Page 34 of Death Trap

We walked on for what felt like hours. When the front of the line finally came into view, I could have sworn I had aged a year or two. It sure felt like I had anyway.

The line ended at a small opaque window, reminding me of something you’d find at a bank or the DMV. A dark outline of a body shadowed the glass, as if someone were sitting there behind it. But it didn’t move. Didn’t speak. More to give the illusion that the souls were in line for a reason than anything else.

Once the buzzing sounded again and the number changed, the person in the front faded away the same way the person in the back appeared.

Looked like Eli’s assumption was correct.

“This must be purgatory.” Eli leaned closer to me, his massive frame hovering over me like a protective shield.

Purgatory? As in where bad souls were put before being placed into their proper Hell dimension? A border checking point before crossing over into the final destination, if you will.

I had no idea purgatory actually existed.

There was still a lot I didn’t know when it came to death and what came after. Heaven, Hell, purgatory… The afterlife was a lot bigger than the little slice of the one where I lived.

“Look, there’s a door.” Eli pointed to a large metal door beside the window with a push bar.

Had it been there before? I didn’t remember seeing it. A prickle of warning flared at the nape of my neck, but of course there was nowhere else for us to go. This was the end of the hallway.

“They’re really sticking with the office theme, aren’t they?” I chuckled mostly to myself.

Eli didn’t even look at me, let alone find my nervous laughter and bad jokes funny in this stressful moment. But I couldn’t help but notice the connection between here and Styx Corp. It was less drab in Styx, of course. More modern but with a similar business atmosphere.

I was starting to see a pattern. I wondered if Heaven was set up the same way.

“Are you ready to do this?” Eli asked, turning toward me. “There’s no telling what’s beyond that door.”

It was a mystery. One that could be deadly. We could walk into a room full of Halflings, leaving us to fight our way out. We could open it and land in a pit of spikes or flames. Or it could be another monotonous line leading to nowhere.

The only way we were going to find out was by going in, going through the door and facing whatever was on the other side.

I sucked in a deep breath and pulled all the courage I had left to the forefront. After all, I hadn’t come this far toonlycome this far.

“All right,” I said. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

The metal door opened the same way the elevator doors had. With a loud, hair-raising screech. I winced at the echo it made in the room beyond, which was dark except for the single spotlight in the center, which illuminated a microphone stand straight out of the fifties.

Eli and I exchanged confused looks.

“Definitely not what I expected for the entrance to Hell,” I whispered, still afraid there might be Halflings or demons hiding in the shadows.

He nodded.

“I guess all the fire and brimstone is in a different dimension? A different level or something?” I asked.

He nodded again.

“What do we do now?”

“I think we need to speak into the microphone there,” he replied, voice low.

“And tell it what? What we’re looking for?”

“It’s worth a try.”

I certainly wasn’t coming up with any other ideas. We entered the room, letting the door clatter shut behind us. Of course when I turned around, it was lost in the inky blackness of the rest of the room, which only made my uneasiness grow. We might not have run into anything serious yet, but so far, Hell sure had a way of making you feel stuck.

I swallowed roughly and walked along the path to the microphone. Eli was close behind, naturally.

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