I had almost forgotten everything about myself since I died.

**

This was my chance.

Trials for the state team. 

My entire life, I've been seemingly held back. I always thought my skills were good, no, I knew they were good. I was no less capable than any person in all the teams I'd been excluded from.

I eventually made up a little story to keep my mental state from collapsing. 

There's this god, somewhere in the sky, who was stopping me at every turn whenever I wanted to progress further. It was this god who made my parents stop me from attending practice, it was this god who made the coaches turn away every time I did something impressive, it was this god who pushed me down every time I was at a trial for a higher team.

It was this spiteful god who hated the thought of me ever playing for a higher team or ever being able to show the world what I could achieve.

My entire life, I was always the best in the lowest team, yet, whenever it came to getting into a higher team, something, almost like a supernatural barrier blocked me.

My capabilities were probably good enough for me to be the best player in the best team.

Was this all a delusion of mine?

Had I fallen victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect?

No, that wasn't it.

I definitely was good enough, I knew it, deep in my heart. 

I tried to hide this feeling of discontent, 

I tried to pretend that being the best player in the worst team was good enough for me.

Of course, it wasn't.

I hated every moment. 

Every time I saw someone in the highest teams at school, I would cringe. Not because I disliked them in particular, or even what they stood for. I hated how these supposedly inferior players would get into these higher teams. Why was I not one of them?

Why spiteful god,

why me?

I had finally managed to claw my way into the final selection of the state team. I closed the world off from my vision, from my heart.

This is everything.

I trained day and night. My mind was filled with nothing but this. 

This was my last and only chance to have something to show for all of my hard work, for all the talent I believed I had.

We were split into two teams. 

I was wearing a white bib, meaning I was still in the 'lower' section of the team. This didn't matter, however, because the orange bib team, the 'higher' section of the team did not have enough players to fill the squad. 

Around half of the white bib team would make it into the final team.

The whistle blew.

I put in my everything, my heart, my soul, every last bit of energy I had left.

The whistle blew again, signifying the end of the match.

Everyone walked off, back into the change rooms. As I took a seat on the bench and began changing back into my normal clothes. It felt weird, however, I felt a sense of imposter syndrome in these change rooms. I felt as if I didn't belong here. 

So many times, I was excluded from something like this, I never felt the feeling of being in a team that wasn't the bottom, a team that actually had some sort of selection of vetting. 

It was weird, why had the spiteful god allowed me to get this far?

Why didn't they stop me during the first stage of the trial, the spiteful god usually would've ended my ill-founded hopes and dreams right there.

I packed my bags and began walking back towards the car. My father had come to pick me up, indifferent as always. Whenever I talked to them about my experiences, they would just say something like, "You just don't have the talent", or "You have bad genes, go study instead", at first, those words struck me like a silver bullet through the heart.

But nowadays, those words were just white noise amongst everything else. Deep down, I knew I had the talent, no one knew better than me how worthy I was.

Well, no one except this spiteful god, who was following me around, crushing my hopes. 

But even deeper down, like the Mariana Trench of my heart. I couldn't help but ponder.

Maybe I  was  just delusional.

Maybe my ego and superiority complex had grown so wild that I felt as if no one was better than me. 

Maybe I overestimated my abilities so much, that all reason had been blown out of my brain like a shotgun hitting a can.

But.

Hey, spiteful god, if you're there, can you tell me why you hate me so much? What did I do to you? 

Won't you come and talk to me for once? Instead of sitting in the sky, shooting down all the opportunities for me to reach higher, all the opportunities to achieve my aspiration, all the opportunities for me to get what my heart truly desires? Why don't you come to talk it out with me?

I'm insane, aren't I?

I'm broken beyond repair.

What is wrong with me? 

Making up an entire higher being just to justify my own lack of ability.

Sometimes I think I'm absolutely insolent. 

I probably did train less than all these other people, I probably didn't have as much talent as these other people.

Oh, spiteful god, sometimes, very rarely, I feel as if there can be no other explanation, besides your existence.

But even more so, oh, spiteful god, I wish for your existence, however inconvenient it is to me.

Because the last thing I ever want to know is that I really just wasn't good enough.

The car was travelling at an awkward speed. My father had told me the engine had been sounding funny the last few days so he's been travelling slower than usual. I told him to fix the car like a normal person but he had been too busy procrastinating to do so.

I looked at the slight blur of trees and street lights. It was pretty late at night, the trial had been going for over three hours. My father looked as if he was drunk, the subtle smell of alcohol was exaggerated by my sensitive nose after giving it everything I had just moments prior.

I brushed my hair upwards, clearing the puddle of sweat from my forehead. I tried not to touch my head on the headrest as it was damp from all the sweat. My entire body was moist, I could feel my back sticking to my shirt as I adjusted my posture. 

I waited for a message on my phone. During this final trial, they would message everyone the outcome. I was honestly quite happy to even have the opportunity to give them my phone number, it felt, very subtly, like I was finally fitting in with those who were previously above me.

I tried to hold in my excitement, I had not yet made it, but I couldn't feel as I there was any other possibility, aside from me being accepted. 

Stop.

I can't think like this.

If I keep building myself up with no foundations, I'll just crash and burn if I find out I wasn't actually accepted.

Deep breaths.

We gradually approached an intersection. I looked up and noticed that both sides of the lights seemed to be green. I was about to point this out before thinking that there wouldn't be any cars anyways. It was late and we had only passed about two cars the entire trip home. It was pretty dark so I might have just been seeing things because I was tired.

I looked down at my phone again. 

No new messages.

My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. I had never been so tense before in my entire life. 

It was right when I was attempting to relax when our entire car was sent spiralling into the side of the road.

It really hurt, like nothing ever before, I could register in my head that it was the worst pain in the entire world. 

Then why did I feel weirdly numb?

The interior of the car was completely destroyed, it was like a piece of scrap metal. The airbags had deployed but that wasn't even close to enough to save our lives.

I could feel a warm liquid around parts of my body. It felt like someone poured some warm water onto my stomach. 

Suddenly my phone beeped.

Despite the situation I was in, the only thing I thought about was the result of the trial. It was something like an otherworldly desire. 

I didn't care about anything else.

I reached over towards the phone. Suddenly, I felt as if all the pain had ceased, it was just me and the phone, my entire body was numb, it felt as if my arm wasn't even a part of my body anymore like I was remotely controlling it separately, with my mind. 

Unfortunately, you were not selected to be a part of the 2021 state representative team.

Haha.

Like some very tragic allegory.

Hey, spiteful god, if you're there. 

I know you don't really hate me.

One last wish, when I die, can you reincarnate me in another world?

**

This was originally meant to be the prologue but I didn't want to start the novel with something so melancholic. 

It actually flows really well into the first chapter if you want to see how it works.

This was his last few moments before his death and being sent into the afterlife.