FicWad

Chapter 1- The Beginning of the End
Shawn felt light and detached. He remembered that something just happened, but his head was in a fog and the memories slid through his mind untouched. He was surrounded by a soft, shining light, and he felt warm and at peace. Then he noticed that a shadow passed over his face and he realized that someone was standing over him.
"Who are you?" Shawn asked lazily.
This someone was distinctly male and scruffy. His hair was dark and shaggy, and his face was long and almost noble looking except that the face ended in a deep scowl. But what caught the boy's attention was the long, raven colored robe that brushed the floor and hid the man's feet.
"Why are you wearing a dress?" Shawn asked, half amused.
The man eyed Shawn disapprovingly.
"Come with me," the man replied shortly.
For some reason, Shawn obeyed without hesitation and walked toward the strange man. However, Shawn stopped short when he felt himself floating more than actually making his body move. He felt something was wrong, but he didn't understand. Feeling at a loss, he looked down and found that he wore a pure white robe that came to his knees.
"At least my dress doesn't show so much leg," the man said, amused at the boy's confusion. "Yes, yes, you're dead. How long does it take to figure that out?"
At the realization that he was dead, Shawn sobered up and felt deep sadness within him.
"Who are you and where are you taking me?" Shawn asked with a quivering lip.
"I'm the Grim Reaper. And don't give me the lip. I'm quite tired of it. And please don't whine and bitch about your family or unfinished business. I've heard it all before, and I don't care.
"Now about going to heaven or hell, I don't know, so don't ask. I'm taking you to get your soul judged. Oh and whether you are going to heaven or hell is based on yourself, so no crying if you are sent to hell. You'll do enough of that there so I don't need to hear it."
Shawn found all this too much and he started crying wholeheartedly.
"God," the Grim Reaper breathed. 'There is just no trying to talk to them.'
A staff appeared at the Grim Reaper's side. The bony staff had a long, curved blade at the top and this blade was tied to the body of the staff by a metal chain. A human skull also hung lopsided from the chain and gave Shawn a toothless grin.
With this staff the Grim Reaper gave Shawn a nudge. "We better get going."
Before them a river appeared, flowing quietly till it ran out of sight into the shady darkness. A small boat was set ashore on the bank. Shawn was perplexed since he did not see this place a minute ago, and he wondered what was behind him. The last fragment of his life perhaps? His body lying somewhere? Shawn felt the urge to go back and motioned to turn, but the Grim Reaper caught his shoulder.
"Don't look back," the Grim Reaper said gruffly, but kindly. "You might turn to a pillar of salt."
The Grim Reaper pushed the boat into the water and waited until the boy got in before he himself climbed aboard. The small boat was barely big enough to fit the boy and the man. The Grim Reaper used his staff to move the boat downstream. No talking came between them. Shawn had stopped crying, but he constantly kept sniffling. The Grim Reaper tried to control his temper, which set off easily and wasn't easy to control, but he tried and finally, he reduced himself to sighing audibly and rolling his eyes.
The ride down the Styx besides this was quite uneventful. Soon, or in the Grim Reaper's case forever later, they arrived at their destination, and the Grim Reaper moved to the shore and got out.
"Here is where your soul will be judged," the Grim Reaper told the sniffling boy and nudged him with the staff toward the woman in front of them.
The fair skinned woman was attired in a long, white, flowing robe. Her wings were thick with snowy white feathers, and her golden hair fell to her waist. She complacently looked down at the boy then at the Grim Reaper.
"I knew you would make him cry, Alexander! Can't you ever be nice?" she admonished the Grim Reaper, whose real name is Alexander.
Alexander looked indignant.
"He cried on his own! I mean, I had to tell him that he was dead!"
"Well, I'm sure you didn't comfort him!"
"Comfort him! You should talk! You send most of the souls that I lead to you to hell! No amount of comfort is going to help them there!"
By now the woman, whose name is Sophia, ignored Alexander's ranting and knelt to the boy to comfort him.
"I know you are scared, but do not worry. God looks after his children," she said softly to Shawn. She touched his heart, and he gasped as she took it from him.
Without his heart, Shawn felt like the life was being sucked out of him.
"What are you doing?" he rasped.
"I must judge your soul, so I need your heart to weigh against the feather of truth," Sophia said as she plucked one of her feathers from her wing. With Shawn's heart in one hand and her feather in the other, she carefully set each item on the opposite side of the scale. This scale stood about a yard high. The pivoting bar was at the top of the body of the scale and at each end of the pivoting bar was three long cords that attached to plates on which set a heart or the feather.
"If you had led a good life and had asked God to forgive your sins, your heart will equal the weight of the feather and you may enter heaven. If you were a sinner and had not let God into your life, your heart's weight will be greater than the feather and you will enter hell," Sophia explained impassionedly to Shawn.
Everyone watched as the little boy's fate would be revealed. Nothing happened at first and it seemed that the heart did in fact equal the weight of the feather until one side wavered and dropped heavily.
Shawn cried out," NO! I don't want to go to HELL!!!" And in despair he threw himself to the ground and cried profusely.
Alexander and Sophia were stunned. Not because Shawn was going to hell as he proclaimed, but because the side that fell was the feather, not the heart.
"I do not understand-" Sophia started.
"What the hell!" Alexander raged. "How did this happen? How is your feather heavier than the boy's heart?!"
"There must be some mistake!" Sophia exclaimed.
Meanwhile the boy was still set on going to hell.
Alexander, tired of all the commotion, pulled Shawn to his feet and said, "You're not going to hell. At least not yet. Just hold on a second. Sophia, do it again with another feather."
"I can't judge his soul twice!"
"Why not?" Alexander insisted. "With the way things are now, I would have to send you to hell!"
"I think not!" Sophia fussed. "Obviously, this boy has God's blessing and must be sent to heaven immediately."
Alexander wasn't so sure, but he let the boy go and shoved him to Sophia.
"Well, then, take him already. God knows I'm tired of him and all his crying."
"Don't cry, Shawn," Sophia cooed. "You're going to heaven. It's all going to be okay."
Shawn looked at Sophia hesitantly. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. Just come with me," she said and took his hand.
"Well, I have more souls to reap," Alexander said casually and vanished.
"Then I'll see you again shortly," Sophia called after him. "Unfortunately," she added as an afterthought and Shawn laughed.
"Why is he so sour all the time?" Shawn asked Sophia as they walked toward the pearly gates.
"Well, with a job like his, it's not easy being happy," she replied. "But don't worry. He's fine. Just think now of going to heaven and being in eternal peace."
Shawn thought about this.
"Will I have fun?" he said.
She laughed. "Yes, much fun."
They arrived at the gates.
"Well, go on," she said.
"You're not coming, too?"
"No, I have more souls to judge. But go, trust me, you are in good hands," she pushed him to the gates and left.
Shawn, alone now, felt uneasy, but the gates opened for him and he entered.
But-
As soon as he entered, the gates bent and twisted like pretzels and slowly began to rust.

-End of Chapter 1-


If you didn't understand some things, it's okay. Since I'm writing about the afterlife and I obviously have never been there, I draw on mythology to help.

Pillar of salt- biblical allusion to when God was destroying a city, but one family was allowed to leave, but couldn't look behind them at the burning city. However, the mother, thinking of her house burning, looked back and consequently turned to a pillar of salt. I just decided to throw that in there.

the river Styx- Greek mythology

judging of the heart, scales, feather of truth- Egyptian mythology