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Chapter 1: The End of Nothing
I felt like not waking up, but the alarm kept going off and it was getting annoying.
"Okay, okay, I get it. I'll get up."
I smacked the alarm hard and it went quiet. "That's better. I hate that sound, but it's the only sound that actually gets me out of bed, so I guess we're stuck with each other."
I lay there for a second, but I just didn't want to get up yet. The bed felt so comfortable.
"Okay. What's the plan for today? Oh yeah. Another boring day at the warehouse. Like every other day. Brilliant."
I didn't hate my life. That's the thing. I wasn't depressed or angry or whatever. It was just... boring. Like, genuinely, painfully boring. Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, repeat. That was it. That was the whole thing.
I had mates. Or I used to. Most of them had moved on. Dev was doing something in finance that he couldn't explain without using words I didn't understand. Tommo had moved to Manchester for a girl he met on Hinge. One by one, they'd all just... gone. Not in a dramatic way. Nobody had a falling out. They just got lives and I didn't.
"But it's fine," I said to the empty room. "I don't care anymore. I go to work, I get paid. I don't do anything weird or dodgy for money. I just show up, do a ten-hour shift, and go home. It's predictable. It's stable. It's..."
I trailed off.
"It's boring. Yeah. We covered that."
Right. Enough feeling sorry for myself. Time to get up.
I walked through my flat, and I'm using the word "flat" very loosely here. It was a one-bedroom box above a kebab shop that my landlord charged me like it was a penthouse in Mayfair. Speaking of my landlord, that man was a piece of work. The radiator had been broken since November. No heating. Barely any hot water. I'd called him six times. Texted him three more. He'd replied once with a thumbs up emoji and then gone completely silent. But let me be one day late on rent and suddenly his phone works perfectly fine.
"Okay, relax. There goes your mind again. Keep it together. You can do this."
I had a quick shower. Quick because the water went cold after about four minutes. Got dressed, same trousers as yesterday because nobody at the warehouse was going to notice or care. Walked to the kitchen and checked my phone.
7:22. I had some time before the bus.
"Oh, a notification. What's this? it's Mum."
Just checking in love. Have a good day at work. Don't forget to eat something proper for lunch not just crisps again
I smiled at that. Mum was Mum. She texted me every morning like I was still fifteen and needed reminding to eat. I typed back will do mum and put my phone in my pocket. I'd probably still buy crisps, but she didn't need to know that.
I grabbed my jacket and headed out. The bus was already at the stop, which meant the 7:19 was running late again. Typical. The driver was the same woman as always. Fifties, never said hello, but she'd wait for you if she saw you running, which made her the most decent person in my daily routine.
I sat down, plugged in my earphones, and didn't play anything. Just wanted an excuse not to talk to anyone.
The route was the same as every day. Super boring, but also good because I could just read some novels while on the bus. "Next stop..." Oh, my stop's here. Time to get off.
The warehouse smelled like it always did. Cardboard, dust, and that cleaning product that was supposed to smell like pine but smelled like a headache.
"Morning, Liam."
"Darren! How's the knee, mate?" I asked.
"Rubbish. Went to the GP yesterday and she said give it another week. Another week! It's been three already."
"That's the NHS for you. My mum waited four months for a scan once. Four months. By the time they actually got to her, she'd already diagnosed herself on Google and bought a knee brace off Amazon."
Darren laughed. "Did it work?"
"The brace or the Google diagnosis?"
"Either."
"Nah. Turned out it was her hip."
Darren shook his head, still laughing, and limped off to his station.
That was the thing about this place. The people were fine. Darren was a good bloke. Gary the supervisor was decent enough if you didn't stress him out. Even the canteen lot were friendly. It wasn't the people.
It was the everything else.
I scanned my first box at 7:58. By lunch I'd done over four hundred. I knew because the scanner kept count, and staring at the number was more interesting than staring at boxes.
Lunch was a chicken and bacon meal deal, salt and vinegar crisps, and a Coke. Sorry, Mum. The breakroom was half full. A couple of the lads from dispatch were arguing about football, Gary was doing his crossword, and Darren was eating something his wife had packed that looked about a thousand times better than my sad little sandwich.
"What's that, lasagne?" I asked, leaning over.
"Shepherd's pie. Karen's recipe."
"Karen's wasted on you, mate. Seriously. Tell her I'm available if she ever comes to her senses." I said with a small smile, hoping Darren could tell it was a joke.
"I'll pass that on. She'll be thrilled."
I grinned and went back to my phone. Scrolled through Reddit for a bit. Found some article about a bloke who'd sold a tech startup for thirty million quid at twenty-six. He was grinning in the photo like he'd just won the lottery, standing in front of some glass office building with his arms crossed. Good for him. Genuinely. Good for him.
I still hoped that could be me sometimes. But I'd already given up on that. That plan was never coming.
I closed the tab and ate my crisps.
The afternoon went sideways because of the new kid.
Rory. Nice lad, nervous, been here about a week. He caught the edge of a pallet with the forklift and sent the whole thing tumbling. Shampoo bottles. Hundreds of them. Rolling under shelves, bouncing off crates, going everywhere. One ended up in the breakroom.
Then I heard Gary screaming from across the floor. "Who the fuck did this then? And how the fuck did you even manage this?"
Rory went red like a tomato and looked at us for help. I just shook my head and walked away. But before I could even take two steps, Gary called us all back. Told us to stop just standing there watching and get to helping. So I did.
I walked over. "Come on then," I said, already getting on my knees. "They're not going to pick themselves up."
Rory scrambled down beside me. "Sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't see the"
"Mate. Relax. It's shampoo, not nitroglycerin. Nobody died."
"Gary looks like he wants to kill me."
"Gary looks like that all the time. You should see him when someone jams the printer. I thought he was going to have a stroke."
Rory laughed. A small one, nervous, but real. We picked up bottles in silence for a bit.
"I'm Liam, by the way."
"Rory."
"Right. Rory. Welcome to the glamorous world of warehouse logistics. It only gets worse from here."
He laughed again. Properly this time. Good kid.
By five o'clock we got all the bottles back. I don't know why it took so long, but some of them just landed so far away and in such weird corners that I was like, what the hell is this then? How did you even manage to get up here? Or in here? But I didn't care anymore. It was time to go home. Scanner off. Clock out. Time to take the bus back.
The microwave dinner was supposed to be carbonara. It looked like someone had sneezed into a tray. I took a photo and sent it to Chris.
looks appetising mate
is that the asda ones? those are grim. try the tesco ones theyre actually decent
ill add it to my fine dining rotation
haha speaking of which check the group chat
I opened the group chat and there it was. A photo of a scan. Ultrasound. Baby. Due in September. Chris and Emma. The chat had already gone mad. Congratulations, emojis, Dev made a dad joke that wasn't funny.
I typed MATE!! congrats to both of you thats amazing!! im buying you a pint next time i see you
And I meant it. I was happy for Chris. Properly happy. Him and Emma had been talking about this for ages and they deserved it.
I put my phone face down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.
Funny how you can be genuinely happy for someone and still feel like the walls are closing in on you at the same time.
Twenty-four years old. No degree. No girlfriend. Mates who'd all moved on without me. A flat with no heating and a landlord who ghosted me. I mean, what was I even doing? Working at a warehouse until I was fifty? Sixty? Until my knees gave out like Darren's and some kid was asking me how they were doing?
My mum called every Sunday. "How's work, love?" Fine. "Seeing anyone?" No. "You should get out more." Yeah. Probably.
I'd tried things. I had. A night course in IT that I dropped after six weeks. A dating app that gave me two awkward coffees and one girl who never texted back. I'd thought about university once. Sat at my laptop, stared at the UCAS page for twenty minutes, and closed it. What would I even study? What was the point?
Some nights I'd lie in bed and stare at that crack in the ceiling and think: is this it? Is this the whole thing? Do I just do this until I die?
I never came up with a good answer.
It happened on a Tuesday.
Not a special Tuesday. Just a regular, boring, nothing Tuesday in March. I'd done my shift. Caught my bus. Got off at my stop. Started walking home.
I didn't feel it coming. There was no warning, no pain, no dramatic moment where I clutched my chest and fell to my knees. One second I was walking past the Tesco Express, thinking about whether I needed milk, and the next second
Nothing.
Like someone pulled the plug. Not slowly. Not gently. Just off.
I didn't feel myself hit the pavement. I didn't feel anything anymore. I didn't hear anymore. And then it just went dark. I tried to look and feel but it just wouldn't come to me anymore. Why did it have to end this way? But also, what would be waiting for me at the end of this dark place?
Then I began to feel something again. I didn't know what it was, but I could feel it in me. Or what was left of me. Because I couldn't see, and I couldn't really feel anything either, but this thing, this something, I felt it. How? And why? What was happening to me?
Then a voice.
"Right. Hello. And stop with all your stupid questions, you just have to wait a bit. Give me a second, I'm sorting something. Ah, there we go. But to answer you, you feel stuff because you are somewhere. But also nowhere."
I heard that and thought, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? What do you mean somewhere but nowhere? That's not real.
"Pfff, not real? Speak for yourself, mortal. I'm very much real. Just because you can't see me doesn't mean I'm not here. But that's beside the point. Let's talk about you and the life you lived." The voice shifted, like someone pulling up a file. "Liam. Twenty-four. Warehouse worker. No criminal record, no outstanding debts. Well, you owe the kebab shop downstairs three quid, but we'll call it even. Cause of death: cerebral aneurysm. Quick one. Barely felt it. That's a plus."
What.
"What what? I can hear your thoughts, by the way. So you can think whatever you want to say and I'll hear it. I'll know."
What the hell is happening?
"Ah, there it is. The classics never get old. 'What's happening, where am I, am I dead.' Yes. You are. Dead, I mean. Properly dead. The body's already in the morgue. Sorry about that."
Who are you?
"Complicated question. Short answer: I'm the one who decides what happens next. Some people call me God, which I think is a bit much. Others go with 'cosmic entity' or 'higher being,' which sounds like a bad film title. You can call me whatever you like. I genuinely don't care."
I'd never been religious. Never really thought about what happened after you died. I'd always figured it was just... nothing. Lights out, game over, thanks for playing.
So this isn't nothing, then.
"Well spotted. No, this isn't nothing. This is the bit between nothing and something, and I'm here because you've got options."
Options what do you mean?
"Don't sound so suspicious. You'd think I was trying to sell you a used car. Look. I'll keep it simple. Your life was, and I'm being kind here, deeply boring. You did nothing wrong, but you also did nothing at all. Neutral karma. Perfectly balanced. Cosmically unremarkable."
Well that is a bit rude but okay.
"I'm not trying to be rude. I'm being honest. And honestly? That balance means you qualify for something. Think of it as a... actually, no, I hate metaphors. Here's what it is: I can put you somewhere else. New body. Same world. Earth, humans, gravity, the whole package. You'll have memories of your old life but you'll be living someone else's."
I thought about this for longer than I expected.
Why?
"Why what?"
Why would you do that? What's in it for you?
The voice laughed. Actually laughed, like I'd said something genuinely funny.
"I like you. Most people skip straight to 'yes please' and start asking about superpowers. You're sitting here in the void asking about my motivations. Fair enough. The honest answer is: I'm bored. I've been doing this for a very, very long time, and the ones who ask 'why' tend to be more interesting than the ones who don't. I want to see what someone who felt stuck in the mud for twenty-four years does when they're actually given the tools to move. It's entertainment, Liam. My own personal Netflix."
And if I say no?
"Then it's nothing. The real nothing. The one you were expecting. Lights out, gone, done. No pain, but no more crisps either."
I sat with that. Or floated with it. Whatever you do in a void.
I thought about the warehouse. The bus. That stupid microwave carbonara that looked like a sneeze. The crack in the ceiling that I'd been staring at for two years. Was I really going to say no to this? Go back to nothing? I didn't even have anything good to go back to.
Alright. What's the catch?
"There's always a catch, isn't there? Here's the deal. I'm going to give you a list of gifts. Abilities, if you want to be fancy about it. You can pick two. Not one, not three. Two. Choose well, because you don't get to change your mind later, and I'm not the type to do refunds."
Two.
"Two."
Out of how many?
"Enough to make your head spin if you still had one. Don't worry, I'll walk you through them. Some are flashy, some are subtle, and some are the kind of thing that sounds rubbish until you realise what it actually means. Fair warning. Everyone picks the flashy ones. The clever ones don't."
Are you trying to influence my choice?
"Absolutely. Is it working?"
Maybe.
"Good. That means you're paying attention." The voice paused. When it came back, it sounded almost amused. Almost warm. "Get comfortable. Or as comfortable as you can be without a spine. This is the only decision that's going to matter for the rest of your very, very interesting new life."
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to do something, anything, with the mad buzzing in my chest. Or wherever my chest used to be.
I'd spent twenty-four years doing nothing and feeling nothing and now I was dead and somehow this was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me. How messed up is that?
Yeah. Alright. Show me the list.