Valhalla

[WP] Upon your untimely death you are greeted by Odin, who asks you personally to be their right-hand man. Confused, you wonder how you have entered Valhalla, and Odin graciously calls upon your many victorious battles. You are a historical battle re-enactor.

*****

"I fear there was a mistake. All these battles were displays, an act for adults and children. Mostly children."

"A mistake, really?" the voice resonates deep and thunderous.

The afterlife is surprisingly similar to life on Earth. It lacks skyscrapers, pollution and angry citizens though. Instead, the sky is full of stars and the dead tend to gardens and drink together at a table. Houses are built out of wood like ancestors would have if they were gifted with eternal youth, mastery of a craft and the vigor and inspiration to start again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wind up in the wrong place."

It had been a fun life, all things considered. Not many can boast about making a living out of reenacting medieval battles for the sake of history associations or military enthusiasts.

The last one had been rather plain in terms of enthusiasm. Few in the team could match your motivation, you always had a vivid imagination to fill in the gap and give yourself a reason to act well.

Alec advances, he's been a colleague for the last decade or so. His shabby clothes are hidden underneath well-crafted replicas of a medieval armor. The fight is nothing like in the movies, the armors would deflect the sword strikes too well. No, you have one hand on the pommel, another on the tip, and you try to slip the deadly end in the split between two plates. The battle has left the opponent tired, a blood clot has formed on the opening of his helmet, his own or the one of a dead foe. It masks his view for a second, and your blade find its path, you see the enemy shatter like crystal and your soul shatters with him.

Wait. You catch yourself in the middle of a paved street. Pair of eyes suddenly dart up at you as if they've seen quite the worthy attraction.

"I don't make mistakes," more a law than a statement.

You look around you, who have you been following anyway? There's nobody except a few lively departed. The voice stems from everywhere and nowhere, all-encompassing.

Unsure, you keep walking as spectators nod at you in encouragement.

The fog of your mind takes shape around you.

"And that's how you sharpen a blade."

The kid looks at you in wonder. The sharping stone is just as fake as the sword, but the kid will think about it for a while, how it was done in times of old, how the heroes of his stories will all visit a blacksmith to have their weapons ma- One weapon isn't enough. A creature which travels through many paths beyond must be killed in many places. A champion will have the slay the body, and erase its history. The spear is easy and ready, the bronze glistening against the wide desert. Admirers will fawn over it and the deeds it accomplished with the wielder, yet few will ever know that the greatest work of art of this blacksmith wasn't a sword, but a weapon to kill history. You feed the fire, and start to work on the creation of your life. The first pen, and the first written word.

A gasp. You nearly fell.

There's a real crowd around you now, children sit on their parent's shoulders, friendly onlookers bid you a tankard. The drink smells sweet and honeyed, it staunches the thirst and warms the body.

"Look at them," commands the voice, "the bravest warriors to ever grace the world. Your greatness is of a different breed."

The words are alien, as are the gestures, but you pick up a hint of what the crowd is speaking about.

Your head.

None of them watches an inch of skin from your throat down, they are transfixed on your face, your eyes, your ears, your brain.

They sing for you.

"Your war has never been about muscles and courage. You are an artist lacking the proper canvas to express your art."

They split. Between the singing patrons, the spilled drinks and the crafty trees, a narrow gravel path. You walk it alone, they won't follow you there, not that it goes very deep. The circle is a feet or two beneath ground level at most, but once you look up, a thousand stars and moons look down on you, with just as many eyes. Each and every denizen of the afterlife can see you, does see you.

And they expect to be entertained.

A door clings open. Through crawls a beast too large for the small opening, the many heads scurry to find some air.

This is madness. You're you, not the expectations they have of you. You don't even know what this thing is.

One head sniffs you and licks its lips.

Hope dies in your heart as the absurd amalgam of teeth opens wide.

Your back is on the wall, your eyes closed shut. It will be over soon, it will be over soon. The teeth sink in your shoulder, the blood pours abundant.

But it was never about knowledge, was it? This isn't about the stories you've read or haven't read, it was about the stories you imagined and made up with the fertile fantasy of your mind, always perfectly adapted to the mockery of a fight you took part in.

Blood ceases to flow.

An egg forms along the edge of your spine, it bursts, and out comes a long, alabaster white leg, pointy like the limb of a spider. It darts and impales the beast's throat.

The crowd cheers in approval.

The beast takes a step back, its many bewildered heads struggling to understand while your new appendages grow. Ribs and spine crack to accommodate your new form, better suited for tonight's story.

Above, they watch in renewed silence, hopeful, expectant, anxious.

With a last, high-pitched splinter of your bones, you discard what was left of your old self. You raise your hands to the roaring crowd and pledge your allegiance to glory, now and forevermore. The beast has its back on the wall. There's nowhere to run.