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[removed]

I have to do something! I don’t even remember what I did in
my past lives. I don’t remember what got me sent to prison. I have been in prison
as far as I can remember.

The guard came up and banged on the door. “Happy 18th
birthday!” the guard laughed, “You’re finally an adult and can be served your
sentence.”

I stepped back and put my hands on the wall. I long ago
learned not to mess with the guards in maximum security. The cell opened and 3
guards came in, chaining me from head to feet. I was put on a stretcher and
carried out of my cell.

I was carried through a yard. What is this? Blue? My eyes
hurt. This is my first time in this life seeing the sky! I was stood up on the
other end of the yard and a clergy came out and performed rites. On a pedestal
stood a man who spoke up.

“Prisoner 15667522, you are hereby served for your sentence.
This will be your 13th of 22 death sentences. Lord have mercy on
your soul.”

Prison guards lined up on the other side of the yard, aimed
and fired.

It would have been simple, you know?

If not for one, tiny detail.

We answered two questions at the same time, when they figured it out.

Is reincarnation real? Yes, irrefutable.

Are we alone in this universe? No, we are not.

There's a lot of things out there. Lot of species. And apparently there's no real rules about what you come back as. You might be a human today but that doesn't mean you'll be a human after that ends. That's where the complication lies. Sometimes you come back as something else. More often than not, you come back as something else.

Well, you know the morality arguments and philosophical debates that come up once you have those two answers? We aren't alone and we keep coming back for round after round of life, just in a different suit.

"Farrell." My vid screen comes to life, a crystal clear picture of my boss. Or rather, my handler. I'm my own boss.

"Well howdy there, boss." I say, feet up on my console. I still call her boss, even though it's not real accurate. Just felt right.

"Yeah, right. Contract for you. Details incoming."

I lift my feet off and my boots thud against the heavy metal floor of my ship. It's small, it's cozy, and it's floating in space right now because I have nothing to do and no interest in changing that. The contract flashes across my screen and my eyes open wide.

"Nope." I say, shaking my head and leaning back. "No way. Not a chance. Never."

"No one else wants it." She says. "It's double your usual rate."

"Yeah, for five times the risk. Let the feds take this one, let them send a cruiser or something, or a special ops team." I say, shaking my head again. "This one ain't for me, boss."

"Five times your usual rate." She says, after a pause. "I'll break even, you'll make a year's worth for one contract."

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

I lean over the screen again and look at the contract.

Mass murderer. Extremely violent. One hundred and thirty seven life sentences, forty two death sentences. Of which less than half have been carried out. Now the Federation wants to continue their streak and they've put out the call.

"And on Terminal Station, too. Of course." I mutter.

"That's why I'm offering so much. Farrell, you might well be the only guy on my payroll that can pull this off.

I look at the picture. I sigh.

This time the bastard came back as a Brox. Because sometimes you come back as a cicada and get stomped just through a freak accident, and sometimes you come back as a four armed member of one of the most violent races in existence. And here he is, running a gang of arm's dealers out of Terminal Station.

I sigh again.

"I get it, Farrell, you can quit with the sighing." She says. "Finish putting up your fake fight about taking the contract and say what I need you to say."

"I'll do it." I say, standing and walking to my locker. I plant my hand on the pad and it slides open to reveal my suit. And the badge.

"You were always going to take it." She says, from the screen. "You can't help yourself."

"Probably." I say, removing my tarnished badge from the locker and rubbing my thumb over it. Then I grin, looking at the arsenal there.

"Who doesn't like a challenge?"

The technician entered the hospital room with a scowl. “You are advised by the Re-lived Justice Agency that you have given birth to a known felon. A parenting councilor will be in to speak with you shortly. Baby 783, previously known as Samantha Hailings, has been immediately remanded to the state for processing where she will be rehabilitated and raised by the Institute for Karmatic Restoration. This process offers your child a 63% chance that she may complete this life with a positive balance and have an improved outcome in her next life. You may consult the business office should you need to apply for financial assistance to fund her care.

“You will be provided with the necessary Re-felon Birth Certificate which will provide you access to the Institute for Karmatic Restoration’s website. There you may access your child’s progress records, including the best calculated date for Baby 783 to move to their next incarnation.”

[removed]

"Eternity's Consequence"

​

In this world of science and proof,

Reincarnation is now aloof.

No longer myth, no longer tale,

But fact, and governments now unveil

​

A new way of punishment, a new way of crime,

Carrying over from one life to the next time.

Eternity's consequence, a cycle unbroken,

For actions in this life, in the next, will be spoken.

​

No longer can we run and hide,

For our past lives will forever abide.

In the choices we make, in the paths we take,

Will determine the fate of our souls to make.

​

So let us be mindful, let us be true,

For eternity's consequence will come back to you.

In this life, and the next, and the one after that,

Our actions will forever echo and come back.

Criminals, you are on notice! Death is no longer an escape from the law, and you sentence shall longer ends with one life alone --Senator Hariett Miller-Forsythe

EXCERPT FROM THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE INVESTIGATION OF POST-MORTEM JUSTICE TECHNOLOGIES (p.23)

Sen. Miller-Forsythe (Senator): And what position did you hold, Mr. Kumish?

Anil Kumish: I was employed as a Senior Reincarnation Engineer

Senator: In what way can you be considered 'senior'? My understanding is that Reincarnation is quite new.

Kumish: [pause] As a person of Indian descent, it was felt that I had a deeper experience with reincarnation than most of my colleagues.

Senator: And is that true?

Kumish: [pause] I felt that my qualifications were adequate for the position and title

Senator: And, I'm sure, the salary.

Kumish: [laugh] I would not put it so forwardly but...one may say that.

Senator: So then, Senior Reincarnation Engineer, I suppose you would be the person to ask: what happened at my jail?

Kumish: Well, let me begin by saying that the Corrective Reincarnation Facility was not a jail, as we understand it. It is better to think of it more like an enormous water tank, filling up balloons of water.

Now imagine--"

Senator: I don't want to imagine, Mr. Kumish. I want to know why 17,000 prisoners have escaped from a secure federal facility.

Kumish: ...Senator, I cannot explain why if you do not allow me to explain. I understand that this is an important part of your policy.

Senator: This is justice, Mr. Kumish.

Kumish: There we must agree to disagree.

Senator: Noted. Now, I'd like to know more about this process--you said it's like filling a water balloon?

Kumish: That is correct. Imagine that consciousness--or the soul if you prefer--is the accumulated experiences of a living creature. The more experience that the individual has the capacity to be aware of, the more "sapient" the creature. However these awarenesses must bind together. We have found that there are distinct collection of elementary particles which make up a "key", which upon death, pops out of existence via quantum tunneling. That collection, however, invariably pops back in again. This, in essence, is "reincarnation".

However without those previous experiences and neural connections, the "key" lacks any context of its previous life. It is wiped clean.

Senator: Nothing is "clean" until they have served their sentence and paid their debt to society.

Kumish: That...it goes against what we have shown in our labs.

Senator: I don't care about your labs. I want to know what happened in my jail!

Kumish: [pause] What happened is it became alive, Senator.

Senator: Impossible.

Kumish: As I said, a soul is simply a binding agent for accrued experience. Now it takes a tremendous amount of computing power to store and manage these souls, and in an absence of experience, they bind to...each other.

Senator: ...I don't believe it.

Kumish: But you must. Because it is true. The building itself is alive. Every water pipes is an artery, every cell is another set of tissues, every computer an extension of its brain. Your prisoners are reborn, together, and have brought life to the place that was supposed to deny it.

In a way, Senator, you gave birth to this thing. You are its mother, and it cries for you. It cries for you all day and all night. I have here a recording--

Senator: What are you. Put that down this instant.

Kumish: This is evidence. Do you not want to hear the evidence.

Senator: I will--someone remove that thing from Mr. Kumish, please.

Kumish: But you must listen! You must! You don't understand--you must listen!

Senator: Get that thing--Bailliff! Get that--stop recording this instant. Stop--I will NOT listen! Stop!

-TRANSCRIPT ENDS-

[removed]

“Level 2 Since Soul Reincarnation Confirmation” the man in the white lab coat spoke into a recording device. “Here, take this pill” the man ordered. I sat up from my hospital style bed and drank down the pill with some water. I immediately became nauseous. A wave of memories flooded my mind. The memories of an entire lifetime I lived. But it wasn’t ME me, it was my past me.

After the wave finally finished and the memories stopped flooding, I was able to more accurately and systematically analyze them in my head one by one. The more I went through them, the more I felt my mind dread my own existence more and more. Until I got to the 9th memory and I couldn’t help myself from puking at the things I had only recently done. 10 years may seem like a long time, but to this level of devastation, it would be written in the history books.

I had almost no energy after that realization and dreaded acknowledgement. I was still me, the 10 year old kid that lived a fairly normal childhood all things considered. The man pulled over a machine with a tv screen on it and began wiring me up to the machine. Soon after, the tv flickered on and just as I had gone through my memories, the tv began doing the same. The man in white was intently watching along with me as my face began to go pale at the realization he will see what I just saw.

The tv flickered again. The man in white’s eyes go wide as he begins puking just the same as I had. I puked some more but it felt like nothing more could possibly come up. “General, we found him.” The man in white spoke into a walk-in talkie. I was confused and disoriented from everything I only heard what sounded like a muffled staticky 2 syllables. “Understood sir.” The man in white acknowledged. Suddenly he pulled out a gun and pointed it at my head. I connected the dots in that moment what the General ended up saying.

“Kill him.”

Level 3 SSRC

I’ve always known about my past lives since I was a baby and gained enough consciousness to make thoughts. Since taking that pill in the second stage I’ve almost always had the memories of my first and second, even at the early age of 4 years old. But surely, there’s nothing else they can do, right? They’ve had their revenge or whatever? I continued to go on through life until around 9 years old I got incredibly sick and had to go to the ER.

They cured my illness fairly quickly, but once again, a machine with a TV was brought into my room just as had been done before. I was hooked up with the cords once again. I was belligerent from them trying to see inside my head, but they subdued me and forced me to connect anyway. It was required by law apparently. My new mom and dad had no choice. I saw them all watch the tv so intently, first watching through bits of the second level, until they achieved the first level. Once again, they all began puking at the sight of the event. The nurse suggested my parents leave.

The young nurse that had been caring for me since I got in that was so nice and pleasant, suddenly turned sinister and twisted as she pulled a wire out from behind her. She pulled the wire to my neck and began pulling as hard as she could. I tried to reach out for help or to fight back but a 9 year old body can only do so much. “Sorry kid, rules are rules.” She pulled even tighter as I could hear an audible CRUNCH before everything went dark.

Level 8 SSRC

I’ve tried letting things go, I’ve tried avoiding detection as best as possible. I’ve tried going out as a normal individual without being the person I was apparently before. I still dread what I was, but now I dread what they will do to me again if I’m found out. There’s no quality for me in my existence anymore. Every time, I’m discovered again and each time, instant death. It’s been 100 or more years at this point since the event, but I know they are still looking for me. Or maybe it’s people like me. Infinite death. Every time I’m discovered, I’m killed without a second thought.

I tried to sit up against the wall behind me as the heavy rain washes over my body, blood pouring from my bullet wounds. The firefight seemed to end in a draw with everyone dying, including me at this rate. But I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

I wake up in a smelly, damp cellar room of some sort. A man at the foot of my bed with a bucket of popcorn is staring at the same damned machine that I keep getting hooked up to. “Don’t watch.” I weakly muster up. The man looks at me with a wicked toothy smile and turns the tv my way.

“YOU did this!?” His voice piercing as it was concerningly jovial. “Damn, I wish I had the balls to do shit like this!” I look back at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You aren’t… disgusted?” I ask, confused.

“Disgusted!? Man I am IMPRESSED that I found someone as vile and impure as you were.” He turns back to the tv, stuffing his face with popcorn as he watches with an excited smile.

“So… You aren’t going to kill me?” I ask.

“Kill you?” He laughs hysterically, “I’m here to RECRUIT you!”

Discovering the undeniable truth of reincarnation was a global game changer. Banks were the first to act in applying unpaid debts to the next incarnation. This set off a massive debate in religious communities that were already aflame at the confirmation of the lack of permanent afterlife. In many religions, curses and sins are burdens to be handled by following generations. These later generations who used to serve as the immortalization of a person now lost their significance when it was discovered there were already the immortalizations reincarnated.

For millenia, ancient prophets were promised offspring to outnumber the stars that would forever signify that prophets importance. What meaning is that when they became their own grand children? Were only those who were reincarnated of the chosen people?

Since the beginning, people have been cursed and their descendants doomed by proxy. What is the point of targeting entire families when the aggressors can destroy their true target again and again?

This religious outrage ultimately spilled over into government policy. The most noteable was the complete rectification act. Predominantly christian nations (which were rapidly reforming into karmically compatible versions) insisted on justice befitting "those who love all as God loves all". Funny how justice, love, and eventually punishment can be wrapped up together in a nice little bow. The result was the carry over of crime into new lives. If you didnt make amends for your crimes in the life you committed them, your next life would be halted until you did so.

Thats how I, at the ripe age of 8 ended up in prison. It was weird how many other young kids were there with me - the youngest was only 3. It all depended on when you started showing indicators of your previous life. I've read in history books that prisons used to be brutal places where you ate terrible food and got stabbed all the time. Once during rec time they showed us this retro movie called "The Shawshank Redemption". I'm not saying we're treated well, but since most of us are only kids we're treated better than that. We're put to work mostly, doing labor best suited to tiny hands. At this point I'm convinced they only put in the new law to unlock new avenues for labor, but at the end of the day, what do i know? We still have to attend school and I've been reading alot of history and philosophy in my spare time, but I hardly know anything about the outside world. That brings me to why I'm telling you all this.

The issue is, I'm in for a life sentence. At 8 years old, I learned the rest of my life would be spent in prison because my past life was somesort of crime lord. Thats the other weird part, since I'm under 18 they won't give me all the details yet. Well, I've decided I don't care.

I'm getting out of this hellhole. The way I see it, I didn't commit any crimes. I've been told that the residual memory is impacting me even now blah blah blah but that doesn't mean I as I am now would do any of the same things. These rules don't consider me as my own person - only as a puppet of my past life's memory. I deserve to choose my life and so I've made a plan to escape.

Its dangerous, as all plans are. I haven't had the 19 years that Andy had to escape Shawshank, but I think I can pull it off. Its possible if they can't stop me from escaping, they'll try to kill me. Then they'll find me in my next life and bring me right back here. So I'm hiding this message with one of the young lifers. He's promised he'll give it to ... me... if I end up back here.

Remember, you are your own person. You're not the criminal who's debt you're paying. You're not even me, who tried and failed to escape. You deserve a choice. If you're reading this, it means I didn't get mine but I promise you that you deserve yours.

You are here by sentenced to 20 consecutive capital punishments.

(0.0) - Whelp, that sux. See ya folks.

It was a dark and stormy night. (I always wanted to do that.) Somehow, feeling like I'm some hardboiled private eye makes me deal with this job a bit more. I mean, I was kind of lapsed in my religion, but when the undeniable proof of life after death came, everyone had some worries. And when you work with the government, they manage to handle things even more.

It always seemed like this could be used poorly. After all, with all the lives in the world, from every different type of being there was, and how cruel the animal kingdom is, technically the government could have an excuse to put anyone and everyone in their country in jail for mass murder. After all, in the animal or even plant kingdom, if you have lived, you must have caused something to die- and if people can be reincarnated as an animal or a plant, technically the simple act of eating any type of food just to sustain yourself is a capital offense. Don't get me wrong, some nations who really wanted to be cruel for cruelty's sake did indeed read it that way, but those nations were soon struck down by the rest of the world and their own problem of "if everyone's a criminal, then no one is." Eventually, the more Hinduist viewpoint of reincarnation took hold, which included a firm belief "if someone was reincarnated as an animal or plant, then it is considered them already being punished for their crime"- which both lessened the amount of potential criminals and got out of that nasty loophole before everyone in existence became a prisoner.

But this isn't perfect. Sometimes, the evil go unpunished on the karmic scale. Sometimes, a real piece of shit gets reincarnated as a human being.

That's where I come in. Some say I'm a wolf of the government, but the badge says I'm a lama.

I head to my boss. They told me that they found out somewhere in the city, this nasty piece of work has reincarnated. I looked at his history and shuddered- this is the type of shit that should make you a cockroach in your next life, and he's still walking around as a human? They handed me this book they found in the guy's collection they got from lockdown, then told me to go pick out a few fake possessions to hide it. I was to head to the preschool and have the children test which possession they liked the most; the real one would naturally choose their own possession and we have the guy.

This is the part of the job I hate- you always see the problems here. Sometimes you can see it, the biggest bully of the kids is the one who picks it and you know the soul is rotten to the core, but then it's this quiet, this sweet, adorable kid who picks it and you wonder if their soul is really purified. Doesn't matter; if prison values punishment first and foremost, they say you have a bunch of life sentences to deal with, you deal with them.

I head to the preschool. The parents didn't know which was which, but I put the possessions out. I see some kids play with some of them, not wondering. It seemed normal. Then, this one kid who was busy reading in the background headed over. This is what I'd fear...he picked the book.

I shut it down. I went to his parents. "I'm sorry, but your son has proven he's the reincarnation of a serious criminal. We have to take him in." His mother cried, his father punched me out. It happens- sometimes it's out of anger, out of frustration, even a desperation that an assault charge gets them arrested and forced into prison to watch their child. I have to shake it off and just let it go. I take the child in my car, the father goes in a local cop car.

I always feel so rotten when it happens- but if karma doesn't punish people, that's what we have to do.

Everything was so quiet. So surreal. It was as if the whole world was put on mute except for me.

That voice in the back of my head screamed out to me for a second time. This time, the voice was louder, as if it was aware that I was dazed and confused. This time, the voice registered in my mind. It boomed and echoed throughout the cavern of my mind as I tried to shake the cobwebs loose to clear my head.

They said there would be confusion. Boy, were they right.
I feel detached. Like my head is floating on a string, far, far above my body. Just swaying in the breeze.

Feeling your consciousness merging with the consciousness of someone else will do that to you. It's a very surreal and sobering feeling. Honestly, it's scary, really scary.

It's almost impossible to describe, but there is a very distinct moment where you feel like you are suffocating. Your body feels paralyzed, but you are still mentally aware of everything happening around you. It's like you're trapped inside of your own body, and you swear you can feel the individual muscles around your lungs all failing to contract. Failing to breathe.

I start to gasp. Once. Twice.

Everything slows way down, and intrusive thoughts flood my mind:

"Is this what a fish out of water feels like?" I think in between gasps for air.

"Why do I feel so calm?"

I feel like I'm dying, but I've accepted it. Made peace with it. In the background of my mind, I'm aware of the spasms in my solar plexus as my body lurches off of the floor. It's my body's futile attempts to cling to life.

Things shift, and I suddenly feel like I'm floating in water. Rocking peacefully back and forth, like a raft on a lazy river. I'm fully aware I'm thinking my last thoughts and wish I had something better to be thinking about, but I don't.

Suddenly, I know I'm surrendering. could feel my body fully relax. It was a peace I had never known before. And as I lay there, shadows are creeping into my eyes, clouding over my vision.

The moment my vision goes completely black is my final moment. I know it before it happens. Then it started, and my vision went black as my brain shut down, deprived of oxygen.

For a moment, I cease to exist.

Suddenly, it's the Big Bang, and I'm stardust shooting through the cosmos. Shooting throughout my whole body brings life back into every molecule. Every atom.

My lungs rapidly expanded, breathing life into my soul once again. I could feel the electricity dancing through my Nervous System and brain as they reconnected to my soul and spirit.

"Reincarnation is complete, Sir."

"That's his 12th one. What's his total sentence?"

"276 consecutive cycles."

"Well, we better get going on the next one. How should we start?"

"With trauma. Lots and lots of trauma. Give him a lot of childhood trauma this time around, and then we'll just build from there."

I am rather curious as to what the person did and where this story is going if you are willing to write more.

I’m going to leave it to the reader’s imagination. Each person has unique ideas of what could have happened and each can likely fit into the story without changing much of the plot if I had continued writing. But I’d prefer to keep this one how it is. A nice air of mystery with a cliffhanger :)

Beth entered what appeared to be a large room. In truth, it was the waiting room to the afterlife. She had been executed. The last thing she remembered was one of the Incarnation Patrol cornering her with a gun. He called her Adam Miller and then shot her, accusing her of a crime she knew nothing about. She was 14.

A figure sat across from her at a table. Was a table always there? She was distracted by her bizarre death.

"Beth Stevens" the figure said in a calm voice. The figure was hard to perceive, maybe formless. But then so was Beth. "You were killed unjustly for a crime you did not commit, I mean technically, a previous you did but since souls are reset upon reincarnation, it wasn't really you."

To Beth, this made little sense. She never really understood the Incarnation Patrol.

The voice continued, somewhat familiar but it definitely wasn't her voice. "These people think that they understand how life works, but they have no idea. They judge the innocent thinking they have the souls of the guilty. But you, no... we will fix it." The formless being shifted. The face that was previously a man's now became Beth's.

"Wait, are you?" Beth started to ask.

"Correct" the voice responded. "We are you. All of you across history. And there are more like us, souls that have been targeted, regardless of body. We will find our way back, and destroy this system."

Beth thought for a moment. "What are we waiting for then?"

ouf thats morbid. The fact that the prisoner doesnt even remember anything makes it so much darker somehow. Maybe because a punishment for a crime the prisoner doesnt remember is so meaningless. So it becomes not justice nor even vengeance, just meaningless cruelty without reason :D