“Wake up,” was the first thing I heard. The voice was full and rich, kinda like warm-chocolate-melting rich, but I suppose that makes it sound like it was a ‘70s PSA narrator, so ix-nay on the chocolate metaphor and let it suffice to say that the voice was….full…and rich.

But the first thing I saw was a bit more difficult to explain. You know how the movies show the afterlife as a big white glowing room? Well, that’s not really much of an exaggeration.

And I guess that’s when I put two and two together and realized I was dead.

I was dead.

Wow.

Being dead was strangely nothing new to me. After all there was that whole incident with the Master, but I was really only dead for a minute or two, and I suppose that really didn’t qualify me to get a glimpse of the afterlife.

I tried to remember how I got here. I remembered Dawn, Giles, and the others. I remembered the vortex of colliding dimensions.

Glory.

That’s when everything came back to me. I remember what the first Slayer had told me: that “death was my gift,” and wherever I was, was…. what you get for giving gifts.

“Hello Buffy,” the voice said again. That’s when I became aware that I still had a body, not some floating spirit thingy. I was lying on the “floor” of the white room, I guess asleep, since the voice had just told me to wake up.

“Uh, hi,” I finally responded, to no one (well there was no one I could see). Stood and took a good look around: white, 360 degrees.

“I’m dead,” I said after I took in my surroundings. Then came then came the part I was dreading the most. “Am I in heaven,” I asked the voice hesitantly.

The voice chuckled before answering: “No.”

Ouch. A lifetime of slaying vamps and bagging demons, and not of my own choosing isn’t enough….yet this soft white room didn’t feel like hell. If it were hell, I would probably be locked in a room with Principal Snyder while I perpetually took the SATs. Still I was afraid to ask.

“Rest assured you’re not in hell either,” the voic