It was pitch black, not even one ray of light was coming through. Where was the top? Where was the right ? Was there even a bottom or a direction to head to? Maybe it was just a black box. Or even the nothingness.
Thomas opened his eyes and that was the kind of thought that was rushing to him at the moment his eyelid was meeting the top of his eyes socket.
“This is really super dark.”
He couldn’t see the ceiling, but he could feel from the position of his body that he was lying on the floor, or at least, what it was supposed to be. That was quite a curious experience for him, almost as if he became blind the moment he…
… The moment he what?
What was he doing the moment before coming here? Was he sleeping? Was he eating or hanging around with his beloved girlfriend, Sarah? Or maybe drinking a few beers with Ingo, Nathan and Tom.
Weird.
That was the feeling that he was identifying into his chest. He was feeling really uneasy about this situation. If it was a bad dream, then it was a really bad one.
“Well, I can worry as much as I want, it won’t solve the fact that I am in a black maze, with nothing to do. Let’s see where that box I am into ends.”
He said that aloud, as a way to force himself to move, regardless his unease. It was his way of imprinting his words in reality and giving them consistency.
To keep his words in check he started to get up. His body was feeling really light and easy to move around.
He wasn’t someone who was fat, but he was not doing much sport, so his body was rarely feeling easy to move around, so this sensation of lightness got stuck in him for a few minutes.
He didn’t really know where to head to, but a small sensation, something that you can call ‘intuition’ was telling him to move forward, slightly on the left. He wasn’t really sure at first, he tried to touch the floor a bit to see the texture of the materials around him, to analyze and understand better his surroundings.
Surprisingly, it was a bit of a boring texture.
It was soft and cold.
Like glass.
When his hand came in contact with the floor, he realised that the overall temperature of the place was not hot nor cold. Probably around twenty degrees. There was not the sensation of the wind either but this place was not smelling bad or felt musty.
He tried to touch his body to see what kind of clothes he was wearing. That sensation came to him as a shock. It was definitely not cotton as he was used to wear. Clearly not.
So what was it?
He didn’t know, it felt like… Like… A really thin hot water bottle. In a shocked state he couldn’t stop his thoughts from going out loud.
“Huh? What the F… is that?”
After a few seconds of absence, he resumed his wandering in the direction of his intuition.
He walked.
And walked again.
And again.
It was unending.
Endless.
How long has it been since he started to walk? One hour? Two hours? Or maybe more.
Or perhaps, not that much. With no sun or light to get the gist of the time passing by, immersed in a full black light, it seemed like the time was being suspended.
As if nothing ever happened.
As if nothing will ever happen again.
As if the Present was everything that has ever existed.
While he was thinking that, a curious thought crossed his mind.
“Am I really alive? Or maybe, I’ve never been alive that much before, haven’t i?”
It was pitch dark. The path and his mind too.
He was wandering in his thoughts and in the path too.
Suddenly, a small light appeared in the background, far away from him. Was he hallucinating after spending so much time in the dark? Or his intuition was really right on the sport? He didn’t know, and actually didn’t really care about the right answer, this light was his ray of hope. Like when the first man discovered the fire to make his nights more safe from wild animals, in the hope of sleeping more soundly.
He rushed toward the light source.
One step after the other, without even thinking further than the second and found himself running toward the light.
But the moment he entered the circle of light made into the shadow realm, he stood up for a few seconds without moving.
There was a panel there, with nothing around it.
On the panel there were two arrows pointing in the opposite direction.
On them with written ‘Now’ and ‘Here’
Something was standing on the top of the sign and opened its eyes slowly.
Surprised, Thomas jumped back one step without realizing it.
The thing on the sign looked at him in his eyes with insistence before asking him.
“Where do you want to go? Hell or Paradise?”.
The sign that was lying in front of Thomas was in fact a bit weird. Indeed, the thing that looked Thomas insistently in the eyes was nothing else than a skullhead. That skullhead had spikes on its head, that was starting from the middle of the forehead and was going until the neck. In addition, that thing had wings going to both sides of its face, if you could call that a face. It was looking like bats wings, hooked, with a thin layer of skin between each of its bones, the veins were apparent and was throbbing a little at each pulse.
“Wait, this thing has blood? Is it freaking alive? Is that some kind of lame joke?
What a nightmare…”
These thoughts crossed Thomas’ mind while he was looking at disgust at the veins being inflated and deflated with a regulate pattern.
That what’s-its-name weird entity was still looking at Thomas from the top of its woodsign. Beneath it, was standing proudly two signs on woodcard signs ‘Now’ and ‘Here’. It didn’t make much sense to Thomas . He was so perplexed by these two signs that he let go out his thoughts.
“ Now and Here?… What is that supposed to mean? “
The skullhead on the sign didn’t show any reaction and instead asked him again his first question.
“Do you want to go to Paradise or to Hell?”
Thomas noticed the change in the way of saying the sentence.
“So it seems to be at least intelligent enough to change the way it says its sentences, maybe it can actually think for itself.” He thought.
He put his hand behind his head and started to shake the back of his head, his hairs going all over the place, as a way to play the dumb guy. He opened slightly his mouth and started to ask some questions at that definitely weird thing.
“I’m sorry but it seems that I am a bit lost. Where Am I ? Since you told me about Hell and Paradise, should I assume that I am dead?”
“That’s correct, you are dead. I can’t give you the details about your death since I don’t have access to the required data.
So now, you should choose if you either go to Paradise or to Hell”
This answer was cold. A kind of cold that Thomas had never encountered during his life. His past life.
“So I am really dead…uh…”
Thomas was a bit in a shock, about the fact that it was so sudden or that there really was something after life. To think that religions were right but he passed his whole life to laugh about god and despise religions. If he had known, maybe he would have gone to them to assure his place in paradise.
He shook his head the moment he had these thoughts.
“No freaking way I bend myself to some religious fanatics that are preaching that religion is above all and make millions of humans suffer everyday for their beliefs.”
He stood straight, looked at the skullhead and asked :
“ How am I supposed to know if I meet the requirements to go to Paradise?”
The skullhead took a moment before answering. Was it surprised by the question? Or was it just searching in its database? That thing was really full of mysteries.
“I can see in my data that you, humans, tend to think that you have some kind of rate or a passing test to go to Paradise, as it seems for you to be the perfect place after having a hellish life on earth.
But it’s not really the case in fact.”
The head let me two seconds to swallow what it just said.
“Let me explain a bit more the differences between the two of them.
First, let’s start with Hell. Hell is a funny place, where you are free to do whatever you want, usually it’s a place where the party is never-ending, people there are open-minded to new experiences and don’t stand in place.
I advise you to go there if you are the kind to have an extraverted nature as you will meet a lot of people and be taken away by the energy of the big party place.
The particularity about this place is that you never get tired, you don’t need to sleep anymore.
On the other hand, if you are an introverted, I strongly recommend you to go to Paradise. It is a quiet and beautiful place. People there tend to stay into their little world, reading, playing games or gardening quietly.
They can do their activity as they want it with no one judging them.
The reason behind this quietness is that in Paradise, you have a spell cast on all the inhabitants that force them to share their inner feels with people they are talking to. So, even if it’s by force they have a deep understanding on what’s going on into the others.
So now, you know more about it, make your choice.
Hell or Paradise?”
Thomas took his hand to its chin and started to think.
“Well, that’s true that I am an extraverted being stuck into the big influx of other’s energy. But a never ending party seems a bit tiring no?
But Paradise seems definitely boring, it’s almost like going in vacations in the middle of the mountains with only cows around. After 5 days of rest you start to feel so damn bored.”
After thinking for a minute or two, He decided to listen to the advice of the skullhead, since it seemed to know its stuff, and decided to join the Hell side.
The moment he said his answer to the thing, the light appeared and dispersed the black maze around him. His surroundings were nothing but glasses, all over the place, from the floor to the ceiling. No wonder it had a glassy feel when Thomas touched it.
A light started to be emitted from the sign with “Here” on it.
“ If you want to reach Hell then please follow this sign. You will have to go straight in this road until the next panel Now Here, once you reach it you will have to turn right until you meet another one, at this one you will have to go straight for one hundred steps and finally turn on the left. You will be then arrived”
As the SKullhead explained the directions, a path opened from the glass wall, showing a dark path with no light in it.
“Ok then thank you, see you and good luck for your work” said Thomas while waving at the sign engulfing himself into the dark corridor in front of him.
Thomas went through the dark corridor that was pointing that thing on this weird wood sign. The door shutted down behind him with a ‘creeeek’ sound as it was scraping the others glasses next to it.
Black maze once again.
‘Ting’. A sound was made, coming from nowhere, like an elevator arriving at the right level.
THe light appeared and revealed how was looking the interior of the place that Thomas was in and… It was quite displeasing to see. Somehow, at this point, he started to know that he was aiming to go to hell. The walls seemed similar to someone’s intestin, a bit squishy, with a lot of pinkish tints. He approached his hand close to the walls to see if it was hot or not, it was. Also when he was walking he could feel that his feet were going down by one centimeter or two inside the texture of the walls.
“That’s definitely something alive….urgh….disgusting
I Just hope I won’t arrived to Hell through Satan’s colon”
A shiver went down his spine while he was thinking.
SInce he had gathered enough information about his surroundings he decided to continue his journey to reach the next weird wood sign.
He still didn’t have any notion of the time, but once again it seemed to be quite a long time.
He was walking.
Walking.
Walking.
He crossed a few intersections but kept going on the path.
Walking.
Walking.
During all the time that he was walking he was wondering if he had chosen the right place, he was sociable and a party guy, but wouldn’t Paradise be a nice place to retire after what he went through in life?
He was born in a dangerous neighbourhood of New York. He had to fight quite a lot in order to survive and be able to make some money to feed his family. He was by no means a street guy, but until he was at the age to work he had to survive as he could.
When he finally reached the age to work, he took upon 2 jobs as well as his studies on his back. One of his jobs was to pay its tuition fees and the other to feed himself and help his family.
His rage and dedication helped him to reach his goal, becoming a Trader and make a huge paycheck to never be in need again.
After he reached this point, his life was an eternal circle of hard work, parties, cocaine and prostitutes.
He stopped a minute to make a more objective thinking about his own past. When he was looking at it overall, especially at the end, he couldn’t let slip his true thoughts.
“Ok, I definitely fit the atmosphere of Hell.”
Now that he was convinced that he was fitting in Hell, he proceeded calmly into the direction of the next wood sign.
He was on the walk again.
Walking.
Walking.
“How long has it been?” He wondered.
Walking.
Walking.
Still nothing.
No wood sign to be seen.
He stopped.
“Ok, I’m fed up with walking with no wood signs at the horizon.”
He crossed his arms and made a very displeased face.
Without noticing it at first, he stopped at one of these intersections inside this big intestine.
“Hey wait…” While he was turning his head to check out his surroundings.
He finally noticed that there was one of those signs on his right. He knew that the first wood sign told him to go straight, then turn right when he met the next wood sign, but he felt like he was completely lost and needed some assistance. He went in the direction of the wood sign and started to talk to it.
“Hi there, I am sorry to bother you, but your fellow sign sent me to Hell and told me to keep going straight until the next wood sign. But it seems that I haven’t seen it yet, do you know how far it is from here?”
But at Thomas’s surprise, this sign was not friendly at all.
“We have already told you the road, if you can’t find it by yourself, you can stop here or go now to find the road.”
His answer was made with an icy voice. Even colder than winter.
Thomas put both of his hands on his temples, crushed by the decision he had to make. Should he follow the instructions of the first skullhead or follow his instinct?
After all, from a logical standpoint the previous woodsign sent him in the direction of the “Here” part of the sign.
“Ok, fine, bye.”
Thomas put his hand in his pocket and went away from this unfriendly wood sign and took the direction of the “Here” sign .
Once again, his journey seemed endless.
His thoughts started to feel a bit fuzzy, the stress was eating his brain little by little.
“Am I really on the right road? Or Will I just be stuck in this no-go zone between Hell and Earth?
Dammit.”
Once again, he walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
For hours.
Walked.
Walked.
At this point he already had given up on getting out of here, but life, or after-life to be more precise, had still few surprises left under its coat.
‘BAM BAM BAM’
Someone was hitting a skull head with a good amount of strength, to make it stand in the intestine floor. It was wearing blue apparel, from a technician and was wearing a red cap.
That feeling seemed so familiar to the dear lost earth of Thomas that he couldn’t stop himself from going in its direction and talk to whatever it was.
While he was approaching, it seems like this thing had 6 arms, but Thomas didn’t seem to be bothered by it, the biais of association was too strong into that human and the fact that it was wearing a blue uniform screwed up all the decision making of Thomas. Even though he wasn’t really sure about how he could start talking to it or even what he was about to find in the middle of some weird intestines.
“Erm… excuse me…”
The creature, definitely surprised by the voice of someone jumped two meters backwards, put its 6 arms in the air to make the impression of being something big and be more impressive.
It was facing Thomas face to face.
Thomas, in front of the monster, was completely frozen. That thing was around two meters and a half tall, with six arms, a mouth made of a few mandibles like a Predator and had 6 damn eyes.
During his freezing time Thomas only had one thought in mind.
“Ok, so I’m not gonna reach Hell, I will be eaten by that whatever thing that I have in front of me?”
The monster was scratching his back with one arm while rubbing its mandibles against each other. Two of its arms were maintaining the panel in place and its Fourth arm doing some weird gestures trying to put a skull head on the top of it.
As it was not working, the guy was grumbling.
“Damn thing, you are just a machine so do as you are told!”.
It threw the head against the floor.
A bit astonished by his finding, Thomas was standing there, his mouth half open, half stressed by the situation.
“That guy, I can understand what he said.”
But he hardly had the time to think about it that the monster made a rotation on itself and looked at Thomas.
A disgusting drool was coming out of its mouth, it had a reddish mixed with greenish color? Was it acid? Maybe yes. Thomas thought that it would make the most sense if it was the case, after all, we were between Hell and Earth, disgusting creatures were to be expected.
The monster looked at him, almost as astonished as Thomas was in front of it. It made a movement on the back and took one step away from Thomas, apparently a bit scared of him.
“Wha…what… are you doing here human?
You’re not supposed to be on the road.”
While he was saying that, one of its arms went behind its head and it was averting the gaze of the small human in front of him.
All lot of question passed through the head of Thomas, but only one came out :
“Were you trying to break this wood sign?”
“What? No! No way! Why would I break them since my work is to maintain them?!”
Surprised by such a statement Thomas tilted his head a bit on the side and looked at it silently.
The monster apparently a bit unaccustomed to be stared at turned away his head once again.
Thomas pointed the panel signs and said :
“You mean, you are the technician in charge of doing the maintenance for these weird signs?”
The weird creature coughed a bit to clear his throat.
“Yes exactly, but they are not weird signs, they are here to help people arriving to Hell or to Heaven. They are guiding light for their long journey to enlightenment.”
The little human had been able to recover his process of thought and was listening with the greatest attention possible. So, some people were maintaining these panels, meaning that Hell and Heaven might really exist since people were taking care of the roads. This idea made Thomas relieved a bit of the stress that he was going under since the beginning of his journey.
He lifted up a bit his head to face the technician.
“Truth to be told, I’m a bit lost, I think I might have turned at the wrong intersection. Since you work here you might be able to guide me properly to get myself on the right road again.
Can you help me please?”
The monster closed its eyes a bit, while looking at the request of the tiny human in front of him, with a surprisingly warm kindness. He did what looked like a smile from Thomas’ perspective, but he was really unsure about this last part.
“Sure, but can you give me a moment, I need to repair and prepare this sign for operating again.”
Thomas nodded while telling him that he would reste a bit on the side and that he just needed to come at him once he would be ready.
He went on the side, a bit further away from all the ruckus that was causing this weird being, sat down on the stickish intestinal textured floor and lied down against the wall trying to get a bit of rest.
“So, now that I have a bit of rest, I should try to summarize what I know so far, the more I know, the better it is.
I know that I’m dead and I had to choose between going to Hell and going to Heaven. The road I am currently on, is the road between Earth on death.
I had to follow a pretty strict road and got lost in all these mazes. Even though the wood signs were supposed to help me, they shoo me away and told me to find the answer to my journey by myself.
Then I met a monstrous technician in charge of repairing the signs that will lead me back to the right road.
Ok.
So.
I know almost nothing.
What is even this place?
How does it work?
Are the paths changing?
Are there an infinity of dimensions next to each other to process every death on earth? Because I would have met someone if we were on the same road. After all we have 109 deaths per minute on earth.
That’s a lot.
And above all, is there even a Hell or a Heaven? I mean, if it was really their missions, wouldn’t angels and demons trying their utmost to have us completing our journey?”
While collecting all his thoughts and questions Thomas understood that he knew next to nothing. But what bothered him the most was the quietness of the place and yet meeting a weird technician in the middle. Somehow it was making sense to have someone maintaining them, but on the other hand it seemed like the panels were some magical items.
Wouldn’t it be possible to have long distance maintenance thanks to magic?
He was about to go deeper in his thoughts and questions but was stopped by the technician guy coming towards him.
While they were on their way, Thomas took the opportunity to ask him his questions.
The monster explained to him that this place was, as he guessed, one of the infinite dimensions existing to process all of the humans deaths.
He also explained that this place was almost a place abandoned by either God or the Devil. As time was passing by, having troops staying here was really costly. Everytime Angels and Demons were crossing each other road, a strife would arise, resulting in a lot of loss.
So they decided to make a peace pact and have a third party company take care of leading the new dead souls to the place they belong.
“So that’s why I met your road but not the road of any demons so far.
But what happens if everyone wants to go to paradise?”
Thomas had his finger wrapping around his chin as he was asking the technician this question. The monster turned his head at him, winked with a row of its eyes and answered him.
“Well, that’s a small secret between us, so keep it for yourself.
The signs are programmed to split evenly all the souls between Hell and Heaven.”
Thomas stopped on the spot, pretty shocked by this statement and straightened his arms as if he was ready to fight.
“Don’t tell me that signs sent me to Heaven ?!”
“Ahahah, no don’t worry you are on the right road, you are definitely going to Hell. But we had to program the panels this way because too many humans out there want to reach paradise at all cost.
And that was not possible regarding how the contract was redacted.
Hell and Heaven have to share equally human souls, after all they are…”
The monster kept walking but stopped talking. Thomas didn’t ask for more, but he sent a chill going down his spine by the way he phrased it.
The ugly thing that was leading the path stopped and turned around to Thomas.
“You know, you are lucky to have met me, otherwise you would have been wandering forever, after our signs are designated to not help you unless you have spent 100 years wandering. The policy of our company is to not help humans souls to reach their goal and let them become something bigger, stronger and greater than humans.
So if they can’t stick to the basic instructions they have to make their way on their own.”
“O-Oh… That’s how it is… I guess I’m pretty lucky yeah.
Thank you a lot, you saved me!”
The technician did what was perceived once again as a smile.
“Don’t sweat it, we already have a lot of wandering souls, and we are getting paid only when they reach their goals, so we will earn a bit more cash thanks to that eheh.”
While he was explaining its actions, it put one of its arms into its bag and threw something at Thomas.
“Here, take that, your road is still long and your goal far away. This is a refreshment. Not the most delicious one out there, but it will definitely give you a lot of strength to keep going on especially since you have a lot of unexpected things happening here.”
“Th..thanks…”
The small sound of a thank you got out of Thomas’s mouth as he was trying to grab the drink without making it fall.
“Well my way is on the opposite side as yours, see you.” Said the monster while going on its own way and waving one of its arms.
It never returned itself in Thomas’ direction, waving its arms for a long time.
Thomas turned in the direction he was supposed to going while murmuring to himself:
“A lot of unexpected things…Huh?”
After parting with that weird but kind monster, Thomas went back on his own road and tirelessly resumed his journey to become a greater being than the small human he was.
“What exactly is it supposed to mean to become a greater being than a human?
Did it mean for us to transform ourselves into either a Demon or an Angel?
I’m not really sure that I want to abandon my humanity… If Demons and Angels are like they were described in human stories, then maybe that’s kind of… ok?”
These thoughts went through Thomas’s mind whilst he was making his way in that endless tunnel. He wondered which species that technician was a part of, he didn’t seem like he was neither an Angel or a Demon. Well, he hoped it wasn’t a demon, because Thomas didn’t want to turn out like this, he almost cried when having this thought.
These tunnels were long, so long.
Thomas spent 7 long days and 7 long nights walking. Tirelessly.
It might seem like a long time, but in reality, Thomas didn’t feel a thing, he had a body that was not feeling the tiredness anymore. It was a bit weird for him, but he was impressed by his own capacity of growing accustomed to something quite quickly.
Also, It was a bit of a weird dimension, he stated what he thought was the right amount of time, but in this space with no light , no mouvements or nothing moving around, it seemed like the time had no grip here.
Thomas was contemplating this fact with a really refreshing face, finally, he was free from the curse of time. He didn’t have to watch the clock anymore, trying to fill his agenda with things to do under the fear of not having lived enough while being alive. Even though, when one’s agenda was becoming full of activities, one has to be more efficient and optimize its time to be able to absorb all these activities.
It was an infernal circle. The more time passing by, the less time we had because we feared death so much, so we were just making ourselves more busy, to live to the fullest. Hence, letting the small amount of remaining time go in between our fingers.
“That was a truly sad fate we had as humans. Makes no damn sense.”
When this sentence came out of his mouth, he decided to stop here and take a break. Not that he felt tired at all, at least not physically, but he was a bit tired mentaly after having to absorb so much information in such a short amount of time.
He sat on the floor, put his back on the wall and extended arms and legs to rest in a comty pose.
He took out the drink given by that kind but ugly monster and decided to give it a try.
He opened the can with a kshhht sound.
He smelled the liquid inside to see which kind of odor was coming out of it. He shouldn’t have. It was smelling something between old fish and worcestershire sauce, with some tints of lemon and pineapple.
Thomas wasn’t really pleased by the smell of it, but decided to give it a try regardless, out of respect for that kind technician.
Glup.
Glup.
Erk.
It was definitely disgusting. 200%.
He let it go through his sore throat. He could feel it going down while leaving an icy impression behind it.
But almost instantly he could sense that he was lighter than before, as if he was completely healed after a long fight and some new fresh blood was going in his veins.
In front of this extremely pleasant feeling, he got himself together and forced himself to finish to drink the can.
After finishing the can, he got up, put the can back in his pocket and decided to walk again.
He had the impression that he was walking slightly more quicker than before, but he accepted the fact that it was not proven at all and highly subjective, so he stopped to dig into this subject letting it go with a ‘whatever’ sigh.
He didn’t know how long he had to keep going, but with this much energy input he felt like he could go to the end of the world, whatever the world he was in.
Thankfully for him, the end of his journey was about to happen.
He could see a red person standing against the wall from far away.
Dark hairs, some animal parts and humanoid overall appearance, no mistake possible, it was a Demon!
When Thomas saw that, quite happy, he accelerated his pace to reach where the demon was.
With a smile on his face he went in front of the demon standing there and greeted him.
“Hi, please to meet you, are you a demon?”
“Yep I am, you are?”
A complete uninterested look was written on the face of the newly met demon, but Thomas was so relieved to finally see the end of his journey that he couldn’t care less.
“I was a human and I went through my journey to become a greater being than a human. I decided to join Hell, you are here to show me the way aren’t you?” said Thomas quite quickly.
The Demon looked back at Thomas and lifted up a bit his eyebrows giving him the expression of pity. He was pitying Thomas from the bottom of his heart.
He opened his mouth slightly, as he was preparing to say something but he was not smiling, it was quite the opposite in fact. He was pitying Thomas but at the same time seemed so tired of what he was about to say.
“Sorry to say that after seeing such a cheerful and smiling face, but there is no Heaven, and actually no Hell for souls like you.”
When Thomas heard that, his smile and his cheerfulness both went to minus hundred. He didn’t question the statement just made by the Demon, he was sure that he was not lying after seeing such an expression.
He was taking a step backward but he was stopped.
“Oh and you are about to die, for real this time.”
This voice was not coming from the Demon,it was coming from the side, inside of the shadows next to the red being. This voice was crystal clear, and angelic. The way it talked was sweet and gentle, almost addictive, even if what said this voice was clearly unbearable.
Thomas, his eyes opened displaying a tragic look turned his head slowly in the direction of this new voice.
“Holy shit…”
He couldn’t say anything else in front of this beautiful girl. Her gaze was piercing blue, her face was gentle and malicious at the same time. She had a sweet pinkish color on the top of her cheek that was making her smile appear even cuter, like a small little fox’s gaze at you while awaiting to bite you. Her angelic blond hairs looked like they were made from the finest silk in the universe, they were matching perfectly the color of her halo and adding an impressive prestancy to her pure white wings.
Even if Thomas knew you shouldn’t have this thought now, especially if he wanted to survive, he let it go away.
“So that’s how an Angel really looks? Truly magnificent”
When she heard that her eyes opened a little bit and then half closed them. In the meantime her smile started to turn out more sadistic.
“Don’t worry, I’ll appreciate it greatly when I will eat you”
“What… What do you mean by ‘Eat me’?
And what do you mean by ‘souls like us’ can”t go to Paradise or Hell?!”
Thomas turned around and faced the demon with an angry face.
The Demon looked at the floor, put his hand behind his head and sighed..
“Erffff… Heaven or Hell are not meant for human souls, and the reason behind that is simple, you are our food. So obviously, we won’t let you get inside our nest, no?”
“So you… You mean that… Demons and Angels were fighting… was to get the ‘food’ for themselves…?”
“Mostly yes”
The tone of the Demon was quite sober, as if he was feeling bad about all of this story. On the opposite, the foxy angel was pretty happy about this situation and let go a cheerful “Surprised aren’t you?!” while laughing her heart out. It was apparently not to the liking of the Demon.
“Hey, watch your tongue, making them feel despair doesn’t make a soul more tastier you know.”
She answered by sticking out her tongue to him.
Thomas was at loss of words…One question was still remaining…
“Why the wood signs with the skullhead then?”
The Angel decided to take this turn of Q&A.
“Eheheh, nice system isn’t it? It was designed after God and Satan reached a consensus to split evenly souls coming from earth. They had to make such a deal as the war between Demons and Angels was raging too hard. Both sides were encountering huge loss.
This system was created to generate a new dimension every time a human is dead. It creates a path for him and summons us when the human is close to the end of the path. Once the Angel and the Demon are summoned, we just need to wait for you and eat you.”
The right corner of Thomas’s mouth lifted up a bit and showcased a really bittersweet expression.
“So that’s what you call a mass slaughterhouse… For souls that is…”
“Yep, and you are about to be eaten”
She winked at him with the sweetest smile of all.
“Eh… Eaten…”
“Yep.”
The sounds of a fight quickly stopped.
Finally, the silence was back in the mass slaughterhouse.
Finally, it was quiet.
End of Now Here Story.
Miennu.