Afterlife

The Afterlife was created by Oasis during her ascension into Godhood. It’s creation was not intentional; it seems to be a side effect of her newfound powers. Still, this realm has been turned into her domain. A place where new souls can be created and old ones can be reincarnated. A safe haven for all Mortal beings while in their weakest state. Now, it’s important to note that the Afterlife is exactly that. Life after life. It’s not Heaven. It’s similar, yes, but they aren’t the same. The Afterlife has just as many problems as the Mortal realm, they’re just of a different nature. Before we get into it’s problems, though, let's go over what it is and it’s standard procedures.

The obvious first step in order to enter the Afterlife is to die. You can’t experience what happens after life if your life isn’t over. It always takes awhile for one to regain their bearings. Souls are almost always dazed upon reaching the Afterlife. Oasis’ Magic returns to them, and a flood of new and old memories hit them all at once. A soul’s memory is not limited the same way a Mortal body is. A soul will remember everything, even things their Mortal body could not. It can be jarring to gain that much new information all at once.

Snapping out of this haze can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. Typically, the longer one lived the longer it takes for them to snap back to reality. It also depends on how they died a lot of the time. Sudden death is harder to come to grips with. Those who died suddenly or in an unpleasant way may find it harder to accept the fact they’ve died.

Unfortunately, this causes a lot of problems for the Afterlife’s second in command. Sandra often has to deal with upset, angry, and confused souls who’ve recently died. She’s gotten quite good at dealing with them; she’s got a strong will. It takes a lot to be second in command, and Sandra is more than qualified.

Once a soul finally comes out of their shocked state, they can finally get into the Afterlife’s standard procedure. Each soul is in charge of documenting their past lives. The Afterlife’s Hall of Records has documentation of each and every soul’s memories, all neatly filed away. This is for record keeping purposes.

With trillions of souls and an infinite plane for them to live on, finding people can be quite the task. That’s what most want to do in the Afterlife; reconnect with lost loved ones. The only problem is, not everyone dies in a timely manner. A close friend could die and reincarnate several times before you finally find them again. The Hall of Records helps with this. Sure, the Afterlife doesn't have any records of those who are currently alive (as the living can’t document anything), but having the records of a soul's past lives helps keep track of everyone.

Documentation is important for more reasons than just that. “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and all that. Yes, an individual won’t be able to use any of that information in the living world, but that kind of information helps Oasis and Sandra deal with the Afterlife’s other issues.

Once a soul has sufficiently documented their life and gotten it approved by Sandra or any of her volunteers, the file will be stored away with the individuals other documents and added to the Afterlife’s index. From there, a soul has two options moving forward. They can either be reincarnated, or they can choose to remain in the Afterlife.

## **Reincarnation**

In order to be reincarnated, a soul must file their paperwork. It’s the only real prerequisite. Oasis’ Magic cannot prevent someone from entering the Afterlife, but it can prevent them from leaving. If your most current life isn’t accounted for, her Magic will prevent you from leaving. There’s simply no way around it. Many have tried, and all have failed. This one prerequisite has stopped quite a few souls from returning to the living world at all. Some souls are just that opposed to the Afterlife’s system.

The method of reincarnation isn't perfect by any means, but it’s a system that meets quota. Oasis tries to let souls choose what they’d like to be, but if everyone got to choose all the time it’d wreak havoc on the living world's ecosystem. Everyone wants to be a Human. It’s not up for debate that those souls often have the “best” lives, if you can even quantify something like that. Still, if everyone was a Human the living world would collapse.

To help deal with this, Oasis has created a system of portals in a so-called “designated reincarnation area.” It's a wide open area with thousands of portals sorted as neatly as possible. Stepping through these portals will send your soul down to a new body. You’ll temporarily lose your memories in the process, keeping all knowledge of the Afterlife out of the living world. That part of the process Oasis had no control over, it happened on it’s own.

These portals will open and close depending on the quota the living world demands. Unfortunately, souls are unable to go back down if there’s no place for them. One can’t become a panda if there’s no need for one, for example. If Oasis was in control, she’d make sure to keep the living ecosystem in balance. She can’t, however. It’s unfortunate. Species becoming extinct always saddens her.

## **The Hall of Records**

The Hall of Records is an infinite area in the Afterlife that’s constantly being expanded. It’s made up of seemingly endless rows of drawers and filing cabinets, all filled to the brim with every soul’s life records. Only Sandra knows how to fully navigate this endless maze of information, although Oasis is able to use her Magic to teleport where she needs to go. Documentation of what goes on in the living world is Sandra’s job.

Each and every soul has their own section in the Hall of Records. This is where they store their life documents. Sandra has elected to let souls organize their own files; mainly so if something gets misplaced the blame isn’t on her. Seeing as a single soul can have a seemingly indefinite amount of lives, Sandra doesn’t want to take responsibility for all those files.

The Hall of Records is one of the only areas in the Afterlife that’s heavily guarded. Oasis has set up a Magical barrier that only allows souls to enter if they have either her or Sandra’s permission. Part of this is to prevent vandalization, something that’s unfortunately happened in the past and will almost certainly happen again. The main reason for this barrier, however, is to prevent DC from accessing this information. There’s no telling what he’d do if he ever got a hold of the Hall of Records.

## **Elitism in the Afterlife**

As unfortunate as it is, Mortals will always find some way to make them “better” than all the others. It’s the way of the world. In the living world, these reasons are mostly tied to gene purity. In the Afterlife, it’s all about past lives.

There are quite a few souls that will refuse to be reincarnated as certain species. Those at the high end of the spectrum have only ever lived as a single species throughout the entirety of their existence. These souls see themselves as “pure”. Their view on life is very narrow. Quality of life doesn’t matter to them, the only thing they care about is “keeping a perfect record”.

Obviously, when more souls start acting like this the Gods are forced to either send them down as something they don’t want to be, or send a soul down that doesn’t want to return to the living world. Both of these options will leave someone unhappy, but it has to be done. Otherwise, living populations start to fall.

In theory Oasis could always create more souls to meet quota, but in doing so she’d expand the population of the Afterlife. She doesn't make new souls often. The last time this happened was about a hundred years ago or so, and she doesn't intend on doing it again anytime soon. Creating new souls will only amplify the Afterlifes problems in the long run, even if it does solve one in the moment.

## **War and Riots**

Returning to the Afterlife doesn’t bring a soul any peace. If anything, it can cause more stress. Think about it this way. Everyone ends up in the Afterlife, and everyone can remember everything that’s ever happened to the across all their past lives. People are bound to hold some resentment towards others. As an example: Two soldiers of opposing sides kill each other during a war. They both return to the Afterlife at the same time. Do you honestly think that them being dead will make everything ok? They both died at each other's hands! They’re going to continue to fight.

Any time the Mortal realm has a war, famine, plague, or any other event that’d cause mass deaths the Afterlife suffers. People get angry and sad. They may act irrational. In the case of war, people don’t want to die for nothing. They’ll continue to fight even in the Afterlife until they “win”.

Wars and riots aren’t super common in the Afterlife, but they’re a significant issue. When these events break out, souls stop documenting their lives. Therefore; they cannot be reincarnated. A soul not wanting to do paperwork every now and then isn’t that much of an issue, but thousands of them very much is. Thousands of souls not being reincarnated puts a major strain on the population of the Afterlife.

When these things happen, Oasis is forced to do riot control. She more or less stuns the participants by kicking her powers into overdrive and regaining control of the Magic that makes up the souls. This is taxing on her. It can take months to settle things; meanwhile Sandra is forced to take over the Afterlife’s general tasks. It isn’t fun for anyone, but it’s one of the many tasks a God has to do.