Ron Walker stared down the same empty street he looked down everyday, except today was different. Today he was going to kiss this dull and dreary world goodbye. His life had been nothing but boredome. Same thing every single day. There was simply no point to it. Or at least that was what he thought.
Ron pulled out his knife, and placed it on the floor so that it was standing straight up. He didn't want to hang himself, that would cause some pain, and he didn't want to shoot himself in the head, too messy for the people he left behind to clean up. A quick fall on a knife would be quick, painless, and some might think of it as an accident. They would all learn soon enough.
He took a deep breath and took one last glance around his house. This would be the last time he'd ever see it. His body moved forward and the knife potruded into his heart. There was a slight piercing pain, but then it was all over. There was only darkness. Then a light. A small, glorious beam of light. Maybe the rumors he heard everyday were true. Maybe there was a heaven and a God after all. The light continued to come forward and eventually there was no darkness left. All the time he lay face down on the floor, waiting for some type of strength to return to him so that he could get up.
He finally regained his strength and was able to get up. His entire body felt sluggish, and a cold chill ran down his spine. Normally people talk about the afterlife being filled with wonderous things. Sometimes angels, or demons, or gods, or maybe even just regular people. Here there was nothing. The afterlife he now viewed was an empty void of nothingness. There was a bright light shining down on him, but he couldn't locate the source. He waited silently for what seemed like hours. Nothing happened. It was clear that nothing happened at all in this God forsaken place. He finally sat back down on the ground and cried. He wanted to go back to his home. He wanted to see his wife and kids again. He wanted to play a game of fetch with his dog. He wanted to watch a game of football with the guys. He wanted to be alive.
He continued to sit on the floor and sob. He sobbed for what could have been ages. Just sitting there sobbing and waiting. Waiting for something to finally happen. All the while nothing changed about him. His body never aged a day from what he was when he died. A muscular and in shape man of thirty.
Finally something happened. Not exactly an answer to Ron's prayers, but it was something. A black hooded figure with angelic wings flew down from the light source and landed in front of what was to him a shadow of a man that once had the perfect life. The figure stared Ron in the eyes and he stopped sobbing. He grew so cold that he felt his body had stopped moving completely. The figure finally began to speak.
"Ron, do you know who I am?" the figure asked?
Ron shook his head. The figure sighed in disgust and began to elaborate.
"Ron, I am the Angel of Death. The Grim Reaper."
Ron seemed shock. Grim sighed yet again.
"Who were you expecting? God?"
Ron, feeling foolish, nodded. Grim laughed a hearty laugh. Ron wouldn't expect a being as cold and heartless as the Grim Reaper himself would actually have a sense of humor.
Grim continued to inform Ron, "Only upstanding Christians get to see God. You, being the reject that you are, have found yourself in an interesting standing. You may not have met the requirements to make it into Heaven, but you weren't bad enough to make it into Hell, except for the whole suicidal choice thing, that was stupid." Ron stood and stared at him blankly. Grim was starting to lose patience. "Do you not understand you dimwit!? I am the GRIM REAPER. YOU DIED. I'M HERE TO DECIDE YOUR FATE. You would have been consulted with earlier, but I waited until you finally realized what a big mistake throwing your life away was. Took awhile, but you finally caved in."
Ron was finally beginning to understand. This was it. Life after death. The big choice. He had already been ruled out of Heaven so most likely he was going to burn and suffer for an eternity. Sounded like fun.
"You have a choice before we continue, you can stay here for forever, or you can give me your soul and I can choose another fate for you. I don't have all the time in the universe ya know, do you realize how many people die every minute?" Grim asked him. Ron contemplated. Anything was better than sitting in an empty void for all eternity, or was it? There was a chance that he would be banished to Hell and have to endure pain and suffering. He finally made up his mind, and he told the Reaper his choice.
"Take my soul and have me judged," he told him.
"Excellent, Its gonna be a helluva long day. Get ready, it kinda hurts to have your soul ripped from you."
Ron braced himself. Grim pulled his scythe back behind him and then swung. At first there was no pain, the scythe didn't actually cut him. It flowed into his body and the pulled out, but with it came his soul. That's when the pain hit him. It felt as if his body was being ripped in half, he struggled with the scythe for a minute, then it finally finished and he felt as if he flew out of his body, his shell. His old body fell over backwards, lifeless. Something didn't feel right. He had already died and left his body, why was his soul having to be ripped from yet another body, or whatever it was lying in front of him?
"Ah, I see you're confused. Yes, your old body is lying back on Earth, probably in the ground right now. What you see before you is your spiritual shell. Now your soul is free to go wherever you please. You can stay in here, fly around in the Netherworld, go back home and haunt some people who may have owed you money, or you can come with me and experience a whole other fate altogether," Grim told him. Ron considered the offer. He finally decided that whatever Grim had in store for him was probably better than haunting an abandoned house somewhere in his old hometown.
"I'll just follow you to wherever your going."
Grim chuckled. He turned around and swung his scythe in the open void. It cut a whole and created what seemed to be a dimensional rift or something. Grim opened the tear up so that Ron could fit through it. "After you newcomer."
Ron hesitated, then stepped through it. He seemed to be in a cave of some sort. It was a huge cave that had some kind of dark fog swirling through it. Grim followed after him and placed his bony hand on Ron's shoulder.
"Welcome to the Netherworld. You fell for my little trick. Your mine now. I had to rip out the part of your soul that could join me and my little army of mine. Welcome to my home."
Ron looked harder at the fog. He saw faces. Faces of souls. Faces of tormented souls that had been subjected to the same fate that he had. He should've known better. There's Heaven, there's Hell, and then there's this. He had chosen the latter. He felt a crushing force all around him and soon he was floating around with the rest of the souls, subjected to an eternity of swirling around in the Netherworld. The Angel of Death laughed and flew off to retrieve his next victim.
