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He expected to hear doctors at work and the steady, high-pitched beeping of a heart monitor when he woke up…and he heard it.

He expected to smell the numbing scent of a room scrubbed so clean and filled so intensely with medication that it might have led to shock…and he smelled it.

He expected to feel an unnaturally built bed that made him feel stale but relaxed the way hospital beds always did…and he didn’t.

No.

He felt blood, and it was running down his forearm.

Beta’s eyes opened eventually, having taken their time for a full minute of being conscious. There was a pounding inside that skull of his, and it only got more intense as he tried to focus on the images blurring around him. The room wasn’t as clean cut and white as he would have pictured, it wasn’t even stained red with his blood.

It was just…dirty.

His head was being elevated by what felt like a brick block, one that he believed was the root cause of the headache. Faintly, a giant metal door could be seen with the latch down, locking them in. Looking up, a light fixture—more green than white in color—shined brightly onto his lower body…and Beta could only wonder why. And it was that wonder that caused his body to go rogue.

His mouth let out an unnatural gargle before his eyes rolled back into his skull, signaling his body to wrack with vibrations.

“He’s waking up!”

“I can see that!”

“We need more anesthesia.”

“No shit you whore.”

“…What did you just call me?”

The sound of a table quite literally turning led to a sharp pain in Beta’s arm, this time accompanied by a voice.

“Night night freak,” it sneered before Beta could feel no more.

This time, when he woke up, it was in a hospital bed.

Beta pushed the wool blanket off of his body and struggled to sit up, feeling a faint physical memory of intense pain that had subsided over time. But it didn’t feel like the natural healing process. This felt like he had been ripped apart…and put back together again.

Looking around, he saw what was definitely not his bedroom. It was a doctor’s check-up room, which he could only assume by the plastic bars on the side of the bed. Instinctively reaching for his arm, ready to rip out the IV like any cliché lead character would, he understood when there was nothing there. Yet he still felt an ache where it should have been…

The T.V. sitting to the right of his bed—the only sore thumb in the room—buzzed before turning on. His armpits began to sweat involuntarily.

On the screen was a man with golden eyes and large horns sticking out of his skull, smiling away in his blue button up shirt and slacks. He stood against a green screen of a flower field full of lilies. The man clasped his hands in front of him and smiled, the invincible dimples now showing. “Hi there! You—” He pointed at Beta through the screen. “—are dead!”

Beta shook his head. “No,” He shifted his position, feeling the urge to stand out all of a sudden as if it would get him out of there. “That’s not possible. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Now now! Don’t be alarmed!” the T.V. man said. “Even though you’re dead, you’re still living!”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Beta stated matter-of-factly to the man in the screen.

“Allow me to explain. You’re in…!” The man suddenly disappeared and got replaced with a rainbow made using a cheap animated effect and a background of a clear blue sky with the sun hiding just behind the corner of a tall mansion. Words appeared over the rainbow. “Plato!” the voice said. The man walked back onto the screen. “Plato is where dead people go, like you!”

“I already told you I’m not dead, I can’t be,” Beta said, even though he knew the man was just a recording.

“This is a planet far far away from Earth!” A picture of the planet popped up on the screen as a teal-colored faded outline that was never shaded in, like it was trying to camouflage itself with space. Like an eclipsed moon.

The picture went away.

“Now! Let’s help you understand the people of Plato!” Strange melody music began to play as it cut shots from a bunch of buildings and strange-looking people walking out of them.

“Now! To help you understand, we’ve put it in typical, school-setting terms!” A white screen popped up. Beta thought something had gone wrong right before a short boy walked into the shot with a plethora of books in his hands, glasses, golden eyes like the gentlemen hosting the video, and horns like his as well. “Hi! I’m your classic high school nerd, always studying! I enjoy knowledge more than I enjoy people! Some might call me carefree, but I think that I’m just special! So special that I can control one of the four elements!” You could hear the ground crack under the kid as a chunk of the tiled floor jutted upward, making a mini hill before jutting back down into the ground. “How do we decide which element you get!? Is that what you’re asking!?” Beta cringed, not caring how. He just wanted the yelling to stop. “Well, I guess that’ll be up to who you are!” The nerd winked. “We died by natural causes, like disease! They call us…Nats!”

Another guy walked onto the screen with a puffy jacket, one textbook, and silver eyes. “Hi! I’m like your classic high school jock, always pushing people around!” He gave the Nat a little shove. “I also eat people!” Beta’s eyes widened, caught off guard by the statement. “That’s right! I’m a cannibal! I also have telekinesis!” The Stak lifted the Nat into the air, and he playfully played along and pretended to be scared. The Stak put him back down. “I died an accidental death!” The guy pouted. “Whoops! They call us...Staks!”

A blonde cheerleader with two pigtails shook her pom-poms all around as the Stak gave her a kiss on the cheek and she giggled. Her eyes were purple. “Hi! I’m the cliché high school cheery cheerleader, and I have pep!” The Nat through water on the cheerleader, Beta now wondering where he got the bucket of water from, and she gasped. “I’m also!” The Stak swept her off her feet and her legs transformed into a fishtail, one that scattered light like a prism would. “A mermaid!”

“Jesus,” Beta muttered as the video went on.

“I can manipulate people’s thoughts and feelings!” She stared into the Stak’s eyes, and Beta could see the way his gaze went from acting to “genuine” infatuation. She looked away from him and back at the camera, though the Stak continued to stare. “See!” She winked. “I died intentionally, as in someone—or something—wanted me dead! You can call us...Tenties!”

Beta scratches his unwashed hair and said, “This seems wildly inaccurate.”

Yet another person walked onto the screen. Her hair was jet black and cut short, with only a streak of a purple highlight there. She wore black lipstick to accompany her black clothes, yet her eyes were a soft, glowing orange. There was something behind her back, but Beta was unsure what the red thing was. “Hi…I’m your ordinary high school emo, and I’m depressed.”

Beta sighed, rubbing his forehead. “What am I watching.”

She sighed, and it was then that she unveiled her luxurious cardinal-like wings. “I have wings...duh. I can also…” The girl turned into an actual Cardinal bird in the blink of an eye before turning back into her normal, depressing self. “…shapeshift.” She sighed again. “I killed myself...that’s how I died. Suicide. Slit my wrists. It hurt. And…” She rolled her eyes. “They call us...Ciders.”

“But wait!” The Tenti exclaimed. “There’s more!”

“There’s another kind now among us,” the Stak said. “And if you’re watching this and don’t have orange, purple, silver, or gold eyes…then they’re probably red.”

Beta turned to look around the room, and lucky enough he spotted a mirror on the wall next to the door.

His eyes were indeed red. It was the first time seeing himself since he left the house that night…and it was somehow horrifying.

He saw someone who used to have a life back on Earth, back in England…back in London.

He saw someone that used to be admired by others, even when he didn’t want to be.

He saw someone of Asian descent, but never had much time to explore that part of him.

He saw a child of an unloving family.

He saw someone broken.

“We don’t know everything about them yet, but we do know that they don’t have any physical marking of their type other than their eyes,” one of the voices said as Beta continued to stare at his reflection. “We know that they were killed by something…special—”

“Syncs,” he muttered to himself…because he knew a lot more than they think.

There was a brief silence. “Their powers are…unknown. Their personalities are…unknown. Their physical attribute seems to be non-existent. But, we do have a name for them…”

Beta’s gaze fell to his knees.

“Pernas.”

The video went black briefly before the cheerful music returned and Beta decided to turn back to the screen without hesitation.

The man—the Nat—returned. “Remember that you can change your name if you please! No one here has to know about your life on Earth, you can simply start fresh on our endless planet!” the handsome gentlemen exclaimed. He sighed, looking down briefly before up again, going straight into an unexplained and sudden monologue.

“This place was a different world before Lucienne, our saver, showed up.” Fake images of poverty and war clearly taken from Earth showed up on the screen in fade outs. “The world was unable to prosper. But then,” A blinding image of light surrounding a shadow of a man popped up. “King Lucienne, came down from Earth on a whim, finding himself lost in space but determined to find us. To find us.” Beta could hear the handsome young man sniffling in the audio. “And he did, he found us and he stepped onto the rubble of our broken way of living and lifted us from the ash! He conquered us all! He led us to prosperity! His mere touch saves! Praise King Lucienne! Praise our holy sain—!”

“Bull,” Beta said, squinting at the T.V.

It turned off.

And when it turned off, the wooden door opened and a woman walked in. She smiled pleasantly, her eyes just as gold as the Nats on the television. Her horns, although, were much shorter and curled a lot less. But there was more to her than that. She wore a doctor’s coat with her name tagged onto it. Jeans, a blue blouse, and flip flops is what she chose to wear and Beta could only appreciate the way she chose to express herself, especially with the unevenly coated red lipstick staining her mouth. “Hi! I’m Julia Hill, your friendly Plato physician.” She curtsied, which Beta found very unnecessary. “And I’m here to answer any questions you have about Plato!” In that brief pause she was staring Beta down, ready for any question he needed. She welcomed the awkward silence that swooped in, smiling kindly even though Beta was looking at her like she was crazy. Although he wasn’t planning on saying anything, a question did come to mind.

But it was scribbled all over her face that the question he gave her wasn’t what she was expecting. “Is Lucienne really an angel?” Beta asked, genuinely.

The brief quiet properly encompassed her reaction to the question, opening and closing her mouth as if there was something she actually had prepared for the query posed. “Well…no,” Julia responded, her spirits lowering. She got them back up again. “But he practically is to us! King Lucienne has inhabited and civilized Plato, making it not just a planet, but our home. He became our leader and never tried contacting Earth again. He said they shouldn’t know just yet. Earth was still evolving, as we all are. But the idea of living again almost made dying worth it. We still don’t know how Plato came to be. Maybe we never will, but—”

“It was a yes or no question,” Beta said, cutting her off. Beta took one more look into the mirror, taking his new self in. Monstrous looks is what ran through his brain.

He figured he’d fit right in.

Julia stepped farther into the room to look at Beta in the mirror as well. “You’re changing, and we aren’t sure what you’re changing into. Not yet, anyway.” She sighed.

Julia ushered him to get off the table and he did, avoiding her touch. “It is a lot to take in. Unfortunately, it is reality. You shouldn’t worry though, you’ll probably make many new friends here. And you’ll most likely see your loved ones again, I promise.” Beta turned away from Julia and walked toward the door, his hand already around the knob.

He opened the door, air now in abundance once he stepped out into the hallway. Beta looked both ways and saw that it stretched out for a while. He could hear voices coming from his left, and decided avoiding other people was the route he wished to take. The walls were made of freshly polished mahogany wood, and as he looked up there hung the Renaissance painting of the creation of Adam on the wall. Beta was surprised to say the least. All he had seen was a hallway, yet he had no idea the world of death carried so much class. Beta turned back to the doctor when she called, “Wait! What’s your name?”

He rolled his eyes, knowing the response wouldn’t be positive—it never was. “Beta.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” she assured him, seeing his grief. “Speaking of names, if you want, you can change yours. We don’t want you to feel judged.”

“Cheers but, I think I’ll stick with mine.” Beta smiled, less wholesomely and more forced.

“Then, have a great day. You are free to go. Everything you need should be provided for you, as Plato always does. You can explore the house if you want, but if you need the peace of mind— as many do—your room is C-132.” She handed him a typical house key. “But whatever you do, don’t leave the building just yet. It’s just a lot to take in at once.”

And with that thought, the door shut and Beta was left alone.