"Am I dead?"
Anelle pushed herself off the ground. A dull ache erupted across her chest. The image of her step mother and father lying in a pool of blood brought tears to her eyes. She grabbed at her chest. The tip of a spear burst from her chest over and over in her mind. Searing pain expanded across her sternum.
She shivered.
Anelle fell to the ground and wretched over the edge of the stone platform. The stone was a dark grey with marbled white lines running through it. A chasm of black shadows swirled below, tendrils reached up towards her desperate to drag her down. Out in the distance grey stone pillars stood tall, with large shining symbols the size of a person.
Soft light cast white waves over the stone. Anelle turned towards the light. A rugged archway loomed over her, hundreds of feet into the air. Symbols carved into the surface glowed. The centre was filled with a swirling mist. Whispers of the mist beckoned Anelle forward. It promised a sweet release from her pain and misery. Rest.
Anelle took another step forward. A screeching sound echoed across the space and finished with a heavy clang. She jumped. The archway was now obstructed with wrought iron bars. The ground before the gate was scratched with circular indents.
The white mist stretched out through the bars and compressed into a translucent figure of a woman. She knelt slumped against the gate facing the bars, sobbing and mumbling the same words over and over. "Please, please let me in… Please…" Her hands stretched through the bars and the white mist licked at her fingertips.
Another woman swirled into existence next to the first. Her fist banged on the iron. Her voice was hollow from endless screaming. More women and men sat or stood looking through the bars. They sobbed and cried alone, unable to see the others misery. Why had they been denied entry? Why had she?
Anelle held her arms around her chest and sobbed. She did not know these people but she wanted to soothe their pain. Anelle reached out a hand to one of the crouching figures but her fingers fell through. The figures puffed into vapours, their sobs and screams echoed through the chamber one last time.
She could not explain why but she knew this was wrong. Most people would pass through the gate but a few had been singled out. Why? She lent her head against the bars. Why her?
"Oh mighty Galrencia in heaven," she whispered, "why have you forsaken me. Please I beg you to help me now for I do not know how to go on."
Silence was her only response.
Anelle waited before the gate. What else could she do? Her body became heavy and she felt her consciousness slipping. She gladly gave in.