Bruce flinched, visibly unsettled by the question. Could he really hide anything from a god? He doubted it. This being knew the caliber of the bullet that had ended his life, it possessed power far beyond human comprehension.
After an intense inner monologue that solved nothing, Bruce finally opened his mouth and said, quietly, "I do."
He did regret his life. And yet, even though he'd never truly dictated his own path, he'd been proud to please his parents. For him, that had been the greatest thing he could accomplish on Earth.
He remembered the long nights spent awake, studying for exams designed for students above his level. He had excelled, sacrificed, climbed. His life wasn't meaningless. He had become the head of the World Bank and for a few hours, the president of the most powerful nation on Earth. A life most would dream of.
But here, in this void, he understood the pattern. Most people who ended up in this place were those whose lives had been warped by bad choices or bad associations. They fit the category of souls dictated not just by others, but by addictions that hollowed them out, causing their lives to fade away.
The vast majority here were not presidents or financiers but broken souls, the addicts, the manipulated, the martyrs who had been persuaded to die for their religion or nation. All of them ended up in this dark, silent limbo.
The voice cracked through the air again, but this time it carried something new, a strange mixture of hope and relief, like a faint light breaking through darkness.
"You played a role in someone else's play," it said, "and when the show ended, you realized you never got to live your own story. That's what happened to you, Bruce.
You chose a career to make your parents proud, even though you hated it. You found a bittersweet joy in pleasing them. Even after their deaths, they still dictated your life, they chose your friends for you. Those same friends who pressured you into running for president.
You became exactly what they wanted, and when you had served your purpose completely, they discarded you like you were nothing."
The voice paused, heavy with weight.
"This is the consequence. The regret you feel isn't about small mistakes; it's a deep, existential sorrow over the loss of an entire lifetime. Your happiness was built on external approval, on your parents' pride. And when that was gone, so were you."
Bruce remained silent, his chest tightening as the voice's words sank deep into him. It was as if each sentence peeled away a layer of his past life, exposing the raw truth beneath. He understood now not just the meaning of the words, but the weight of the opportunity being offered to him.
The voice went on, steady and resonant, carrying with it an almost gentle gravity, "Now you have the opportunity to live truly as you always wished. The struggles, the sadness over the life you were forced to live, all of that ends here. You will be resurrected into a new world, one where you are, finally, the sole author of your life.
Think about the core of your pain. You wanted to be a musician, yet external forces turned you into a doctor. In this new existence, you won't simply wake up as a musician. You won't be handed a pre-written identity. Instead, you will be free—free from the external force itself. You will awaken with all the wisdom, the desires, and the lessons you gained, but without the baggage, the pressures, or the obligations that dictated your past. You will live every day purely by your own will. Every choice, not just the career you pursue, but the very way you exist will be authentically yours. Imagine your past life as a beautiful book, but the ending written by everyone else. Now, think of your resurrection as receiving a fresh, infinite blank canvas. No picture is already painted. No title is already chosen. You start only with the brush in your hand and no one else in the room. The regret you carried was the sadness of the artist who never got to paint. In this new world, you are free of the debt, the duty, and the voices that told you what to create. This time, Bruce, you will finally paint your own life stroke by stroke, color by color exactly as you wish."
"The problem," Bruce said, his voice calm but edged with thought, "is that I am a creature of memory and experience. Even if I'm resurrected into a new, pressure-free world, my preferences will still be shaped by external forces from the past.
"My life could be free from obligation, from expectation… but it can never be free from influence."
He paused, thinking of a simple example. "When I was a child, I had ice cream. My father bought me vanilla, and I liked it. Years later, health conditions kept me from having ice cream at all. Once I was finally able to enjoy it again, I went to a store. They offered many flavors, but I chose vanilla. A woman there… I forgot her name insisted I try that flavor. I took it home, liked it, and the next time I visited another store, I asked for the same flavor.
"See? If that woman hadn't been so insistent that day, I might never have tried it. I might still be buying vanilla by habit. Something as seemingly simple as my 'personal choice' can be traced back to someone else's actions."
He continued, analyzing the example, "First, the Vanilla Choice. My love for vanilla wasn't a pure, self-determined choice. It started because my father bought it for me. His external decision created my first internal comfort.
"Then, the New Flavor. When I finally tried something different, it wasn't out of boldness. It was because an extroverted woman persuaded me. Her external influence overcame my habit.
"Next Time. Now that I choose the new flavor again, it's not a purely autonomous decision. I am guided by the memory of that experience, shaped by her insistence."
Bruce's tone grew firmer, more resolute. "This is the real limit of the New World. It can give me freedom from obligation, from the duty to please others, that 'dictation' is gone. But it cannot give me freedom from influence.
"I may be resurrected without the fear, the regret, the duties of my past. Yet I will still carry the thousands of memories, tastes, and experiences that make me who I am. The music I create, the places I go, the people I befriend, all of it will still be guided by echoes of past interactions.
"Ultimately," he concluded, "the best the New World can offer is a life where my choices are influenced, yes, but never forced. Guided, but never dictated. Free from fear, duty, and regret and nothing more."
Az finally showed himself, coalescing from the very air, not forming so much as condensing from the omnipresent starlight, a manifestation of pure, radiant energy. It stood before Bruce, undeniably human in its elegant proportions, yet there was no flesh, no bone, no sinew beneath the luminous surface. Instead, its form was a living sculpture forged from intense, unblemished light; each curve and contour a testament to perfect luminescence.
A soft, ethereal aura bloomed outward from its body, a halo that softened its edges and blurred its outline, making it seem both present and infinite. Where eyes should have been, two points of focused, serene brilliance stared back at Bruce, holding a fathomless depth as though they were portals to eternity itself.
This revelation startled Bruce, who hadn't expected such a being to exist.
"Don't be afraid," the entity said, its voice like a low chord resonating through the void. "This isn't my only form. I took this shape to look as human as possible."
"Who said I was afraid?" Bruce replied, rolling his eyes with a forced nonchalance.
Az laughed a sound like cascading bells over deep thunder. "No one indeed. But I have truly enjoyed speaking with you. You are the first human to ever make me reveal myself." The light around him pulsed as he spoke, as if echoing his words. "Now you will be resurrected the way you desire. Just close your eyes and imagine it, and it shall be."
Bruce hesitated only a moment before obeying. He closed his eyes, and at once his past life flashed before him not as memories he relived, but as a tapestry dissolving, each thread of his former self unraveling and fading into the darkness. In its place, a blank canvas spread wide, waiting for the imprint of the new person he wished to become.