The light fades. I blink, disoriented.

“. . . Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

I’m standing backstage in a television studio. Crew members with headsets run around, doing prep. Flash! A photographer circles me, snapping pictures, leaving weird afterimages. I’m before a thick velvet curtain; chatter and applause emanate from the opposite side.

“Sir?” A matronly woman, with a makeup kit and sponge, looks at me expectantly.

“Yes, um, sorry,” I reply. Did I fall asleep? I can’t remember how I got here. “Is this . . . The Tonight Show?”

“They didn’t tell me you were funny.” She laughs, and dabs me with foundation.

Suddenly, a bell rings; a green light next to the curtain switches on. I hear a crowd cheer. “That’s your cue,” says a production assistant, hurrying over. He ushers me toward the hubbub.

“This might sound a little weird,” I say, “but could you tell me what show this is?”

“Silly,” he says, with a genial slap on my arm. “You’re on This Was Your Life.”

“Isn’t it This Is Your Life?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply, seems to be listening to his headset. “Yeah? Okay.” He brings me to the curtain’s edge and says, “Good luck. You’re on in five, four, three . . .” And before I can protest, he shoves me ahead. I stumble forward, arms pinwheeling, pushing aside the heavy purple fabric. For a moment I think I’ll suffocate in it, but then abruptly, I’m through.

I find myself on stage. Floodlights sear down, the audience subsumed in shadows: an indiscernible crowd, whooping and cheering, seated in ascending rows of red-upholstered seats, encircling the stage like an amphitheater; the uppermost tiers are so high above that I cannot make them out amidst the spotlight glare. To my left is a wooden podium with a microphone, painted gaudy pastel blue. The entire setup looks from bygone decades, an amalgamation of 80s and 90s décor with the underpinnings of modern tech—large black cameras on swivels, the cameramen hidden behind them. Atop the curtain, a huge sign flashes: “This Was Your Life.”

Then, a voice cries, “Welcome, welcome, ladies and gents, to another scintillating edition of . . . This Was Your Life!” Another spot goes on at the foot of the stage, illuminating a man in a dazzling white suit, his black hair slicked back, olive skin aglow. He postures for the crowd. Then, upbeat band music starts in and he hustles up some short steps to the stage, joining me.

“What a day, what a day,” he says, the cameras tracking him. “You see who we have here, folks? Can you believe it? Give him a round of applause, would you?”

The crowd erupts. I smile, wave, confused but happy. The host turns to me. He looks so familiar, though I’m not sure where I’ve seen him. He claps me on the shoulder, leans in.

“Are you ready, friend?” he asks.

“Actually—”

“Of course you are!” he cuts in. “But for those watching at home, the rules are simple: I’m going to ask you a series of personal questions. All you have to do is answer truthfully, and you could win . . . The Grand Prize!” Sirens, lights, chimes go off, the audience cheering.

“Wait, personal questions?” I ask. Am I dreaming? Why would I agree to this?

“Don’t worry about that,” says the host. “We haven’t got all day!” Again: sirens, lights, bells, cheers. “To the contestant’s stand!”

He prods me over to stand behind the podium. Then he lopes to the curtain, yanks a long golden tassel, and the curtain springs back, revealing a giant flashy game board with various categories: “Biggest Dreams”; “Deepest Fears”; “Greatest Regrets,” and more.

“Where’d backstage go?” I ask.

“Backstage?” the host asks. “There is no backstage. What you see is what you get.” The crowd laughs raucously; grotesquely, it seems to me—a shadow audience, writhing in their seats. “Anyway,” the host says, “Round One!” A loud bell sounds. “Contestant picks the first category, if you please.”

“Biggest Dreams,” I say. It seems the most innocuous.

“A wise choice, very wise,” says the host. He points to the game board, and with a loud chime, the category flips around, revealing a question. “What is your greatest dream?” he reads.

I blush. “To write a bestseller,” I say. “To be successful at what I love.”

A siren blares, and I cringe. “Wrong,” the host declares.

“What do you mean, wrong?” I ask.

“The correct answer is: ‘To be so successful that everyone will love and respect me.’”

“What . . . What kind of answer is that?” I ask.

“Oh, don’t worry, you don’t have to get them all. Just one. So take your time,” the host says. “Round Two! My pick. Let’s try . . . Deepest Fears. What is your deepest fear?”

“I’m not sure,” I say.

“Think about it. Think hard.”

“It’s . . . well . . . I guess it’s death.” I feel confident as I say it.

“Wrong!” shouts the audience, the host, in time with the buzzer.

“How is that wrong?” I demand.

“You’re thinking too simply,” the host replies. “You’re afraid of being forgotten, of dying too early. Never fulfilling your potential, never leaving your mark on the world, something most people never accomplish in a lifetime. What makes you so special?”

“I . . . I . . .”

“Next round,” he says. “Your pick.”

“Hold on,” I say, “you can’t actually air something like this. I never agreed to it. I’m sorry, but . . . You’re going to have to find another contestant. I’m finished.”

I try leaving the podium, but discover my wrists are bound by rusted bronze shackles. And the podium itself is now a featureless column. Outraged, I turn to the audience, but what I see chills me. The spotlights have changed into bonfires. The shadow crowd sits on tiers of stone-carved benches, like an ancient coliseum. Even the game board is primitive—a tall, garishly painted flat piece of wood. This is wrong, all wrong.

“Let me go,” I shriek. “You can’t do this!”

“All you have to do is finish the game,” the host replies. “And you can leave.”

“Fine,” I say, “but after this I’m going to sue everyone involved!” The host shrugs. My eyes dart around the board. I could’ve sworn there were more categories, but see only one left. “Greatest Regrets,” I say.

“What is your greatest regret?” he asks.

I have countless regrets. But what do I choose? That I wasn’t kinder to my sister? That I’ve wasted so much time wallowing in misery? That it took so long to tell Claudia how I feel? Does it even it matter? I don’t care about winning. I just want to go. “My regret is that night, with Claudia,” I say. “The tent . . . I should’ve gone with her. Things could’ve been different.”

The buzzer. “Wrong!” he says. “Your greatest regret is not listening about a second opinion.”

“Why would I care about that?” I ask. “What does it even matter?”

“What, indeed?” the host replies. “Perhaps you should ask yourself that question.”

The audience howls. The host grins, teeth sharp, and I suddenly realize why he’s familiar. He’s my new doctor, the one who stuck me on immunosuppressants. How did I miss it? Perhaps because he’s more bestial—unkempt, unshaven, as if overgrown with fur. “Why did you bring me here?” I yell. “Take me back to the hospital, I’m sick, I . . .” And then, it hits me. “Wh-what’s happening?” I ask. “What is this?”

“You have to finish the game,” he says.

“Please,” I beg, “let me go. That was the last one, I . . . I lost, I mean . . . Oh God, I’m dead, right?” I sag to the ground, arms still pinned. “Please,” I sob. “I just want to go home.”

“You’ve got one chance left,” he says. “The Final Round.”

“A chance?” Red-faced, I struggle to my feet. Now there’s a final category in the center of the board: “Utmost Wish.”

“What is your utmost wish?” It’s no longer the doctor’s voice but something deep and rumbling. He’s no longer a man, but rather a powerful jackal-headed thing: the Egyptian god Anubis, snapping a flail. My surroundings have transformed fully into some ancient temple, and I find myself standing on one end of a massive balancing scale, while on the other end sits a white feather. The two sides gently waver in air, the ground far below me. The shadow audience no longer cheers but wails; I can see them now, human shapes bound by lengths of chain, awaiting their turn at trial. And instead of the game board, an enormous statue of Osiris bears silent witness. “Your wish,” Anubis repeats.

“I just want everyone to be happy,” I blubber.

Sadly, he shakes his head. “You wish to be remembered. To keep residence in the hearts of those you love, forever, so that none may be so cherished as you.”

“No, wait—” I start, but it turns to a yelp as the platform I’m on plummets, slams into the ground. I topple, sprawling.

“Now, in truth, there are no more questions,” Anubis says. “And your heart, alas, is far heavier than Ma’at, the Truth of Truths. You are a stranger even to yourself. One such as you has no place among the heavens.”

A thunderous banging fills the space, like an enormous gavel, and I realize it is Osiris—not a statue, but a gargantuan living god. He slams his shepherd’s crook, his inhuman eyes wide and emitting unearthly light. The stone walls fall away, revealing the twinkling ether of space.

“Why you? Why this?” I cry.

“Because you care more for our myths and stories than those of your own God,” he says. “But we are only gatekeepers, and guides. Your fate is the same.”

Something slams into what’s left of the room: a leviathan crocodile, onyx scales glittering, round ruby eyes like wells of blood—goddess Ammut, Devourer of the Dead. She roars, cacophony and hurricane, and the space betwixt her maw begins to warp like a vortex.

“What’s going to happen?” I ask. “Am I going to die again? Please, just give me another chance, I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“If you believed that, it would not have come this far,” Anubis replies. “May you find peace and luck upon your next journey.”

“What does that even mean?” I yell.

Anubis ignores my plea, turns, and walks away, fading into the starry blackness like an afterimage. Osiris recedes, fades as well. Only Ammut remains, jaws wide, and suddenly I feel myself yanked violently toward her, toward the shifting nether between her crocodile lips.

My shackles break and I grab hold of the column, clinging. I’m reminded of Captain Hook, swallowed in the end. But why should I share the villain’s fate? What mistakes have I made?

Part of me answers: What mistakes haven’t I made?

I let go. I’m swept across the room, the floor starting to crumble, the scale breaking apart, the bystanders long gone to their own judgments. I shut my eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting for . . .

The end.

Next Chapter: Act I: Rebirth