Rui Hachimura opened his eyes, looked around for a second, and then immediately squeezed them shut again. He took a few deep breaths, shook his head to clear whatever delusions might be residing there, and then opened his eyes again.
The scene had not changed. He stood up, and attempted to remember what he was doing before he ended up here. He was pretty sure he hadn’t just gone to bed, though dreaming would be the most reasonable explanation for what he saw before him.
All around him was a vast expanse of nebulous mist. There were a few ornate columns dotting the landscape, and the whole scene was illuminated incredibly brightly, though he could see no sun. To his sides, he could see the outline of large stone walls, inset with arched windows filled with beams of light, that rose higher and higher until they faded into the mist. He looked down. He noticed that he stood on what seemed to be a marble floor, which extended in all directions around him, and he also noticed that he was very naked. He thought he could hear birds twittering in the distance, but as far as he could see, he was very alone.
Rui sighed. There was no other conclusion to come to except that he had died, and that this was the afterlife. He had never given much thought to life after death, though he was nominally religious. He smirked. Whatever any of the earthly religions were teaching about heaven or hell or reincarnation or any of that, they certainly were mistaken. It was tragic that he had died right after scoring 30 against the Clippers, he supposed, but that was the nature of death. It comes for everyone, and it can come at any time, he thought to himself, strangely feeling no sadness for his apparent fate.
Feeling as if there was nothing else to do, he began to walk. How long or far he walked, he could not tell; he had the strange sensation that time wasn’t moving at all. The hall he was in didn’t seem to change as he moved; he attempted to walk towards the walls, but they never came any closer. He continued to walk, lost in thought as to the nature of this place.
Suddenly, he collided with a tall, white-robed figure. Startled, he fell over, and attempted to cover himself from the stranger. Wordlessly, the man turned around, helped him up, and offered him a robe. Rui quickly adorned himself, then looked at the man. He had a somewhat Latin look about him, and he noticed that he was almost as tall as he was.
“Are you… Jesus?” He cringed as he spoke; his voice seemed far too loud for this place, and his question echoed repeatedly around him, as if mocking his ignorance.
The man smiled. “No. My name is Carlos Delfino, and I am the guardian of the Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers”.
Rui was struck by a sudden realization. “The Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers! Jordan McRae was telling me about his visit here, and I thought it was him just making up a story to fool a rookie, but it’s real! He told me all about you! He said you like to watch for newcomers! He said that…”
“Enough!” Carlos’ friendly expression had turned stern. “I have seen McRae here before, but he is not supposed to carry the memory of this place through to his mortal life. The existence of this hall is known to those who have entered it, but not in the part of the mind accessible to the conscious. If the greater ones knew that explicit knowledge of this place had escaped into the Earthly plane…” he paused, frowning.
“Uh…” Rui didn’t know how to respond to this. Who were the greater ones? He wanted to ask, but he felt that any prodding at this point would only make things worse.
“I really must be going now. This news has disturbed me greatly.” Carlos looked at the wristwatch on his arm, which, Rui noted, strangely contained no hands or any indication at all of what time it was. “Feel free to explore the hall. You seem to have appeared in one of the emptier parts, which is why it took me several years to find you, or, rather, for you to find me.”
“Several… years?” Rui gasped.
“Perhaps ‘years’ is not the proper term.” The way Carlos said this made it seem like there was no proper term. “Don’t worry, time in the traditional sense has not moved at all since you came here. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”. With that, he turned and began to stride off into the ill-defined distance. Somehow, almost as soon as he began walking, he disappeared into the mist, leaving Rui alone once again.
“Well.” he spoke to no one. “At least I’m not dead.”