Judgment

[WP] When you die, you are given an option—either be judged for your sins, or choose what’s behind The Door. The noble and arrogant choose to be judged, and the evil and fearful choose The Door. When given the option, you choose to simply turn around and walk away.

*****

[Warning: swearing]

Choice. A thing that needs to be made sometimes. At times, people find themselves at a crossroads and they are asked to choose what comes next. In life this is a common occurence. In death – the one-timer.

Aye. That is how I found myself here, on this crossroads in a dark void. I died. A car, that was driving not too far behind me on a highway, suddenly dipped, and begun to fly forward, turning and crashing everything in its way. I tried to accelerate, but I couldn't outrun a giant metal jeep grinder that was trying to lose velocity. In short – it crashed into my motorbike. Impact was hard, and caused both me and my bike to go flying. The last thing I remembered before the world around me turned black – a highway above me, for some reason, and a sensation of something searing hot touching my neck. Then, there was only pain and the world instantly disappeared.

That's how I ended up in that void. One second I was flying to a certain death, the next one – standing and trying to catch my nonexistent, as I was a very literal soul ripped out of my body, breath somewhere completely elsewhere. No telling, where exactly – it was pitch black and looked empty, except for one thing that stood there, waiting till I come to my bearings.

Some kind of shining pale mumbo-jumbo, that didn't even look slightly human, more like a mismatched mixture of various animals. Made me remember the bet we had in our squad back in the days, on what was actually going on on the other side and what waited for us there. Boy, let me tell you, as happy as I was right there and then that good old Cap with his weird beliefs didn't win it, I equally was pissed, that my atheistic theory didn't win either.

Then, the creature greeted me and shortly after briefing me on the topic of what kind of hellhole I exactly ended up in, presented me with a choice. It appeared, that I was dead, but it wasn't any kind of afterlife, just a simple waiting room for me to decide where to go. I was presented with two options. Option one – I'm being judged by some kind of Arbiter guy and being deemed worthy either of Hell or Paradise. Option two – I'm taking the other way out, a.k.a "The Door", which no one knows what is behind, or no one wants to tell. And I was said to given all the time that I needed to actually decide, which way to go.

Now, you see, a unit I was on once was special military-wise. I and my squad were usually dropped in places and assigned missions where things went South long ago. So, what all these youngsters nowadays call "thinking outside the box" to me was just another Thursday. I saw two choices, and what I did do? I went for a third option.

I just walked away.

The shiny abomination made of light didn't say anything, though. Maybe it anticipated it. Maybe I wasn't the only one to do that. Either way, I continued walking... Or floating, perhaps. I walked and walked, not even beginning to feel tired, and certainly lost track of time. The abomination behind me became a dot on the nonexistent horizon... And that's when I began to feel something.

The pressure. The void began to press on me, as if it was ocean, and I was somewhere very deep in it. Now, I wouldn't have gone further, but the prospect of choosing either of two available options wasn't very pleasing. Also, what could have happen to the already dead man? So, I just continued walking.

With each step, pressure grew. Trying to turn me around, or pin me down to an invisible ground. But I continued to press on, even as darkness around became somewhat akin to a sandstorm. Clawing into me, howling around me, eating away at my ghastly self.

"Fuck you" — I thought. Grit my teeth and continued to take a stubborn step after step. I decided that I was not going to be court-martialed, it did not happen when I was alive, and certainly not now while I was dead. Especially for something that was right to me. In retrospect, maybe the judgment option was actually better than the mess I got myself into.

That was also the moment I noticed the first scratch mark on me. It was strange to see myself as a literal ghost already. But a bleeding one? And still, it happened. The blood dropping from the scratch was dark, as black as anything else there. A perfect blending with the environment, I say. At least, I didn't feel any pain before sand whipped at my newfound wound.

The further I went, the more scratch marks appeared. The more painful it was. But now I had even more stimuli to go further, oozing black blood, beaten and in pain. Because pain usually meant being alive.

When the sandstorm had finally ended, I collapsed on the ground, unable to keep myself upright because of leaning forward. I swore and tried to get up, but sitting was already enough. From the sitting position, I could see another abomination, much dimly lit and looking a bit more human. And still a goddamn dark void around us. I cursed at the situation and the pain. I don't really remember my exact words, but it was pretty colourful for sure, because even that abomination commented on it:

"Your mouth is as foul as your thoughts are."

Then it gave me kind of a speech. Yadda-yadda, something about that "sandstorm" that I went through. Yadda-yadda, miraculous survival. This creature said that the surrounding darkness twisted me into something else entirely, as it did to other people who were too stubborn to die. Thus, I was selected to be one of those who will collect human souls and take them to this "lobby".

Not giving me time to ask anything, the void arround me suddenly disappeared, litting very brightly. Searing pain was barely manageable already, but jumped few notches higher, and then some, mostly concentrating in my neck, but present in my whole body. I groaned, but moving proved unsufficient. And when my vision finally adjusted for me to see... The first thing I saw a bit further down the road was a familiar helmet with my fucking neck poking out of it.

"Miraculous survival my ass."

All of it was in a fuzz after that. I remember standing up, picking up a helmet with my head in it, magically reattaching it back, lifting my bike from the ground and somehow magically fixing it in a span of few seconds, and then driving away at the ungodly speed, causing the horrified onlookers to scatter.

So, yeah. That's it. I became a dullahan, and the rest is history.

****

THE END.