide a little smile.

I looked at him “So if you are a Zonniki, what will I be once I got your powers?”

“A Zonniki too, because I’ll pass to you my powers which were possessed by the Gods in the past.”

My brain started to frying because of these many new things I learned. It was like going back to school. “Ok, last question, the less important. What’s your name?” I asked.

“...why bother asking if that’s the less important?” He said while looking both confused and offended.

“Well, we’ll work together, no? I can’t call you “Weird man” or something like that.”

“...fair enough. My name is Arismis”.

“Nice to meet you Arismis.” I said then thought for a moment about his offer and while yes, I was still suspicious about him, his pact was a great opportunity to resume what I was doing while I was alive

“Ok, I accept! I don’t trust you but if making a pact with a devil will grant me the powers to improve this world, then give them to me!” I extended my hand.

“That was fast. Maybe I’m seriously the devil and I’m going to stab you in the back. Are you sure you want this?” he was surprised at how fast I accepted and I nodded vigorously in response.

He reached out my hand and shook it with a smile.

“Your new life starts now, Sarah, and you’ll be able to try your new powers immediately.” as soon as he said this, a bright light came out from our hands and I immediately couldn’t see anything.