It was awkward being the twin of a stranger.

Even more so when that stranger was the one who killed you.

It had started off like any other work night. Go to the club, get ready for her routine, perform for horny, faceless dogs, and then go home. An near everyday occurrence for a stripper, a profession she had gotten into to help pay for college, yet decided to continue. It was, in fact, the going home part that threw her entire life upside down.

Or, more accurately, ended it.

Candy (And yes, that was her name.) had simply been walking home, enjoying the crisp autumn air and the slight chill nipping at her exposed skin when it happened. She was hit by a bicycle with enough force to knock both the wind out of her and crush her ribs, puncturing one of her lungs.

A goddamn, motherfucking bicycle. It was even towing a little red wagon.

Didn't mean it didn't hurt like a bitch.

As she closed her eyes for what should have been the final time, blurrily seeing a figure glide above her, a final thought drifted across her mind. 'At least the biker got injured too.'

One minute he was dead, the next he was alive.

It was a very confusing time for him, even more so when he could feel the confusion and anger radiating off of the form in the next tube over. Feeling the emotions of someone else was not a particularly pleasant experience, especially when they mixed so well with his own, becoming harder to separate what he felt to what she felt. It was if they had melded into one person, yet somehow still remind apart.

His day had begun like most days before. He woke up before the sun even began to great the sky, grabbed his bike, and started to pedal in towards work to pick up all the papers he would need to deliver that day. Lincoln, named after one of the U.S. president's in hopes that he would achieve great things, was a paperboy. A 26 year old, single paperboy. Life was rather unfair.

It was for perhaps this reason, so stuck in his own woes, that he did not notice the young woman walking on the sidewalk in front of him, colliding with her head on. Lincoln's only thought as he soared off his bike, crashing onto the asphalt, was 'I hope I don't get sued for this.'

(He honestly didn't have the money to go through anymore court proceedings - though the first was probably a stink bug left unsquashed. After all, it had been one of the most traumatizing times of his life.)

And then the wagon he kept attached to the back of his bicycle came tumbling down after him, smashing into his head hard enough to crack his skull, a piece of bone embedding into his brain.

They first officially meet in the afterlife at the Court of Souls. It was a place similar to that of the Gates of Heaven or waiting by the River Styx for passage to the Underworld, except a hell of a lot less plan. It was a simple room with a single, wide podium that was place in front of a long table shaped in a half-circle with three ominus figures sitting around it. There were no portraits or decorations covering the walls, in fact, there were not any walls at all. It was just a span of white, everywhere was white, like the room was trying to be erased from existence.

It was unnerving.

When Candy had arrived, standing squeezed next a young man on the podium, she had been spitting fire and trying to choke the man next to her. When Lincoln had arrived on the podium, valiantly trying to avoid the young woman's grabbing hands, he had been crying that he died a virgin between sobbed apologies.

The proceeding council was not amused by them at all. Candy and Lincoln failed to care.

Neither had expected the incident to have killed them, but here they were, - apparently dead - both of them unwilling to accept the fates they had been dealt and they were making it known. Loudly.

After all, it wasn't every day you suddenly find yourself in front of three supposed gods, on trial for where your soul will go after death. Nor was it pleasant to find you actually died in a bicycle accident.

"Enough!" The hooded figure on the left called, its' face (Did these 'gods' even have genders?) bouncing off the walls like music at a metal concert. The two freshly dead people quieted down, only Lincoln soft sniffles remaining..

A sound of rustling paper had everyone turning to the figure sitting at the center. It was hard to tell because of the hood covering his face, but they were sure it was thoroughly perusing whatever was written down on the sheets. Due to the 'Hmms' and 'Huhs' that kept escaping from where the two assumed its' mouth was, whatever it was trying to find wasn't there.

Finally, it placed the papers down, but what it said made them both the young man and woman want to strangle it. "It seems you two died a bit before your time."

Candy rolled her eyes. "No, you think."

"Does this mean we're gonna go back to, you know, not being dead?" Lincoln cut in hopefully as he wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his fear of dying with never being in a relationship or even having one adventure waning.

"No, it doesn't."

The simple response, sent the fear coursing right back through the young man's veins.

Candy snarled as she banged her fists down on the wood of the podium. "Then what does it mean?"

"It means," the figure on the right said, its' voice sounding like rocks being grated on metal and with a tone that gave the being an overly superior air. "That you won't be going back to the lives you were living."

Her eyebrow twitched, "No shit."

"Why not?" Lincoln cried out desperately from his place next to the young woman, making Candy flinch at the volume and lean slightly away. His shouting only getting louder as he continued on. "Why can't we go back? You said it yourselves, we weren't supposed to die!"

The center figure held up a boney hand to halt the young man's tirade. "Yes, that is what I said, but time passes a little differently here."

"What do you mean?" The young woman asked suspiciously, her gaze narrowing in a fierce glare. When none of the figures before them answered she asked more forcefully, "What do you mean time passes differently?"

"It means, that you have been here longer than you think." The figure on the left spoke up again, gaining the attention of the two deceased mortals. "Your bodies have already been buried and are currently decomposing under the ground in those wooden boxes you humans seem to like so much."

Lincoln and Candy shouted in disbelief, but the center figure was quick to intervene before they could start another hysterical tirade. "My sibling is right. While it feels as if only a few earth seconds to you have gone by, it has truly been a few months at best."

"So," the young woman ground out, her teeth gritting together. "What you're saying is we can't go back because our bodies a too decayed to inhabit anymore?"

"That is exactly what we are saying." The right figure spoke as if he were talking to a particularly dumb specimen. "Weren't you listening?"

She groweld.

"What does that mean for us," Lincoln suddenly inquired softly. "If we can't go back, yet we aren't supposed to be dead, what happens to us now?"

"You wait." The left figure said.

"Wait?" The young man, tilted his head in confusion. "Wait for what?"

"Until when your natural deaths were supposed to occur of course."

"Excuse me," Candy interrupted. "But we don't even know when or how we were meant to die."

"30 years for the man, he was to die of a sudden heart attack, and for you it was to be an aneurysm in 50 years time."

"I only lived to be 56!" Lincoln's horrified cry went ignored.

Candy sputtered. "How is that fair!"

"Don't worry, child." The center figure said, "Time will pass quickly."

"That's not the point," She screeched.

These gods just didn't understand, hey, after all, had eternity. Never once would they have to worry if they had enough time or fear the inevitable. But for Lincoln and Candy, for them, this was wholly unjust.

"There is another way," The figure on the right rasping voice echoed around them, sending slight chills down their spines. "You can live once again."

"But you all said," Lincoln said hesitantly cutting himself off, unwilling to admit the truth they had been told.

"I know what was said," the right figure continued. "And that was the truth, you can't go back to the lives you had been living."

"Then how can we live again?" The weight behind the inquiry was immense and both the young humans could nearly feel the air thicken in anticipation for the being answer.

"You would both be reborn, reborn into a world not your own." The being on the left center cut in. "A world that if left alone could experience great turmoil and strife."

Candy was doubtful. "What's the catch?"

"You will reincarnated as the children of a central figure, sibling destined to help save this world from a potentially dark future." The being in the center explained.

The offer had been too good to be true and Candy let it be known."This dipshit is the reason I'm dead and you want me to be related to him!"

"Hey!" Lincoln cried indignantly, "I said I was sorry!"

"And you expect me to just smile and forgive you?" Candy sneered at her murder. "Boy, I may be a stripper, but I am not easy and I sure as hell won't be singing you praises anytime soon."

Lincoln spurted, "We're the same age!"

"What happens if we say no?" She asked the three judges before them, hands going out to grib the railing of the podium in front of them, until her skin started to turn a pale white.

"You wait."

Neither Candy or Lincoln wanted that. Here they were being given a chance to live, yet not the lives the knew. It was not a decision to be taken lightly.

"It's a deal."

Or maybe it was.

Candy wasn't sure if she wanted to punch the man next to her or not for taking the choice out of her hands.

"When do we get to be reborn," the question was innocent enough, if a little impatient.

"Now," the beings chanted in unison, as the one in the center gave a quick wave of skeletal hand causing the room to start to swirl and the ground beneath them to suddenly disappear.

They started to fall.

"My boss is going to kill me," Lincoln whimpered as he waved his arms around frantically like a baby chick failing to fly.

Candy glared at him, her hair whipping behind her and her arms held out as she had seen people parachuting do in Youtube videos. "We're already dead."

Nothing else was said as everything began to fade to black.

Author's Note: Yeah, so I decided to try my hand at writing a dual narrative. Not sure how this is going to go, but this story does have plans to be more of a parody/comedy than anything else. There will be a lot of overpowered characters, general 'WTF' shenanigans, and two complete strangers trying to learn how to be twins that were born from laboratory tubes after sudden deaths in their first life. Will they complete the mission they were given by the meddling gods whom reincarnated them. Nobody knows! Not even I.

Fun Fact (Maybe?): This story was originally called 'A Newgate Made of Pearl' and was going to certain around Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate's daughter Pearl as she traversed through Oceans. It was going to be a bit more series, but things just got a little out of hand because I am apparently into writing parodies/comedies lately.