The End is Just the Beginning

The first things I saw were eyes. Large liquid drops of deep blue perused me from head to bare foot. Refusing to acknowledge my dismal state, I stared steadily back. At least I did, till it stepped into the light.


A mass of corded muscle, gigantic teeth, and razor-sharp spikes towered in full glory above me. The crowd roared in gleeful anticipation as my heart dropped to the floor. My poor heart seemed to beat weakly before shriveling up in the dust at my feet. I stumbled and dearly wished I could flee as easily as my wits. I was pretty sure they had scattered and would continue to flee, screaming, till they fell off the edge of the earth. Considering my current situation, I would be joining them shortly. 


I turned and ran. This was completely futile, of course. There was no way to escape the stadium, but the will to live is stronger than logic. Needless to say, the beast caught me and I died. I had just enough time to think “At least it couldn’t get any worst. Then everything went black.

~~~~~~

Lets say that you just died. Morbid, I know, but work with me a bit. What would you be expecting? . . . Heaven? . . .Hell? . . . the light at the end of the tunnel? To set that all straight, there’s a line. A really . . . long . . . waiting . . . line.


I found myself behind some old lady who was behind some old guy who was behind some small child who was behind another old guy who was behind. . . well you get the picture.

I turned to the lady in front of me.

“Where are we going?”
 


“Up there,” she waved her withered hand at the line that disappeared into the distance.


“What’s up there?” I asked.


“Who knows?”


“So why are we waiting?” 


“What? Do you have something better to do?” She turned her back on me.

I guess she had a point. It wasn’t like we had to go anywhere. Somehow I thought that there would be no waiting after death. After all, everything’s over. Instead, it was the end-of-the-line, so to speak. But what were we waiting for?

After a very long time, I can’t say exactly how long being as there were no nights or days just a continuously moving line, I was nearing the front. The first sign was a small bump on the horizon. A while later it became a golden band. The closer we got the higher the golden band grew. It was like watching the sun rise, except instead of the sun rising, it was a golden gate.

At the gate, beings that were definitely not human were leading groups of people off into different directions. The beings looked like people but were twice as tall and had deep voices that would make my rib cage vibrate. It made me want to either sneeze or cough.


“Hey!” I jumped and turned. A small child was tugging on my arm.


“What do you want?” I asked wondering where he came from. 


“Can you help me?” As he explained his problem he was also dragging me out of the line. I tried to pry his hands off my arm. For such a little kid, he was surprisingly strong. I was pulled right out of the line.


“Let go!” I yelled. His innocent look disappeared in a grin that turned my stomach to ice. Instead of human teeth, his mouth was lined with sharp spikes and showed a tongue the color of black tar. Before I could scream, black tendrils of smoke smoke surrounded us. Then I did scream. Hey, you’d scream too if you felt like you were being turned inside out and then squeezed through a small opening.


When the smoke cleared, I was hunched over trying not to spew. I’m not sure what I would have spewed. I was dead, after all. When the giddiness passed, I stared at my surroundings. The gate was no where to be seen. The line was no where to be seen. In short, there was nothing familiar and I was lost.

~~~~~~

Being lost wasn’t as scary as it would have been in the land of the living. I didn’t have to worry about food, clothes, or shelter. The worst that could happen was I would wonder forever. While very boring, it was not life-threatening. 
It was at this time that I met (name)


I was simply walking along minding my own business when it happened. I walked into a hole. Hey I was dead, lost, and tired. I had other things on my mind than paying attention to where I was going. Go figure. (optional: I went from light to complete darkness in an instant. It was so fast that the only thing my mind registered was, “Dark?” Then) I hit the bottom. 


“Ow!”I was already dead, but it still hurt. I looked up and saw a small opening of light that was way out of my reach. Great, I thought, now I’m dead, lost, and stuck in a hole. I restrained a hysteric giggle. I had fallen into the holey-of-holeys. Now all that needed to happen was for some fell creature to be in this hole waiting to devour my soul or whatever fell creatures did in this place.


“Who’s there?” I jumped and found myself staring at a pair of milky blue eyes. I took a few steps back, relaxing slightly when I saw that the eyes were connected to an old man. Of course considering the warped kid who dragged me out of line, I still didn’t lower my guard.


“Who’s asking?” 


He narrowed his eyes.


“You enter my home uninvited and you think you have the right to ask who I am?”


I blinked. Weird place for a home.


“I didn’t know this was your home. There was a hole.” I pointed at the light. Shesh, if he wanted privacy he should have put up signs saying Hole. Watch out! “If you’ll just show me the way out, I’ll be on my way.”


“Where?” He asked.


“I don’t know.” I paused thinking. “Going back to those golden gates I guess.”


“What are you going to do then?”


“I don’t know…” I stopped. “That’s none of your business.” 
He merely tilted his head and gazed at me. Of course for all I knew of this place, maybe it was his business.


“It seems to me,” He said in a conversational tone, “that you don’t know where you are, where you’re going, and what you’re going to do when you get there.”

~~~~~~

He refused to show me to the door till I had figured out where I was going. 


“Can’t let you just wander in this place.” He said leading me though a maze of tunnels. The sides of tunnels were covered with symbols that glowed an electric blue as we passed. “You need to have a goal.” 


“Why?” I asked.


“Otherwise you will not get anywhere. At least,” He amended “Not anywhere that you will want to be.”


“What does that mean?” I was starting to lose my patience. He ignored me and continued into a large open room. He motioned toward a chair and I sat. He continued to walk around the room, pausing briefly to light the fire.

“So,” He said. “what do you want?” 


“I don’t know.” 


“Do you have family you would like to see? Is there a person you would like to visit? Do you want to find a way back to life?”


“No.”


He sighed. “What did you want before you died?”


I shrugged. “I just minded my own business and did my job.” 


“Did you ever want to do something else?” 


I shook my head. 

He stared at me. “You must have been one of the most boring people ever to have lived. Didn’t you want anything?”


I shrugged.


He shook his head.  “So how did you die? You’re too young to have died of natural causes.” 


“I don’t know.” 


He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t know? Don’t you want to know?” 


I looked at him. “Well it doesn’t matter now. I’m dead.”


“Do you have any curiosity at all?”


I shrugged again. 


He made a frustrated sound.

~~~~~~

“So why do you care?” I asked after hours of questioning.


“I’m a guide.” He said. “It’s my job to direct any person who crosses my path, but I can hardly direct a person if they don’t have a goal.” He glared at me.


“But I said I wanted to go back to the golden gates.” I protested.”Why don’t you just guide me back there?” 


He laughed. “You want to go there? Those are the gates to Werqernon. It’s ruled by the Qernon, or as I like to call them Vermon.” 


“Why?”


“They give each person a number and a job. Something to keep them occupied for all eternity.” 


“What’s wrong with that?” 


“The longer they work, the less they remember their old life. The less they think of their own wants and desires. The less they can hold a shape. When a person no longer wants anything, the Qernon can mold them into any shape they want. Qernon are obsessed with building things and the best building material is souls. Those Golden Gates required the souls of ten thousand people.”