"Huh, I'm dead.", I thought to myself as I hovered slightly above the wreck that was once my Hyundai Tucson. While I did have a fun life and achieved everything I wanted, I didn't expect to... go out with a bang. Hehe. That's what you get for being distracted while driving.

Anyways, as they say, death is an adventure! Erm... it is, right? Right?

As I drifted away from the sight of my untimely demise, I suddenly heard a thunderous boom above me. When I looked around me, all I saw was fluffy white clouds. "So, this is heaven?", I exclaimed to no one in particular.

As I looked around, a voice from above boomed. "YOU MAY REINCARNATE AS: A ROCK, A SHEET OF PAPER, OR A PAIR OF SCISSORS. CHOOSE WISELY."

"A rock, paper and scissors? Are you fucking joking?", I screamed incredulously up at the sky. This was not the post-death adventure I was expecting.

"THIS MESSAGE WAS SPONSORED BY BIG ROCK, BIG PAPER, AND BIG SCISSORS. CHOOSE WISELY.", the voice continued to drone.

"I'm a good person! Why am I here!", I continued yelling at the sky, before realising that it was rather fruitless to shout at nothing. Like, who was Big Rock supposed to be even?

Back home, I was always the undisputed king of Rock Paper Scissors. I'll even tell you a secret, all you need to remember that the average filthy casual player plays in the order of Rock, Paper, Scissors. But here, I was outclassed. And I didn't like that.

"Fine, you little shit! I choose rock!", I yelled at the being above me. What the fuck kind of choice was this even? Maybe I was hallucinating while in the hospital or dreaming this.

"YOUR INSOLENCE SHALL BE HARSHLY PUNISHED! CHOOSE WISELY!", it thundered. Why did every sentence have to end with choose wisely?

Immediately, I was turned into a bog-standard small chunk of rock. As I surveyed my roundish body, I realised that I couldn't control my movements!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!", I screamed as I hurtled through a familiar sky. As I flew further, I realised that the area was indeed familiar, with the highway I drove on everyday and the surrounding pine forest. In particular, I was moving straight towards a certain dark blue SUV car. It, too, looked familiar. But why?

Oh wait. It was my Hyundai Tucson.

The last thing I remembered as I shattered the glass windshield was my very own shocked face.

r/NightbringerWrites

I felt there was no before, nor any after awaiting me.

The sky wasn't blue, as there was no sky. The ground wasn't sand nor dirt, the landscape littered with neither trees nor centuries of man-made architecture, as there was neither a ground nor a landscape to a behold. I would say I was enveloped by vast greyness, though it was near impossible to discern near from far, so it couldn't be vast... and was grey even a thing where I now floated?

Existed, I corrected myself. I can't be floating, because that's depended on physics, and I guarantee that's not a thing here eit- Wait, I? I'm still able to think!

I had only existed in that realm, as I like to call it in my memories, for a matter of seconds - if those too even existed there - when a voice boomed from... somewhere:

"You may reincarnate as: a rock, a sheet of paper, or a pair of scissors. Choose wisely."

For a moment, I thought. I say I thought, because I couldn't speak, as I had no mouth. What I thought about were the obvious questions that may be originating in your physical brain:

Who is saying that? Where is that voice coming from? Are those really my only options, and if so, why can't it be something living*?*

Understanding that wherever I was, I clearly had no control over the situation nor any power over the voice beckoning me to come to a decision, I replied. It was more of a thought, I must say, as again, I had no mouth.

"I choose scissors."

"Very well," the voice replied.

Before I knew it, I was teleported back to the realm whence I came, only not in the manner I had expected. You see, as a pair of scissors, you have no eyes. You have no nervous system, either, meaning you can't - or, shouldn't be able to - feel things. I mean that mentally and physically, by the way.

But the magic of the situation was... I could indeed!

Before I go further, let me explain my logic behind my choice. You see, as a rock, you are indefinitely immobile. The world will see wars, peace, advancement, decline, tragedy and the greatest of splendors mankind can conjure. Years will go by, buildings will be erected, species will evolve, but I, as a rock, would only see the small speck of ground on which I lay for eternity. I was also not informed of the size of the rock, so I didn't want to take any chances. I wanted to see the world, at least for a little bit longer.

As a piece of paper, you see, I can be easily blown away in the wind. I could also just as easily disintegrate if I were to be rained on, or someone were to spill some water or wine on me. Or, even worse, a poor soul would write some lovely story upon my canvas, only to decide he hates it, and throw me into the bin. From there I would go on to a waste plant to be disintegrated, torn apart, yes recycled, but my parts would be scattered. That, to me, sounds tragic.

As a scissor, though, I'm now an extraordinarily useful tooth for our youth. I'm a bright green color, and one of the First Graders in this class, Billy, always chooses me for his crafts. It's exciting! I get to cut up paper - sorry, paper - into glorious snowflakes, or snip the corners and edges of their sheet to give them a tattered look (like that one time they wrote journal entries as Native Americans and had to design the paper to look old - it's interesting!), I have a myriad of uses moving forward! While of course there are times where some of the kids - including Billy, to my chagrin - snip themselves by accident, it lets me feel the raw emotion of pain. This is sad, but it lets me still feel alive.

When this class ends and another enters, I will do the same for a new generation of people, for generations to come. I will teach lessons in safety, and help express creativity. I will, for as long as I can tell, be a part of some of the most important parts of human's lives - those of growth, learning, and adaptation.

Personally, I think I won my final round of rock-paper-scissors.

Headphones on and head down, I was doodling in my notebook in the farthest back corner of the classroom when a large crumpled piece of paper landed on my desk. My eyes shot up and interlocked with a curly-haired boy seated diagonal to me. He wore a dark hoodie and looked at me with the whisper of a smirk on his mouth and a discernible twinkle in his eye. I looked at him tight-lipped and wide-eyed. It was the first week of school and I had yet to talk to him, nor anyone else for that matter.

Heart racing, I quickly paused my music and opened the wad of paper as discreetly as possible, cringing at the obvious sounds of its unkinking. It took me some time to decipher the chicken scratch, but I finally read:

You are dead. As you hover on the intermediate plane of existence between life and
death,waiting for something to happen, a loud voice echoes from above, to inform
you of your options. "You may reincarnate as: a rock, a sheet of paper, or a pair of
scissors. Choose wisely."

I could feel an unauthorized smile stretch across my face in amusement and my eye brows furrow in contemplation. I glanced up, expecting to lock eyes with him again, however his head bopped up and down from the presentation at the front of the classroom to the notebook under his nose, while he vigorously scribbled notes. Suddenly remembering my surroundings, I recovered my uniform look of general disinterest and covertly reread his note.

I quickly decided on paper, living an eternity as an inanimate object with no power or control would ultimately be an infinite prison sentence. Rock and scissors were solid, strong. Paper could simply wash away in water. It could disappear like it never existed. It was delicate like that. Fragile. And no one would miss it either. Reams of paper came packed in hundreds, and boxes filled with reams turned hundreds into thousands. Across the world were truckloads of boxes filled with reams - millions of different pieces of paper, and yet all the same. I liked that paper felt anonymous in its masses of indistinguishability; but what I found most comforting was that no one would fret over the loss of a single paper because there were so many others to replace it.

The bell jolted me out of my thoughts and I gathered my things into my backpack slowly, as always, to ensure I’d be the last out of the classroom. Through heavy eyelashes, I sheepishly glanced towards the curly-haired boy's desk, wondering if he had waited to hear my response, but he had already made his exit; and I was alone.

Downcast and silent, I walked out of the classroom and into a crowded hallway filled with so many of the same types of people, and I realized that there really was nothing stopping me from becoming a piece of paper.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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