Karmic Judge Rebooted

Prologue

He didn't understand.
He didn't understand what was happening.
Death felt... different this time.
It didn't feel like death.
He was very familiar with the feeling of death.
And that definitely wasn't it.

It'd start as a burning, stabbing pain searing into the bone of his ribs, like billions of hot needles piercing through his chest.
He'd feel the oozing liquid determination seep from the wound like lava exploding from a volcano before everything began to slow down. He'd speak his final words and slink away. Feel the cold tiles of the judgment hall pull him down to meet the floor.
Then, he'd turn to dust.
Despite what most would think, turning to dust isn't actually all that bad. It wasn't the worst part, at least.

It was an odd feeling, you became aware that your body was getting lighter, shedding the weight of your consciousness. Slowly disappearing before your mind withers into never-ending darkness.
Then the cold greeted him in its familiar embrace, the lonely hands of death always seemed to hold the weight of the world that always bared down on his shoulders. The weight of knowing. He was left in the merciful silence. The emptiness of nonexistence.
He'd be stuck there for what felt like an eternity. Yet at times, he wished for just a little longer... But wishes don't come true. He'd be ripped back into the living world and another papercut would dent his soul.
The cycle would reset.

But this.

This was different.

It was warm.

There was no darkness.

No cold greeting.

No familiar weightlessness.

Just a hot, burning sensation.

There was no void when he opened his eyes, it wasn't cold or lonely. It was red and warm, he could feel the blinding red covering him like a shield. 
There was a feeling, a feeling he couldn't truly describe. A strange, sorrowful embrace that seemed to bleed with desperation.

He didn't feel alone.

Voices, he could hear voices. 

Like trying to see through glass fogged by a thick layer of steam, the heat burning in his chest felt ready to combust. He could feel it. It was burning within him. His mind, his body, his soul. It all caught alight. Engulfing him in pain.

... Then it went away. The heat burnt out and he was thrown back into the cold. But... It wasn't the void. There was too much for it to be the void. He wasn't empty. He didn't disappear. The cold wasn't the familiar comfort he'd greeted too many times to count... it was sharper. Like the tiles in the hall.
His eyes felt heavy. As if the universe was willing him to stay. To pretend this was his void, that this was where he was meant to be. That he'll see his brother again soon but... somehow he knew none of it was true.

But the apathy held him down. The exhaustion plagued his existence every waking moment. He just wanted to sleep. He let his problems drift off into subconscious thought where he wouldn't have to worry about them anymore.

There's always another reset.

That's his life motto. 

Missed the most recent episode of his favourite show?

There's always another reset.

Accidentally lost his pet rock in Hotland?

There's always another reset.

Brother got his head chopped off?

There's always another-

Thump

The sound was misplaced, startling. New.
A thump. Thumps don't belong in the void. Nothing does. So why is there a thump? He couldn't be in the judgment hall still, could he? No. There was no echo. But if he was in the void there wouldn't be sound. So where was he?