The Pleasures of Hell 01.001

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~~Day 16~~

One week later, the pathology results came back. About time, because David was one day away from dying again, Mia's ghost hands wrapped around his ghost throat. He didn't dare tell her they got lucky and the doc ordered a priority test, fearing a bio hazard issue. It could have taken almost a month.

"All results negative." The doc sighed as she shook her head, standing beside David's body. Sixteen days of being dead made him look pretty damn gaunt and gross. David didn't mind, but Mia couldn't look. "First time I've been stumped in a long time. The school reports no health issues anywhere. They've checked their water. They've checked the food these poor kids were eating, if you can call it food. They've checked the air filters. They checked the plates for any traces of a toxic chemical. Nothing. Even their brains looked perfectly fine, no tumors, nothing. And with no family history, no family of any kind to look into, I have no choice but to consider this a death by unknown natural causes."

David winced. He winced harder when Mia punched him in the shoulder.

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The two of them sat on the curb outside the morgue, middle of the night, and watched the traffic go by. Not a busy part of the city, and it was the middle of the night, in Canada. There was no traffic.

"Satisfied?" Mia asked, gesturing back behind them toward the morgue with a hand flick. "Two weeks."

"Sixteen days."

"Shut up. Christ, I can't believe I waited."

David gestured to the building across the street, a clothing store, with its glowing gold door inviting them to come into its warm embrace.

"You really didn't want to know how we died? You could have left any time."

"I wanted to know, but when the doc said there wasn't anything obvious, I was cool to leave," she said.

"Then--"

"I wasn't going to leave my brother!"

Sighing, he smiled at her and gave her a small nudge with his shoulder. "Thanks."

"Yeah, well, I was also terrified of doing this alone."

"Likewise."

"So... what do we do?"

He gestured across the dark street to the glowing door. "We work up the courage, and cross the threshold into a new world we know nothing about, unable to return."

"Fuck me, you couldn't say that in a nicer way? A more optimistic way?"

"Sorry. Uh... we'll... be going to Heaven."

"We're atheists."

He shook his head. "Speak for yourself. I'm agnostic."

"Just a pussy atheist."

Laughing, he stood up, and held out his hand to her. "I don't think whatever's waiting for us through that door is a horrible place, Mia. It doesn't feel horrible."

She grabbed his hand and stood up, eyes locked on the glowing door waiting for them.

"Could be a trick, by some cosmic horror thing, you know? Like, an angler fish that feeds on souls."

He stared at her. "Uh... what?"

"Just, something I read."

"Stop reading scary stuff. You're like one of those women who listens to crime podcasts to fall asleep."

"I've only done that twice," she said, scrunching up her nose.

"Lies. At this point, I'm sure you could not only successfully get away with murder, but you'd enjoy it."

"Lies!" She punched him in the shoulder again in that weak way she did when she was nervous, and squeezed his hand. "Convince me to go."

"Alright. Like I said, it doesn't feel horrible. It feels nice. It feels... welcoming, right?" He pulled her toward the glowing door. A car drove by, and cut through them. They didn't react. Sixteen days of wandering around the world as a ghost desensitized them quite a bit.

"It does. Feels warm."

"Feels like... like..."

She squeezed his hand tighter. "Home?"

He squeezed her hand tighter. "Does it? Feel like a home?"

"No idea. I'd always hoped it'd feel like this."

"I guess... I guess I did, too."

David and Mia talked about everything. From the music and movies they liked, to their weird sexual interests. They talked about the things and the people they hated. They talked about school shit, and the friends they'd made but could never keep.

They didn't talk about home, and the lack thereof.

He stared at the glowing yellow door leading into Clyde and Martha's clothing store. There was a bar down the street called The Last Night, which would have fit so much better, but whoever was putting the gold doors everywhere didn't seem to care about that perfect opportunity. So, Clyde and Martha's clothing store it was.

They came closer, and squeezed each other's hands tighter as the glowing gold aura enveloped them. The door was still closed, but they were close enough to touch it, close enough all they had to do was reach out and push it open, assuming they could touch it at all. He didn't touch it yet, neither did Mia, and the two of them stood in the glow as it buried them in the strangest, most inviting, delightful, relaxing sensation he'd ever felt. And he knew Mia felt the same.

She was right. It felt like coming home to a warm fire, with a family, and a nice bowl of porridge with bananas and brown sugar waiting--or sugar cereal, even better. Or, it was how he always imagined that sensation in the stories he read. Shitty, juvenile stories about people who get lost in the woods and stuff, and manage to find their way home after a hard journey. A guilty pleasure, and he knew Mia read those stories, too.

"So, uh..." He gulped, and peeked down at his sis. "Wanna open it?"

"You want me to do it?"

"You're better at this sorta stuff."

"What?" she asked. "Opening doors?"

"Being brave."

She sucked in a harsh breath. "Bullshit. I still can't squash a spider."

"You yelled at that cashier when he double charged you a few months ago. Doesn't get much braver than that."

After a weak chuckle, she took a deeper, better breath, and nodded.

"Alright."

Mia reached out, and pushed open the door.

More gold washed over them, warm, inviting, something that soothed his ghost muscles until he almost fell asleep standing up. But no, it wasn't a need to sleep that pulled him. It was the deep warmth that told him everything would be alright, that everything would be right and whole and make sense if he just walked forward, and left all his burdens behind.

Mia took a step forward, her hand in his, and he followed.

The gold light parted, showing a stairway of pure white marble, hundreds of feet wide and shallow, easy to climb. To the left, endless clouds, laced with flowing gold waves that dripped and poured over puffy edges that looked more like cotton pads than clouds. To the right, same thing.

They weren't alone. Other naked people walked up the stairs, eyes wide and looking around, struck with awe, same as the two of them. No one cared about the nudity. Everyone was too mesmerized, confused, and being drawn in by the warmth that told them to go up the stairs. Up, and up, to the giant golden gates waiting for them.

David and Mia both looked up and froze.

It was Heaven. The stairs, the clouds, the gold gates, yeah sure that definitely painted the image of Heaven, but it was the colossal floating islands above that convinced him. Enormous islands, hovering, the undersides titanic planes of cloud, topped with gold cities. Even from miles and miles away, he could tell they were giant, big enough to house millions and millions of people.

Mia squeezed his hand, and they walked up the stairs more. It looked like there were thousands upon thousands of steps ahead of them, but each step they took somehow took them up a thousand steps seamlessly. It'd take them no time at all to reach the golden gates at the top.

Mia stopped, forcing David to stop on the next step.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, I just... Sir!" Mia waved a hand at two people walking up next to them. "Hey, you look like you speak English."

The man was definitely an older gent, probably in his eighties, likely dead to old age or cancer. He smiled at Mia, and to his credit, he didn't even glance down at her naked body. No one cared about anyone's nudity here. No one could, with the gold aura flowing down the stairs filling everyone -- David assumed -- with the strange warmth that told them to relax, and be welcome.

"Yes young lady?"

"Hi, hi... hi. I um, I just... wanted to know if you know anything... about this?" She gestured around at the endless clouds, the floating islands in the distance, and the golden gate at the top of the stairs.

The man blinked at her, before donning a warm smile.

"Lady, my legs feel good."

"I'm sorry?"

"My legs." He gave his old, brittle-looking legs a slap. "My legs feel good! I spent the past ten years unable to walk. Legs couldn't take it. But I'm walking now. I feel good, now. What possible reason could there be for an old fart like me, to be walking up some white stairs, surrounded by white clouds, with golden mist pouring over us?"

"We're dead."

He shook his head. "Seems to me like we're just heading into a new phase of life. A pretty good one, by the feel of it." With a playful, classic, silently wise pat on her shoulder, the old man winked, and started up the stairs again.

"Was that necessary?" David asked her.

"Just doing what you do. Gathering intel."

"I uh, I think even I'm satisfied, Mia. We're walking up the stairway to Heaven."

She groaned and ran her fingers through her long red hair. "So much for being an atheist."

He chuckled. Much as he tried to make it sound natural, it sounded nervous as hell, and he held out his hand again for her. No way he was walking up these stairs without his sister.

She took it.

The closer they got to the top, the more things came into view, distant objects growing sharper, and more people joined them on the stairs. People faded into view calmly and smoothly, never a jump scare, even when someone faded into view right in front or beside him. More, and more people, until at least a thousand surrounded them.

David hated crowds, and he knew Mia did, too. Maybe not as much as him, but the two of them avoided crowds like the plague. This didn't feel like a crowd. Everyone around him was someone, someone he could care for, someone he could love, someone he could ignore or walk away from if desired and not be bothered or judged for it. There were no strangers here. The glowing light told him everyone here was trustworthy, and there was no need for the mental barriers he usually put up to guard himself from others and their words.

One look at Mia told him she was feeling the same thing. No one, including them, tried to avoid touching shoulders with the others as they climbed the stairs. It didn't feel bad, or weird or strange or cringe, to suddenly touch skin on skin with the strangers they walked with. No one minded.

There were plenty of young people, some way too young, but most of the people on the stairs were old. Everyone was smiling. The kids didn't seem to understand the gravity of what was happening, and many ran up the stairs giggling and hopping around. The elderly definitely understood, and they giggled and hopped around, too, many standing up straighter than necessary, just because they could, for the first time in a long time; they couldn't help but tell David that as they walked past.

David looked up again, to the sky. Or were they above the sky, looking up into space? That didn't make any sense. Heaven or whatever this place was wasn't a physical location in the universe, right? And yet, they were surrounded by clouds, with more below them than above. The higher they climbed the stairs, the more they left the clouds behind, and the more the endless sky of the cosmos revealed itself.

Except, it wasn't a sky he recognized.

"What the fuck," Mia whispered, staring up.

"Yeah."

The giant floating islands still blocked a lot of his view, along with other clouds higher up, but much of the sky opened as they climbed, and showed distant stars. And nebulae. And swirling galaxies. It looked less like outer space, and more like an artist's representation of it, exaggerated and alive with motion. Like, having the aurora borealis in your kitchen.

"Wow," Mia said.

"Yeah."

They continued. As much as the floating islands and their gold cities, and the cosmic infinite above were hypnotizing, the golden gates ahead of them grew closer and closer. And they were huge. He'd thought they might have been fifty feet high at a distance, but as they got closer, he had to change his guess to five hundred feet, and more. Towering gates of gold, vertical bars thicker than skyscrapers and reaching just as high. The closer they got, the more details came in, ornate carvings on the giant metal, letters or maybe runes he didn't recognize. And thousands upon thousands of statues and carvings in the metal, too, angel wings and shields and swords, arranged in symmetrical patterns on the glorious display.

As the white stairs approached the colossal gates, soon the souls -- no point in denying it, they were souls -- weren't the only ones there. Angels awaited them. At first, dozens, then hundreds, then thousands. Classic angels to his surprise, men and women standing six to seven feet tall, sometimes taller, with enormous wings of white feather at their backs, and each wearing silver and gold armor straight out of a medieval fantasy.

The glorious beings stood along the outer edges of the stairs, each with a giant spear in their right hand, and a five-foot shield in their left, the base of it resting on the stairs. Their helmets had a T slit, exposing their eyes, nose, and mouth, and Mia and David both stared as they drifted toward the right side of the stairs to get closer looks at their faces. Those, were gorgeous faces. Really gorgeous faces. Each second angel was male or female, the women usually slightly shorter and slenderer than their male counterparts, but every one of them was utterly beautiful.

And they smiled. Calm, patient, welcoming smiles, with vibrant eyes that struck him still. Brown eyes? No, not quite. More like... a brown mineral? Like a pretty brown stone, the kind with different shades and white lines in them. Others had green eyes likes his own, but again, green just didn't fit. Emerald. Blue? No, lapis. Red? No, ruby. Intricate, powerful colors, that left him and Mia staring at them.

"Um, hi," Mia said, approaching one of the angels, David in tow. "I uh... um..."

"Welcome," the woman angel said, a black woman with eyes so powerful they almost glowed. Amber? "Rest in peace."

"Rest in peace?" Mia gulped and stared up at David. "That's ominous."

The angel's smile did not waver, but she did chuckle, a quiet, but deep and warm sound. It matched the warmth of the stairway to Heaven perfectly.

"You are welcome here, in Heaven," the angel said. "Come, and rest in peace."

"We're welcome?" David asked. "I thought we'd have to be judged or something."

"You have been judged. Heaven would not have opened herself to you otherwise."

Oh thank God. Literally, apparently. Both Mia and David breathed deep, with heavy sighs as relaxation coursed through them. They weren't climbing the stairs just to get judged and tossed into some dimension of eternal torture.

"The... gold light doors we kept finding?" he asked. "And... her?" Was Heaven a woman? Nah, probably a metaphor, like a ship.

The angel nodded, amber eyes staring into his soul. Beautiful, and warm, but also terrifying. Those weren't human eyes, and eye contact was more than enough to warn him this woman was powerful, and ancient. He didn't know how he knew. He just knew.

"She has welcomed you, and opened herself to you."

"Sounds sexual," Mia said, snickering slightly before coughing and standing up straight. "Sorry, I--"

"Do not be sorry. You will have no need for guilt or shame or regret here. Heaven believes you belong here, with all your quirks and desires intact."

David smiled. He couldn't help it, this angel was so perfectly direct.

"And if... Heaven hadn't wanted us?" Mia asked.

The angel sighed and shook her head. "Then no golden door would have come to you. Hell herself would have reached up and fought to rip your souls from the In Between."

Mia and David looked at each other, and gulped. That sounded horrifying. Dying and finding gold doors everywhere inviting them to enter had been scary, but what the angel said made it sound like Hell would have come at them, chased them, and pulled them down. He couldn't help but imagine a closet door swinging open behind them, filled with fire and bones, with demon hands reaching out and trying to pull them into a world of endless pain.

"Scary," Mia said.

"Indeed. But you are safe here in the warmth of Heaven's embrace." Nodding again, the angel gestured up toward the gold gates waiting for them. "Go, be blessed with new bodies, and enjoy the light and waters of Heaven for as long as you desire."

"New bodies?" David asked.

The angel grinned, a little playfully at that, but didn't answer.

David and Mia looked at each other, shrugged, and started the climb again. More and more angels waited, a line of armored bodies with magnificent wings, all of them standing guard, but not as emotionless statues. Now that David and Mia walked near the angels on the right side, they couldn't help but look at them, meet their eyes, and scan them for any sort of hint about what was going to happen. Nothing. The angels gave nothing away, except that they were all ridiculously handsome. Absurdly, almost disturbingly beautiful, and sexy. And tall. David and sis paused to stare at a few more than once, and from the looks the angels gave them in return, they were used to it, and didn't mind. One of them winked. One of them frowned. Okay, so, most of them were friendly, but not all. Good to know.

They got closer, and closer, and squeezed each other's hand harder as the stairs tapered off into a flat path, and the giant gates of Heaven waited for them. While the armored angels with giant shields and spears remained, there were angels closer to the gate in different clothes. Still in armor, but the armor was lighter, showing bits of white silk hanging from between the joints, and their helmets left their faces completely exposed.

He thought the angels lining the stairway were beautiful. These new angels, still just as tall and fit as the other angels, were ridiculous. Not all of them wore armor, either, some of them apparently happy to be wearing simple silk white robes and sandals, showing dozens of gold bracelets, necklaces, stomach chains, ankle bracelets, rings, and even gold tattoos. Compared to the insane majesty of the gold gate, the angels and their bling looked subtle and tasteful. And their robes did absolutely nothing to hide their curves. Yeah, the men had Mia staring and borderline drooling, and the women had David doing the same. That, was a lot of muscles, slim waists, and enormous breasts, and their robes showed off a lot of it. No bare breasts, but considering the silk was borderline see-through, nothing was left to the imagination.

He was going to like it here.

While all the angels seemed to look basically like extremely tall humans who'd all won the genetic lottery on beauty and fitness, there was one angel who did not fit the bill. And unlike the other angels, this one was straight-up terrifying and made no efforts to suggest otherwise. They stood at the center of the stairs in front of the gate, behind a huge pulpit of white marble and gold metal. They held a massive sword with both hands in front of them with its tip against the floor, and their helmet hid their face in shadow save for two glowing gold eyes.

But the biggest difference was the size, and the wings. Whoever this juggernaut of an angel was, they -- he couldn't see any sex-defining features -- were twelve feet tall, and they had six wings. Six giant wings that somehow fit together perfectly against their armored back. Looking at this angel felt less like looking at an angelic being of beauty and grace, and more like like some sort of titan guardian, ready to awaken the moment someone stepped out of line. Thankfully they didn't so much as breathe as Mia and David walked by.