Welcome! Everything is going to be fine.
You stare at the happy, bright green font, trying to get a grasp on your thoughts. Where are you? How long have you been here? And why are you alone?
"What the fork?" you whisper under your breath. You frown. Fork? Where did that come from?
You blink twice, but nothing changes. You're still sitting on a couch that isn't yours, in a room you've never been to before in your life, staring at that single message on the wall.
"Going to be fine"? You'll believe that when someone tells you what the fork is going on here.
You don't remember how you got here. You somehow feel like you've gotten lost on the way home, but something tells you this is a much, much bigger deal than that.
Suddenly, you hear a door swing open. Turning your head to look, you wonder how you didn't notice the door there before. A short blonde woman is standing there, a clipboard in hand.
"Come on in and have a seat, toots," she says, waving you into what looks like an office. "I don't bite. Well, except when Chidi's getting on my nerves, but even then, only sometimes."
You decide not to ask who Chidi is. Your legs feel like they're made of lead as you force yourself to stand, walking over to the blonde. You can't decide if she reminds you more of your mom, or the girl from Tallahassee that broke up your parents' marriage. Maybe it's a bit of both.
The office is divided in half by a line of duct tape, right down the middle. One half of the room is neat, organized, and makes you think of your high school principal's office. The other is covered in posters of sexy mailmen, empty cans of beer, and various books which, gleaning from the titles, are all related to philosophy. The blonde takes a seat on the mailmen-clad side of the room, sitting behind a completely disorganized desk. You sit in the chair across from her, vaguely wondering if you're about to get lectured.
"Sorry for the clutter," she says, not sounding all that sorry. "I'm not as good at keeping a clean office as Mikey. But, he's off dealing with other neighborhood business, so you're stuck with me."
"...Who are you?" you ask, deciding to start simple.
She smiles. "I'm Eleanor Shellstrop. Just call me Eleanor."
"What about 'Ellie'?"
"Not unless you want to find out what your lungs look like," she says cheerfully. Eleanor taps her clipboard. "Threats aside, I've been reading your file. I think we're gonna be friends."
"My file?" you say, bewildered.
Eleanor's smile fades, and she takes a deep breath. When she speaks again, her voice comes out calm and soothing. It feels weird on her.
"Unfortunately, toots - you're dead."
You gape at her. This... this has to be a joke. Or a dream. Or maybe a really bad trip.
Finally, when you find your voice, it comes out sounding like a croak. "What?"
"I know, it's a lot to take in. Now, we erase the memory of the actual death, but I can tell you how it went down, if you'd like," she says.
"Um..." Your mind is racing. You swallow the lump in your throat. "Okay."
Eleanor reads off the clipboard. "You were at a party hosted by your ex," she says. You nod vaguely; that sounds kind of familiar. "I won't get too deep into it, but long story short - you did sixteen shots of Jägermeister, started screaming obscenities at your ex and their new squeeze, tried to do a striptease to win them back..."
You groan, hiding your face in your hands. Eleanor keeps talking.
"Then, when that didn't work, you laid facedown in the front yard and began crying, which is when you fell asleep. Unfortunately, all the Jäger combined with the chili dog platter you had for dinner, which you shoveled down in under ten minutes - Respect! - upset your stomach, and you started puking in your sleep. Profusely. While facedown. I'll let you fill in the blanks."
"Oh... my God," you say slowly. "I choked to death on my own forking vomit, didn't I?"
Eleanor nods, giving a sympathetic cringe. "Yyyyeah. Sorry, but... if it helps, not many people get a dignified death. We can't all be Lorde."
"Too true," you sigh. You're still not convinced this isn't a dream, but you decide to just roll with it, at least for now. "So... if I'm dead, then are you an angel?"
"Me?" Eleanor bursts out laughing, pounding the desk a bit. "Ohhhhh, nononono! Oh, God, no! I'm no angel, toots, I'm a human! Just like you."
"And now you usher new people into the afterlife?" you ask.
"Among other things, but yeah."
"So... what, is this like a Purgatory type thing, where you have to do community hours?"
Eleanor gives a sly smile. "No, but you're on the right track." She straightens up a bit, back to trying to be professional. You've only known Eleanor for about five minutes, but you get the distinct sense these attempts don't last long. "When you die, you either go to the Good Place, or the Bad Place. The Good Place is reserved for the best people, the crème de la crème. The people who were selfless, noble, kindhearted, and all that other Sailor Moon junk."
You feel your stomach bunching up. You're not sure you'd go so far as to call yourself a bad person - but selfless is something you are not. Neither is noble, to be honest.
"Throughout your life, every action you took - or didn't take - added or subtracted from your point total," Eleanor continues. "The points are a way of measuring someone's goodness. And, I'm not gonna lie, the threshold for getting into the Good Place is super-high. Like... unreasonably high."
"How high is unreasonably high?" you ask.
"Florence Nightingale didn't get in."
"Holy God."
Yep. You're forked.
"When I died," Eleanor says, "I was sent to the Bad Place. And, I'm not gonna lie, toots; I wasn't a great person when I was alive. But I wasn't bad enough to warrant eternal torment. Neither were the other three humans I was with. None of us were evil, hateful people - but the Good Place didn't want us."
"...So... this... is the Bad Place..." you say quietly.
A lifetime of looking out for number one, and this is where it gets you. Forking hell. Literally.
To your surprise, Eleanor's smiling. "No," she says. "Because something great happened. I changed. Against the expectations of the demon who'd been running the show, I changed for the better. And so did the other three. We all changed so much that the powers that be had to rethink things, and realize the system was totally forked. That maybe there was another way, other than tormenting everyone who wasn't perfect for all eternity."
"What are you saying?"
"What I'm saying is this is a third option. An afterlife for people like you. Because, well, let's be real - you weren't a horrible person or anything, but you sure as heck weren't great," Eleanor says. You squirm uncomfortably in your seat. It's one thing to know you weren't a great person. It's another to hear someone else confirm it. "You always put yourself first, no matter how badly you made people feel."
"Everyone has to look out for themselves," you mutter.
"Toots, you once used your friend's photo to catfish their professor."
"I needed money for concert tickets! I gave one of them to my friend!"
"Your friend got expelled!" She sighs, shaking her head. "This is what I mean. Aside from being totally self-centered, you were also a bit of a klepto, not to mention shallow. And such a hedonist! On top of that, you're kind of entitled. You feel like the world owes you something. And yeah, I get it. Your childhood... it kind of sucked. So you got the idea that the only way to live is selfishly, only thinking of your own needs and wants. No one ever thought of you when you were a kid, so why should you think of them?"
God. Was that really how you thought? You never really put it into words, but now that Eleanor has, you have to admit it's pretty accurate.
"You have my full sympathy. I mean that. Crappy parents, growing up to be kind of crappy yourself? I went through the same thing. But you leaned on your childhood a lot to excuse your behavior, instead of changing. And you hurt a lot of people. You may not have been out to hurt anyone, but the truth is, you did much more harm than good when you were alive."
You can't bring yourself to say anything in response. You just stare down at your feet. You feel something sickly in your stomach, slithering around like a snake.
Dear God... is this what shame is?
"Hey," Eleanor says, in a gentler tone than you've heard from her thus far. You force yourself to look her in the eye. It's not easy, but something about her face eases you a bit. "It's okay. Just because you weren't great doesn't mean there's not hope. That's what this place is for. It's for all the not-great people to become better. To become worthy of the Good Place."
"...You think a whole lifetime of being a bad person can be fixed, just like that?" you ask doubtfully.
"Not just like that, no. But in time. And we've got all of eternity to fix you and the others up. Between community service, philosophy classes, socializing with your neighbors, different morality exercises... we'll have you in shape sooner or later."
"People don't change," you say.
Eleanor grins, so widely you almost wonder if it's truly sincere. Yet somehow, even with all your cynicism and practicality, you want to believe it is.
"A lot of people say that when they get here. But give it a shot, okay? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised," Eleanor says. "So, you ready to get started?"
There's a pause as you think it over, a thousand voices inside you arguing all at once. This is insanity. This has to be some bizarre dream. This... is nothing like the afterlife you imagined.
But here you are. And here Eleanor is. Offering to help you.
And it's not like you have anyplace else to go.
You hear yourself say, "Yeah. Sure."
"Great!" Eleanor says. "I'll have Janet introduce you to your neighbors, and you can settle in. Welcome to the Getting Better Place."