CG leaned back. "The game is a draw. But here’s the thing about the afterlife, Ayaan—we don't decide your fate. You do. If I send you back, will the jars look the same in forty years?"
"Ayaan Kapoor," CG said, not looking up from a holographic tablet. "You’re in the waiting room. You aren’t dead yet, but your body is currently arguing with a telephone pole. While the doctors work, we play a game." CG leaned back
Ayaan felt a sudden, sharp pain in his chest—the sensation of a defibrillator. He gasped, his eyes snapping open in an ICU. You do
He saw himself as a teenager, helping an old man cross a flooded street, ruining his own expensive shoes in the process. A flurry of white pebbles poured into the jar. It was a tie. You aren’t dead yet, but your body is
Ayaan woke up in a room that looked like a high-end corporate lounge, but the windows looked out onto swirling nebulae instead of city skylines. Behind a massive mahogany desk sat CG—the "Collector of Galactic Karma."
The "game" began. Ayaan watched himself on screen. He saw the time he let a struggling family keep their deposit (White). He saw the dozens of times he lied to clients about water damage (Black). He saw the look on his daughter’s face when he missed her recital (Black).
As the black jar reached the brim, Ayaan realized something terrifying: his life wasn't a series of big events, but a million tiny choices. He begged for one last memory.