Aenix had lived for one hundred and seventy four long years on the mortal plane. Her time was not far from her now and, over the coming weeks, she was hoping to begin her spiritual evaluations. After that, she could move on to choice counselling sessions and in-depth procedure training.

It would be merely a technicality for her though, a waste of time really. Regardless of what was said to her, she wouldn’t change her mind or back out. Aenix already knew what her choice would be when it was put to her at the ceremony. And it would be one that nobody had ever made before her.

 

Aenix was going to choose to go to Hell. She had not yet shared this fact with anyone, because she knew that they would try to stop her. None of them would understand her reasons. Paietra had been her whole world. Aenix had only continued with life after the sentence had been passed for the sake of her family. Not a single day had gone by where she didn’t yearn for the knowledge that Paietra’s afterlife was one of peace and happiness.

 

Paietra’s whole trial had been a sham. She had been accused of poisoning the air supply in a number of the housing pods, causing the occupants to choke and suffocate to death. Paietra was a suspect because she had worked maintenance on each of the pods some months before the tragedies, a fact that hadn’t reflected well on her. Anyone who truly knew Paietra could have told you that she would never have done such a thing. Aenix knew her better than anyone in the world and protested louder and harder than anyone else, but to no avail. Months after Paietra’s sentence had been carried out, these kinds of deaths had begun occurring again. Eventually a malfunction was discovered in the air purifiers’ hardware, but by then of course, it was too late for Paietra. They had sentenced her to Hell and forcibly carried out her punishment. However, even when faced with evidence that a sentence had been unjust, nobody ever went after the innocent souls. Who would volunteer to enter such a place and retrieve them? So, Paietra was left to her fate.

Thousands of years ago, the civilizations that spanned the globe may have sentenced her to death, but at least her afterlife would have afforded her the options that truly befit her. Of course, that was long ago and now everything had changed. The earth had declined since then and the race had dwindled. When the human race was now so few, even the government could not be excused for executing people. The new procedure was their loophole. They weren’t killing people, they were simply forwarding on their souls.

This wasn’t the only change either. Humanity had been forced to evolve in order to survive on the harsh, dying planet that was their home. Aenix had learnt a long time ago that their ancient predecessors had lived much shorter lives. Someone who lived to see one hundred years had been considered very old and blessed to have had such a long, full life. In this time, one hundred was not even middle aged.
Aenix also remembered being taught about the physiology of her ancestors. Bizarrely, gender seemed to have played a huge role in day to day life. There had been men and there had been women. These genders bore with them expectations and roles that were unique to them. Women would carry babies and men would work to provide for them. Gender was close to none existent now. The population was fully hermaphroditic, an evolutionary wonder that had secured their existence in hard times. Any remaining trace of gender was a personal choice, a throw back if you will. A person may have chosen to look one way or another or decided on a pronoun that they favoured but it was of little consequence. Plenty of people now preferred neutral pronouns; ee (in place of he/she), ees (opposed to his/hers), eem (rather than him/her), etcetera. Biologically, everyone was now the same.  Aenix could not imagine a time where a woman needed a man in order to carry a child, nor a time where it was frowned upon for two people of the same gender to experience love together. In this day, a true expression of love was to choose to have a child with another, rather than just of oneself.
 

One of the largest advancements was technological. Aenix could not possibly list every new invention, scientific development or discovery, but she definitely knew which was the most significant. Hundreds of years ago, researchers had tapped into the planes of existence that ran parallel to our own, just beyond our perception. The dimensions that surround us were cracked open to our delving hands and we discovered the worlds beyond our mortal existence. Humans developed new technologies that could remove a person’s essence from the physicality of their body and forward it on to another stage of being in any of the alternate dimensions. Natural death was forfeited to the option of choosing your own death day.
Death ceremonies happened regularly now. Aenix had watched many loved ones make the choice. She had waited to see if they would go beyond, to the heavenly realm, or choose to attach their spiritual consciousness to watch over another, until that person’s time came and they could depart together. Perhaps above those choices they would pick to be reincarnated, to live again and do things differently.

 

If Paietra had been forced to choose for herself, she would have waited for Aenix. Now Aenix wanted to make things right.
The children that they had conceived together were well into their hundreds now and their youngest grandchild in his sixties with children of his own. They could manage without her now and care for one another.
Aenix had told them after her last semi-centennial rejuvenation, that before she was due for the next in another fifty years, she would choose a death day and depart to wait for them beyond this life. Hopefully, after her choice was made, she could locate Paietra and together they could find a way into the beyond. Until then, Aenix would not rest. Had she not chosen a death day, her life would only be plagued with images of her tormented love, doomed to an eternity in the pit.
With the possibility of rectifying the situation written into her near future, Aenix could find the strength to see out the rest of her days.