God's Gone AWOL

[1] Family Reunion (GONE WRONG!!!)

For the last eighty-whatever years, Bentley had been rather peacefully enjoying her state of death. Until suddenly, after a lifetime of silence, a singular voice broke through the veil.

"Get up. You're needed again,"

As if waking her up wasn't rude enough, the disembodied voice floating in the void also had to be commanding her to do something. The audacity.

But that stupid voice was filled with some awful power —more powerful than herself, and certainly too powerful to ignore. So Bentley's peace and quiet had very abruptly come to an end as she found herself suddenly back in her old body, and rising from the earth in which she was buried, all while under the gaze of some unknown force that had decided it was necessary to bring her back.

After blasting her way out of her old grave, she was met with a blinding ray of sunlight directly in her eyes. If she had been a more romantic-type of creature, seeing the warm, life-giving sun after so many years in darkness would have been a cause to celebrate. However, Bentley was no such person, instead growing increasingly annoyed. If it had been up to her, she would have turned around and climbed right back into that deep dirty hole. Who cared about the stupid sun?

However, crawling back into her grave was not an option. Because she was not alone.

"Welcome back, Bentley," said a gentle and unsurprised voice. It would have sounded human, but there was some sort of ringing hidden behind it, like a little ceramic bell was speaking the words with the person. It was too ethereal to be anything mortal.

"..."

A little while later, she wandered down the main street of Jericho Washington, trying desperately to remember what had happened.

She had been dead. That much was certain, and she had been brought back for a mission from on high... or somewhere. But how long had she been dead for? And why did the world look so different now? She had spoken to the one who had raised her from the dead briefly, which is why she was in the United States. However, she couldn't seem to remember any of the details surrounding her death. She couldn't remember how she had died, where she had died, or why she had died.

And she definitely didn't understand why she had been brought back to life. Out of all the deceased demons in the world, why was Bentley Hellbourne the only one to be resurrected? Stupid decision, really.

There was a lot different about the world. The smell of humans had changed. That was the first thing Bentley noticed while walking among them. They smelled more like chemical solutions than ever, although the lack of cigarette smoke was an improvement. And there was a lot more artificial light, which did not help her still-sensitive eyes —especially since it was all coming from screens and boxes everywhere that the newly risen Bentley had never seen before. And the cars —at least she assumed they were cars, were all round and quiet and nothing like the big boxy things she remembered them being.

After observing the new world for as long as she could stand, Bentley decided on something. She had to find out what year it was and why the world looked like a mixture between a twisted nuclear-family-dream and a depressing dystopian novel. Once she knew what year it was, she could figure out more or less what had happened across the four realms since her death.

A calendar visible through a shop window gave her an answer. It was May 2026. Eighty five years had passed. And to Bentley, that was hardly any time at all. She had witnessed empires rule unchallenged and unchanged for much longer, and yet this small community surrounding her was the most technologically advanced society she had ever seen. What the hell had happened? Another industrial revolution??

Before she could think about it for much longer, a sudden high-pitched ringing filled her ears. It was painfully annoying, which only made the message of it clearer: