Gates of Hell

Prologue: death

I stood at the edge of the rooftop, my bare toes curling over the edge. The concrete beneath my feet was warm from hours under the hot sun, and the feeling was slightly unpleasant as my feet were burnt by the heat retained in the cement.

The wind rushed around me, blowing my hair in all different directions. I didn't even bother trying to keep the messy strands from falling into my eyes. The wind tugged at my clothes, urging me to continue forward off the rooftop.

I looked out at the city below, wondering how the ants that wandered below me would react to my fall. I could imagine screaming and shock, but I doubted it would even make a dent in the powerful flow of the city.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward out over the endless abyss that fell down before me to the pavement below. The moments of flight seemed to drag on forever before everything went black.

***

Ba-thump.

Ba-thump.

Ba-thump.

Each beat sent savage pain through my chest, more pain than I had ever experienced before.

I heard voices coming from somewhere nearby, but as I tried to call out, to beg for them to help me, to relieve the pain in my chest and all over my aching body, I found I had no breath. I was unable to speak. I wasn't even breathing.

I opened my eyes and dragged in a deep, gasping breath that made my lungs burn. I looked around in confusion, wondering what the hell was happening. Wasn't I dead? I was absolutely certain I couldn't have survived a fall from that height.

As I looked around, my confusion only grew. I was in what looked like a hospital waiting room. I was lying on the cold linoleum floor, looking around at the pristine white walls, the dozens of empty chairs lining the room and the large white reception desk at the end of the room.

Behind the desk I could make out two men, looking bored, as if my appearance lying on the floor was just another event in the tedium of a normal day. My whole body was aching, but as I looked myself over, I couldn't see anything wrong.

One of the men, with a resigned look on his face, walked towards me. He held a clipboard, and as he stood over me, he glanced at it with a sigh.

"Hmmm... James Parker, eighteen years old, suicide..." he said while inspecting the sheet before him. "Well James, you're dead. Welcome to the afterlife."

"Huh?!"