Jack took a seat in the uncomfortable chair he sat in earlier and looked up at the woman behind the desk.
"Don't look so dismayed, Mr. Morris," the woman said. "You're not in trouble."
"But ... I thought there was an error in my ..."
"Oh, yes. There was. But it has nothing to do with you. Not exactly. Apparently there was a mix-up. My records showed that you died alone. But actually there were three deaths." She looked at her computer monitor for a moment, then looked back at Jack. "A Jill and a Mark, I believe."
"Yeah, they were in the same car as me when the crash happened," Jack said. "So ... they're dead too?"
"Quite," she said. "But the last time I calculated your profile, I didn't know about your two friends."
"My results changed just because of them? Why? And how?"
"First of all, you will still be able to move onto the next life. All three of you will. But given certain unique circumstances, you won't be able to choose your new life. We will choose it for you."
"What? Why?"
"As I said, there are certain unique circumstances attributed to your case. The rules don't permit me to share what those are, however." She paused, then continued. "All three of you will share a close existence. You'll either all be friends in the next life, or maybe members of the same family."
"I guess that doesn't sound so bad," Jack said, trying to find something positive about all of this. At least his friend Mark would still be around, although he wasn't sure what kind of person he'd be in the next life. For all he knew Mark could turn out to be a girl. In fact, Jack himself might turn out to be a girl, since he couldn't choose who he wanted to be.
The woman smiled and stood up from her desk. "It'll be okay," she said. "We've had cases like this before. Everyone always lives happily ever after. I mean, until they die again."
Jack hesitantly stood up, then walked back into the Canteen.
Suddenly, over the intercom, he heard a voice say "Morris, party of three. Please enter the Red Room."
Jack looked past all the people getting their food, and all the way to the far end of the Canteen. There was a red door, over which was a sign that said THE RED ROOM, in big neon red letters. Well, that's pretty obvious, Jack thought. Then he made his way towards the door.
After opening it, he found himself in a small room with red walls. That was probably why it was called the Red Room. Shortly later, the door opened and two more people entered. He looked up and saw that they were Mark and Jill. They looked a little dismayed to be there, then suddenly everything went black.
