Deadworld Isekai

Chapter 1: Trucked

Most people die in boring ways.

Matt always thought that he'd die with a bang. He'd fall off a cliff, save a beautiful woman from a mugging, and breathe his last breath watching her cry over him, or in a freak hang-gliding accident that his insurance would vigorously contest as a disguised suicide attempt.

Instead, it was just the normal, garden-variety cancer. He didn't smoke and never worked a day in a factory filled with toxic fumes. So, when he asked his doctor why cancer had chosen him, his doctor shrugged.

"There isn't always a reason. Some people just draw the short straw."

Maybe it was the fact that he disliked going to the doctor. It didn't seem like he had to. He was young and in shape. Why waste money on doctor visits when it could go toward bills at the end of the month?

By the time the doctors caught the cancer, there wasn't much point in treatment. The official recommendation was for him to go home and enjoy the few months he had left.

Matt had a small life insurance policy, courtesy of his job. Turns out, some life insurance policies pay out early when a person's fate is sure enough. It wasn't much, but it was enough to survive on, given the overall timeline of things. With the money, Matt took short weekend trips to places he had always wanted to go. That got old quickly. Eventually, he needed a hobby to pass the time, and he chose gardening.

He didn't try to be a good gardener. He hoed the ever-loving hell out of his backyard until every inch was tilled and fertilized. After scattering a random assortment of seeds and putting up a "Caution: Uncontrolled cellular growth" sign, he limited himself to watering and watching, waiting for the plant that would win the battle royale.

When weeds popped up, he'd absolutely nuke them with herbicide. At first, he was cautious about the dosages, but then stopped after he realized you couldn't get cancer twice, and it wouldn't matter much even if he did.

By the time his body finally gave out, his backyard looked like a bizarre, artificial jungle built by a madman. And that's pretty much what it was.

—

"Oh shit. Ooooh, shit."

Matt was having a difficult time coping with the afterlife. He wasn't particularly religious, so he didn't have much in the way of specific expectations. What he hadn't expected was to find himself sitting at a very fancy table in a well-adorned meeting room. What he had expected even less was to look over and find a talking, thinking delivery truck in the chair across the table from him.

"Oh, fuck. Fuckedty fuck."

He wasn't coping well. The truck was both full-sized and moving towards him, yet somehow stationary and perfectly sized for its average desk chair. If he had a normal, human brain, Matt suspected it would have burned out trying to work out the implications of the visual contradiction. That it didn't was one of the benefits of the afterlife, he supposed.

"Oh, no. No, no, no."

"Sir, if you would calm do...."

"Why is it... why? No. I don't want this."

"Sir, if you would just listen for a moment..."

"Ahhhhh! Ahhhh!"

It took a while to come to terms with things. When he finally got there, he had questions.

"So, this might be rude, but... why are you a truck?"

"I'm not a truck. I'm an automated system soul migration counselor and assistant, meant to ease your journey to your next plane of existence. I can take any form."