"Well that was quick."

I'd barely crossed the threshold when that achingly familiar melody caressed my mind. It grated on me, rasping against my very being, its rawness unable to be washed away by the harmonies that laced it. Ones I'd only heard on my first nine visits.

Now only coarse grit remained, like sandpaper upon my soul.

"Hah!" I barely stifled my rather expletive laden, knee-jerk response with a barked laugh. "Funny guy, eh."

A flare of heat - or the idea of it, not exactly the sensation itself, but close enough - mixed with the taste of iron, the scent of ozone, the almost haptic thrum of electricity. All of this radiated out from the being before me. It was the only joy I could get in this godforsaken place.

Turns out the afterlife is really not all that. But at least winding up the Gatekeeper of reincarnation was an option. It was my only option, as reincarnation itself was a bit twisty when it tried its magic on me.

"I am," the Gatekeeper began.

"Not a guy," I finished for him, my tone like old cardboard, flaky yet damp, bored. "Heard it all before Guy. Also-"

"Not a name," the Gatekeeper ground out.

Yeowch, that one hurt. A sensation like ripping cloth, except I was the cloth.

"Got it in one," I said with a grin, a hint of sunshine and the fizz of a freshly cracked can of soda. Man, did I need a serious change of scenery if this was the highlight of my... geez, ahh my week... uh, maybe year? I dunno. Time was all kinds of mucky here. That at least the potion did right.

What potion is that you ask? Why, it's Granny Meng's Tea, the Fountain of Youth, the sweet broth of forgetfulness that a soul consumed to wash away the taint of the living. Scrubbing it clean as a whistle and ready for a new beginning, undergoing nirvana, and moving on through the grand cycle of reincarnation.

Yeah, fat lot of good that did me however. The potion,

• as I refused to call the simmering cauldron of irradiated pink that bubbled and popped and let out bright puffs of iridescent smoke anything but a back-alley Alchemists potion - was just horrifyingly bad and it didn't scrub away eff-all. Like, it is so terrible I am almost sure the substance has tainted whatever amounted to my soul's taste buds, and then went further by scarring the overwhelming sensations and impressions right onto the fabric of my spirit itself.

It felt like if you took a dead skunks corpse, defecated in it, covered it in a dozen skunk ass-glands worth of secretion then deep fried it in horse piss. Then you boiled that down into a grainy, jelly-like mess and mixed that with the coarsest sand you could find and proceeded to give yourself the most excruciating scrub bath of your life. All while having boiling tar poured in and around your everything.

"Just gimme the damn drink!" I spat, a stray dog's bite and the kiss of heated iron. My formerly good mood thoroughly ruined by the mere thought of the vile swill.

The bastard didn't even reply, though I could feel the smugness radiating out from it like a bonfire. I had no idea if the Gatekeeper was a he, or a she, or both, or neither? I didn't even know if I was either when I was in my soul form. Heck, everyone just looked like pale blobs of different colored light.

I stared at the tiny vial set before me and reached out toward it, a tiny whisper thin tentacle of pale purple mist bringing it to my blob. I wondered just what I'd end up as next time. Would the Gatekeeper try screw me around again? This would be my eighty first reincarnation, and ever since my seventy seventh - which I'd stupidly thought might be a lucky one - I'd stopped being reborn as a human.

ASSHOLE! Do you know how disorienting it is to go from four limbs, only two being legs, to six? Or eight? Or worse, dozens of them! Gah! The millipede was so damn bad! But being a worm was worse, especially when I realised I was a GIANT worm. Sadly this happened when I scared a kid right off a cliff as I emerged from the earth. I just wanted to say hi, or at least take a peek and see just how big I was, as a worm obviously couldn't speak. Turns out I came up to the kids chest. While i was still lating flat on the dirt.

Actually, I'm pretty sure killing that kid is why I was next reborn as a fungus.

I mean, karma and all, even if I've never had any other real reason to believe in it, even through all the rebirths; but killing a kid? The boy looked like he was barely even five years old, then splat, like a tomato. I honestly hadn't realised such a small, thin body could contain SO much liquid.

Though, my time as a fungus sure was interesting. Being something that isn't just one being... yeah, I did it and I still don't get it. Suffice to say, I was a virus, turning ants and the like into little zombies by taking over their brains then bodies and blowing them up to spread myself ever further.

That was a trip.

I tipped the vial back, feeling the sludge pour down my... blob, far more than the tiny vial could ever contain, and then I felt the Gatekeepers satisfaction. A dim spark that, he obviously didn't try hard to hide as it almost instantly burst into an inferno of glee.

"Enjoy, Returner," he said.

Terrible name that, by the way, Returner. So imaginative. So evocative. Such wow.

Then I realised what he was getting at.

"Oh, oh no you don't! You little fu-"

[WELCOME TO REBIRTH, LOST SOUL]

The voice of Reincarnation blasted apart my awareness, but it didn't stop me from first catching a glimpse of the form I was to inhabit next.

A rock. A goddamn rock. And not even ore, just a bit of stone, so I wouldn't even get the chance to be forged into a sword or anything awesome like that. Hell, I'd take being a plow or a pickaxe. I mean, a kitchen utensil, maybe a pot? Or even jewellery or maybe even a piece of electronic technology from one of the few worlds I'd visited who swung that way. I mean, there were thousands of options for decent metal ore to be crafted into. But a rock?

And you know the real cherry on top? Of late, I'd been pushing as hard and fast as I could, burning bright in life, and usually burning out just as quickly. I mean, I'd been an ant last time and it only takes a few weeks for an ant to go from egg to worker, but as soon as I could move about I'd climbed the tallest tree I could find and leapt off. I wanted to know if ants could actually die from fall damage.

They don't. But the lizard I landed beside did the job for me so no harm no foul.

But a rock? A dim, dull, plain old rock? Oh my giddy aunt I don't even know how long a rock can live for. Holy hells, I am so beyond screwed. Rocks can be millions of years old right? Billions even! What in the fraggle frock and I meant to do for millennia?

"Fuck you guy."

Those were my final thoughts, and I'd like to believe the barest flash of indignation I felt weren't just a figment of my scattering consciousness and unreliable imagination.

Yeah, definitely fuck him. In fact, next time, I think I might kill that guy.

[GOOD LUCK]