Blackness. And then, in capital letters – 'YOU DIED'.

"…that's strange. I never even played the Souls games."

I felt remarkably calm, despite the strange apparition in front of me, informing me of my untimely demise. Somehow, I felt that this wasn't a dream, but quite real. Recalling another source of text in all capital letters, I suspected that my lack of glands no doubt had something to do with it. As the text faded away, leaving me in darkness once again, I contemplated what would come next. Was I off to find some pearly gates, or a set of particularly uncomfortable hot springs? I didn't feel anything pulling me up or down – I didn't feel anything at all, lacking a physical body. What I did feel was curiosity. Certainly none of the religions I had ever studied ever described an afterlife like this.

'CONTINUE (0)' 'RETURN TO MENU'

I saw more words, and while the option to continue was certainly tempting, it was no true option at all. It was greyed out, and unavailable to me. I assumed that the number indicating that I had zero continues remaining, mimicking more video games. I was certainly no hard-core gamer in life, though I played my share of games. Was this the afterlife's way of making me feel comfortable? Contorting itself into a framework that I could understand? I focused on the latter selection, and the darkness turned to light.

'NEW GAME' 'CONTINUE' 'LOAD SAVED GAME' 'EXIT'

Again, the options to continue or load a game were greyed out. Since this was my first time ever seeing whatever this interface was, I could only guess that I had no saved games to load. The last option was something I found concerning. If my life had been some game, or if I was caught in some afterlife-as-game… where would I be if I exited now? Would I come back to my life, waking up with this just being some strange dream? Would my soul transition on to an afterlife as various religions instruct? Would I just… cease?

So, I made the only reasonable choice I could.

'SELECT GAME'

Those words appeared for just long enough for me to wonder if 'global thermonuclear war' was about to appear on a list before me. While I was wrong, what did appear was intriguing enough that I quickly forgot about it. The games listed weren't games – they were universes. Sure, fictional universes, and some that were certainly games in my life, like Mass Effect, but others as well. The list was vast, and I recognized them as universes from all kinds of media. Games, movies, books. Many names were in colour, but many were also greyed out, unavailable. I realized shortly why that was.

"My selections are limited to things I have finished, at least to some degree or another. At least whatever is controlling this isn't a fanatical completionist."

I might have felt some regret at the choices that were unavailable to me, and not grinding my way through various media more during life, but the list was more than vast enough to give me a sufficiency of choice. I don't know how long I spent browsing the list. Advantage of incorporeality – I had more patience there than I ever had in life. I also never needed to scroll the list or change my point of perspective. While based on the framework of gaming, this experience clearly wasn't limited to the laws of the physical world I had left behind, or the gaming hardware of that world. In any case, I had more than enough time to think about my selection. Some worlds, while fascinating, were not anywhere I would actually want to experience firsthand – hello, Warhammer 40,000 – and others were ones I barely remembered from reading many years ago. I wanted a combination of a world where I had fairly detailed knowledge, and there was a limited amount of soul-reaving horror. Bonus points if I felt I would actually be able to do some good in that universe, too.

When I found Star Wars on the list, that seemed like an obvious pick. While I could hardly claim to have Wookiepedia memorized, I'd not only seen all the movies, but I'd read a tremendous number of the books through the years, played various games like Knights of the Old Republic – and let's be honest, who wouldn't daydream about being a Jedi and having your very own lightsaber?

'SELECTED: STAR WARS'

'NEW CHARACTER' 'IMPORT CHARACTER' 'BACK'

It took me only a moment of consideration before choosing to import my character. I still wanted to be me, right? That's when I got my next surprise, though. While the list of universes to choose from had been vast, this list dwarfed that by at least one order of magnitude. Incorporeal patience or not, I wasn't going to count either list. Just as I had a list of fictional universes to choose from, particularly those that I had dwelled on for an extensive period of time, here I had a list of fictional characters – well, it actually did have my own name too, of course I looked, and I didn't consider myself fictional. As tempting as it may have been to import Jean-Luc Picard into the Star Wars universe, that did not seem like the wisest of plans to me. As I laughed to myself at the reaction of those who enjoyed the eternal Star Wars versus Star Trek conflict would be, I continued to peruse the list, when a name stuck out to me. Not my own, but the name of a character of my own. It seemed it wasn't limited to fictional characters of professionally published settings. I had, many years ago, made a habit of participating in various roleplaying fora on the internet. There was one that I spent entirely too much time and effort on and had travelled so far from its original source material that it bore only the loosest resemblance. But it had a structured system for creating original characters, with powerful and unique abilities. This… this had promise.

'AETHAEN D'ARGENTE'

Aethaen had been my very first character in that particular space. While not the one that I played the most, or the most obviously powerful, he was unique in a few ways – and his powers could have some unique ways in which to shift the progression of the Star Wars story, depending on where and when I entered the universe.

'OUT OF CONTEXT ERROR'

'REFORMATTING CHARACTER'

I would've frowned, had I a mouth to do it with. My selection depended on Aethaen's powers and abilities being intact. This… could be bad.

'REFORMAT COMPLETE'

'SELECT ENTRY POINT'

I looked through the latest list, and was unsurprised to see that it was, again, limited based on my consumption of Star Wars material in my past life. Whomever or whatever put this together certainly seemed to be a fan of the achievement unlock concept. Various places in the Star Wars galaxy were listed, along with time frames. I recognized a number from games like Knights of the Old Republic – definitely not choosing Malachor or the Star Forge as a starting location, thanks – but I decided to go to the spot where I could hopefully lever the story onto a happier track.

'TATOOINE – PREQUEL ERA – PRE-PHANTOM MENACE'

Everyone's favourite dust ball, as far away from the bright centre of the galaxy as you can get – if the words of a grumpy farm boy are to be believed, anyway.

"Hopefully that reformatting didn't totally ruin my plans, or I'm going to be living a very short second life…"

'SELECTION LOCKED'

'REINCARNATION IN PROCESS'