Child of man. I am no reaper. For the reaper sews what has matured, and lived a proper life. Those who are fit pass on are brought to him, and those who need another pass at life must be met with me. The scythe is an agricultural tool for harvesting. Those who are done may pass on to join the egg that will one day be a god. So if you must call me something, you may call me "Farmer".
You who is born incomplete, must live countless many lives to become ready. Mature. Only then may you pass onto your true vessel. Now you will live your second life among the other newly passed. Journey on and grow, and perhaps I will not need to see you again. I wish you well on your journey.

I realized I was dead when I tried to blink and the concept of eyelids politely declined.

There was no pain. No floating tunnel. No choir. Just awareness, stretched thin and wide like mist over farmland at dawn.

The ground beneath me was neither dirt nor cloud, but something in between—an endless plain of pale gold soil, warm like it had been holding sunlight long after the sun had moved on. The sky was a bowl of muted stars, dim and patient, as if they had all the time in existence.

Someone stood before me.

They were tall, but not imposingly so. Broad-shouldered, wrapped in simple robes the color of dry wheat. Their face was unremarkable in the way rivers are unremarkable—forgettable only because they belong everywhere. In one hand, they held a long tool.

Not a scythe.

A hoe.

They leaned on it casually, like a farmer resting after honest work.

“Child of man,” they said.

Their voice did not echo. It rooted.

“I am no reaper. For the reaper sews what has matured, and lived a proper life. Those who are fit to pass on are brought to him, and those who need another pass at life must be met with me.”

My thoughts tried to organize themselves and failed.

“So… I didn’t make the cut?” I asked.

The Farmer smiled gently.

“The scythe is an agricultural tool for harvesting,” they continued, unoffended by my tone. “Those who are done may pass on to join the egg that will one day be a god.”

The word egg landed heavily in my chest.

“You,” they said, meeting my gaze, “are not yet ready to be part of it.”

Something inside me trembled—not fear, but recognition. Like hearing a melody I had forgotten I once knew.

“You who are born incomplete,” the Farmer said, “must live countless many lives to become ready. Mature. Only then may you pass onto your true vessel.”

I tried to speak, but questions stacked too fast.

How many lives had I lived already?
How many mistakes had I repeated?
Was I kind? Was I cruel? Did it matter?

The Farmer stepped aside and gestured.

Beyond them, the golden plain sloped downward into a valley of impossible depth. Lights flickered there—millions of them—like fireflies, like stars fallen into a cradle.

Souls.

Worlds.

Beginnings.

“Now you will live your second life among the other newly passed,” they said softly. “Journey on and grow, and perhaps I will not need to see you again.”

Their expression held something bittersweet.

“I wish you well on your journey.”

The ground tilted.

Gravity remembered me.

I fell.

I woke screaming.

Air tore into my lungs like fire.

My body—small, unbearably small—convulsed as unfamiliar muscles struggled to exist. Sound exploded around me: shouts in a language I did not know, metallic clattering, the thunder of hooves.

Someone was holding me.

No—carrying me.

Rough cloth scratched my skin. The world was enormous and violently colorful. Two moons hung in a purple sky, one cracked like an egg shell.

A woman’s voice cried out above me, desperate and shaking.

“…please—he’s alive—by the gods, he’s breathing—”

I tried to move my hands.

Tiny.

My fingers were tiny.

My mind screamed.

This isn’t my body.

The Farmer’s voice whispered faintly, like wind through grain.

Grow well.

Darkness folded in again, not like death, but like soil packed gently around a seed.

And somewhere far above, in a field between universes, a patient figure marked a new row in an endless ledger.

Another soul planted.

Another season begun.