Chapter Seven: Welcome to the Underworld!

 

            I sit up sharply, gasping for breath. Where am I? I look around frantically, observing my surroundings. I’m sitting on a clear, glass platform—in a place that looks like a cave made of this shiny, black stone. There are other platforms on both sides of me with a person lying on each of them. In the corner of the room is a makeshift doorway, probably leading to another room like this. On the other side of the room is another row of platform “beds.” Above my head is a large, black flower with black, thorny vines that crawl up and down the wall. There are black flowers above the other people in the room, but those flowers have a weird, sparkling light coming out of them and onto the people. Mine probably isn’t shining because I’m not “sleeping” like the rest of them.

            Just as soon as the others wake up, the flowers shut their lights off, and someone enters the room with these creatures trailing after them. The person is a deeply tanned female wearing a white blouse and a short, twirling gray skirt. Her hair is lime green and is in two curly ponytails to either side, and she’s got bright yellow eyes. She has a nurse’s hat on her head, black, feathered wings on her back, gray high-heel shoes on her feet, and a plain brown clipboard in her hands. The creatures with her are midnight black fuzz balls with huge, pink eyes. They have little, black bat wings and fangs. Aw, they’re so cute, but they’re probably evil.

            The strange woman walks to the center of the room. “Attention, everyone,” she says. When she has everyone’s attention—which she probably got when she first walked into the room—she continues. “Hello!” She sounds like a flight attendant or something of the sort. “Welcome to the Chamber of the Awakened! You are officially dead. I am RavenF23473-1, Attendant of Chamber23473, which we are currently located. These are Chamber 23473 Attendant Assistants, 23473A to 23473Z,” Raven23473 says as she motions to the fuzz balls. “We are here to prepare you for afterlife in the Underworld. The Chamber23473 Attendant Assistants will now come to you.”

            All twenty-six fuzz balls disperse, each one going to a different platform. A fuzz ball comes up to me.

            “Hello! I am Chamber23473 Attendant Assistant 23473F. We must add your information to the database. What is your full name?” I can hear the other fuzz balls saying the same thing in unison to the other people, except that the letter in their 23473 name is different. They sound a bit robotic.

            “Shawna Gwendolyn Kirk,” I answer.

            “What was your age, birth date, and birth place?”

            “I am—was—seventeen, and I was born on June 4^th of 1992 in…I don’t know where. My parents never told me.”

            23473F glares at me, and then moves on. “Are your parents alive?”

            “No…”

            He/she/it continues to ask tons of questions, just like Ms. Rogers. Oh, gosh. If I don’t make it out of the Underworld, she’ll probably think I committed suicide.

            After the fuzz balls finish asking the questions, they form a line in front of RavenF23473-1. They’re probably in alphabetical order. RavenF23473-1 sticks her forefinger out to 23473A, who bites it. RavenF23473-1 winces, and then presses her bleeding finger onto the first page on the clipboard. 23473A then flies behind RavenF23473-1, while 23473B moves up in line to the do the same. After all the pages have been marked with the blood, RavenF23473-1 talks again.

            “Attention, everyone,” she says once again. “The Chamber23473 Attendant Assistants gathered data on you all, and passed it along to me through their fangs and into my blood. The Grim Reaper’s Ravens and their Assistants are made especially to receive and transfer data to the Database, which keeps records on the Dead. Our blood carries the data onto each page of our clipboards. That’s all you need to know.”

            RavenF23473-1 presses a random spot on the wall, and a small slot opens up. She sticks the clipboard into it, the clipboard slides through, and the slot then closes up.

            “The Chamber23473 Attendant Assistants will now dress you in the Underworld attire.”

            On cue, another person wheels a cart full of gray cloth. The person is identical to RavenF23473-1.

            “Hello! I am Chamber23473 Attendant RavenF23473-2. I am here to bring your clothes.”

            I finally notice that I’m still in the black ribbon, and everyone else is only wearing the black ribbon, as well. At least it covers everything up.

            The fuzz balls crowd around the cart, each trying to get whatever is in there. Each fuzz ball brings back a gray cloak that looks like the same thing Andrea was wearing, but these are gray. Andrea! I almost forgot that I was supposed to be with her. I wonder where she is…

            The fuzz ball that comes to me carries a black cloak.

            “Prince Nikolai requested a black cloak for you. You must be special,” says 23473F. “Okay, hold still.”

            Somehow, without any arms or hands or fingers, he/she/it unwraps the ribbon from around me. I can feel myself blushing: I’m completely naked under the ribbon, and there are people here who can see me!

            “Arms up.”

            I do as the fuzz ball says, and, somehow, I’m wearing the cloak.

            Another identical Raven wheels another cart into the room, but this one has a bunch of black shoes inside.

            “Hello! I am Chamber23473 Attendant RavenF23473-3. I am here to bring your shoes.”

            The fuzz balls retrieve shoes for each person and put them on everyone’s feet.

            “Attention, everyone!” the three RavenF23473s say together. “We are ready to depart from Chamber23473 and make way for the next group of dead souls. If everyone could please form a line behind Chamber23473 Attendant RavenF23473-1, we will head to the dock of the Chamber of the Awakened.”

            Everyone takes their place in line. RavenF23473-1 leads the group with the newly departed souls following her. Next, are the twenty-six fuzz balls, and, lastly, the other two RavenF23473s.

            We walk out of the room like a kindergarten class and into an unbelievably vast and circular room. The walls are still black, cave-like, and shiny, and there is an enormous black flower on the ceiling that pours out light. Along the walls are more than a thousand doors, side by side. At one spot in the wall, there is a golden door that seems like it’s made for a giant. All around us are more Ravens and fuzz balls leading groups of people. All of the Ravens look exactly the same, as if they were made in a mass-production line, which they probably were.

            Everyone is heading towards the massive door. As we get closer to the door, I can see that there is a normal-sized door within the larger one. That is so pointless...Standing next to the actual door is man with lime green hair, yellow eyes, tanned skin, and black, feathered wings. He is wearing a gray suit and a tall, gray hat; his outfit looks like a gray version of a doorman’s clothes.

            “Hello! I am Chamber of the Awakened Door Attendant RavenM54722-1. I am here to hold to the door!” the doorman says, over and over again. I want to laugh so badly. He has a stupid smile across his face, and he seems so excited about being able to hold the door.

            I’m guessing that the “M” and the “F” in the Ravens’ names stand for “male” and “female.”

            We pass by RavenM54722-1 and through the door. We’re outside now, and it looks really weird. It’s absolutely humongous here, but you can still see the shiny, black rock way up, above our heads. It’s like a sky, but not really. And everywhere around us is deep, lavender-colored water. Well, I think it is water, because there are large ships floating at the shore. The ships look as if they’re made of pure black metal, and there are groups of people boarding them. The Chamber of the Awakened is sitting on an island in the middle of nowhere. Under our feet is more of that shiny, black stone. Our group heads to a random ship.

            The three RavenF23473s and the fuzz balls stop walking, as we board the ship. “Goodbye!” all twenty-nine of them say together. Then, they walk back to the Chamber of the Awakened.

            “Hello!” says the man waiting for us at the deck of the ship. “I am the Welcome Attendant of Chamber of the Awakened Ship0227, RavenM0227-1! I am here to welcome you aboard. Welcome! Chamber23473, please go to Chamber of the Awakened Ship0227 Floor Two. Chamber of the Awakened Ship0227 Passenger Guide0227, RavenF0227-6 will lead you there.” That sure is a mouthful. Geez, I wonder why they have to say all of that. I mean, we get the point, already.

            There’s a line of identical female Ravens standing to the side of the Welcome Attendant.

            “Hello! I am the Chamber of the Awakened Ship0227 Passenger Guide0227, RavenF0227-6. I am here to lead you to Floor Two,” the next Raven in line says. She then leads us across the deck, down the stairs, and through the hallway. “Your room is here in Chamber of the Awakened Ship0227 Floor Two Room Nine.” She opens the door and we all walk inside.

            Inside the room are three benches that are sitting against three of the walls. There’s a large, circular window on the far wall. We all sit down.

            “You are to stay here until the call is made that we have arrived at our destination. I will come back at that point.” RavenF0227-6 closes the door and leaves.

            I haven’t really noticed what the others look like. I’ll take the time to do that now.

            My group of twenty-six people includes me, two twin Hispanic girls, sixteen old people, a tall African American man and woman who are huddled against each other, a young Indian man, and four blonde teenage girls.

            The young Indian man ends the silence. “So…this is how it’s like being dead…Not how I expected it.”

            “Whoa,” one of the blondes says with a valley girl accent. “Like, you can actually, like, speak English?”

            “No…” he says.

            “Then, like, how are you talking to us?” another blonde says.

            “Maybe we can just automatically understand each other here,” I say.

            “Maybe,” the guy says. “So…Girl with the freaky hair, how’d you die?”

            Uh…My dead sister killed me so we can save the day in the Underworld! He’d really believe that. “House fire…” It’s the first way to die that comes to mind.

            “I’m sorry. I had heart problems,” he replies.

            “We got in a car crash,” one of the blondes says, motioning to the other blonde girls. “It’s, like, Sharon’s fault. She was driving.”

            “It, like, was not my, like, fault, okay, Amanda!?” Sharon defends.

            Amanda just sighs.

            “Girls, just quit fighting, okay? There’s, like, nothing we can do now. So, like, no point in, like, fighting. Anyway, my name’s Valerie.”

            “I’m Alexandria,” says the other blonde.

            “I’m Shawna,” I say.

            “My name is Ronak,” the Indian guy says. Then, he looks at the African American couple.  “You guys, how did you die?”

            “Our plane crashed when we came back from our vacation,” the man says.

            “How’d you two die?” Ronak asks the twins.

            “Our house was burned down,” one of them says.

            “Ah,” he replies. “So, where are we headed, anyway?”

            “CHAMBER OF THE AWAKENED SHIP0227 IS READY FOR DEPARTURE. CURRENT LOCATION: CHAMBER OF THE AWAKENED; DESTINATION: NECROPOLIS,” the speaker above our head blares, as if responding to Ronak’s question.

            “Necropolis, eh?” one of the old guys says. “I’ve read about this place in some book. Necropolis is Death City. The dead souls come to dwell in this place…well, not all of them, but many of them. Other souls go to different cities and towns in the Underworld. Anyway, Necropolis is where the Grim Reaper is. According to that book, Grim and his three sons dwell in Castle Necropolis, located on the farthest edge of the city.”

            That’s some weird mumbo-jumbo, geezer. But, considering what Andrea’s told me, this old guy’s speaking the truth. Nikolai, Angel, and Adrian are at Castle Necropolis, and Andrea and I must go and defeat them there. Gosh, I feel like I’m in a video game or a fantasy novel right now, or something.

            “Do you want to know about those green-haired freaks running around the Chamber of the Awakened?” he asks.

            Everyone nods. Why not?

            “Well, you see, ‘Grim’s Ravens,’ as they’re called, are really the dead souls of a race of people. Those people lived in a place formerly known as Rhyn, which is currently called Euthanasia Valley—”

            Euthanasia Valley!? “I live there! Or, rather, I lived there. The people who lived there were all plagued by some disease, and so, these other people came and killed them in order to end their suffering,” I explain.

            “Correct! However, it was the Grim Reaper’s plan all along. Long, long ago, Rhyn was the United States before Thomas Jefferson and George Washington took over and before the Native Americans came. Rhyn was ruled by King Thessidian. Somehow, everyone in Rhyn, except the king, became plagued by that disease. On the day that the king was to die, he made a bargain with the Grim Reaper: the Grim Reaper would spare King Thessidian’s life, and in return, the king would give Grim the souls of Rhyn’s people to use as eternal servants. The Grim Reaper agreed to this, but, he ordered King Thessidian to kill the millions of people himself.

            “When the Grim Reaper owned the souls of each and every one of the Rhynians, he created the Chamber of the Awakened and used his new servants to operate the chamber in an orderly and organized way. The Grim Reaper reprogrammed their brains and took away any trace of human nature in their souls. They’re basically robots now. Grim removed their memories, however, he left the one memory of King Thessidian killing them all,” the old man explains.

            “Wow,” says Alexandria. “So, like, did they always, like, look like that? I mean, like, with the green hair and stuff?”

            “Certainly,” replies the old man. “As for the cute, little fluff balls that dressed us and asked us questions…The Grim Reaper crafted them out of the Darkness and Evil in dead souls. Although, some people’s souls contain too much Darkness and Evil, so Grim has to destroy those.”

            “Like, what are they called?” Sharon asks.

            The old geezer thinks for a moment, and then responds with a simple, “Fuzz balls.” Just “fuzz balls.”

            “Wait, really?” I ask.

            He nods.

            Aha! I was right! They really are fuzz balls.

            I notice that another of the elderly people is literally steaming with anger. She stands up and shouts, “I’ve had enough of you! All you’ve been talking about is a bunch of complete riffraff. How dare you fill all of this nonsense in these kid’s heads.”

            Ugh, she seems like the kind of old lady that sits outside on her porch, waiting for you to do something innocently stupid. And then, when you do that something, she nags you to death for it.

            “Oh, boy,” she says again. “If I still had my cane, I’d bop you on the head with it!”

            “Look here, missy!” the old guy says. He, too, stands to his feet. “You don’t know anything. I’ve studied the Underworld for years, and I know for a fact that this isn’t nonsense.”

            The rest of us sit in an awkward silence while the two elders argue like an old, married couple. I sigh. I guess they won’t be running out of breath or getting tired any time soon, because they’re already dead. I don’t think you have necessities in death, or, at least, I sure hope you don’t. It’d be kind of dumb if you did, though. I mean, if you don’t take care of your daily needs while you’re living, you’ll die, but if you’re already dead then…

            “So, Shawna,” Ronak says, probably trying to occupy time by having a conversation rather than listening to the old people battle it out, “Who’d you leave behind?”

            “Oh, uh, Shane and Theresa and Pete,” I reply.

            He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just looks at me as if he’s waiting for me to say something more. Oh! Right…He doesn’t know who Shane, Theresa, and Pete are. Whoops.

            “Oh, sorry,” I apologize. “Shane is my cousin, Theresa is his fiancée, and Pete’s my pet frog. Who did you…leave behind?”

            “No one…Hey, do you think we’ll see the people we loved and lost before? Here, I mean.”

            “I hope so,” Amanda says, and the rest of us agree with her.

            “I lost my parents a few years ago, and I lost my best friend three months ago,” I say. We’re dead and may be stuck together for the rest of eternity, so there’s no point in keeping any secrets. Anyway, I like these guys.

            “I only grew up with my grandmother, but she passed away earlier this year,” says Ronak.

            “I’m sorry guys,” says Sharon. “Neither me, nor my friends here have lost anyone, like, close to us before.”

            Her three friends nod their heads.

            “So, you’ve never met your parents before, Ronak?” Alexandria asks.

            “I have, but it’s just that I don’t remember them. They died, too, when I was still a baby. I really want to see them again.”

            I want to see my parents again, too.

No sun☼shine here

            “CHAMBER OF THE AWAKENED SHIP0227 HAS ARRIVED AT NECROPOLIS. ALL PASSENGER GUIDES OF CHAMBER OF THE AWAKENED SHIP0227 ARE ORDERED TO REPORT TO THE NECROPOLIS WELCOME HALL WITH THE PASSENGERS THEN RETURN TO THE CHAMBER OF THE AWAKENED SHIP0227 FOR DEPARTURE.”

            RavenF0227-6 returns to our room a few seconds after the speaker’s announcement.

            “Attention, everyone!” she says as she bursts into the room. “I am here to guide you to the Necropolis Welcome Hall. Please line up behind me, and I will lead the way.”

            Raven0227-6 leads us through the hall of the second floor of the ship, up the stairs, and across the deck. Other groups are in front of us and behind us.

            “Hello and goodbye! You are now leaving Chamber of the Awakened Ship0227 and heading to the Necropolis Welcome Hall,” says RavenM0227-1.

            Our passenger guide takes us off of the ship. We’re at another dock with identical ships full of identical Ravens and gray-cloaked dead people on their way to the Welcome Hall. There’s no hint of the Chamber of the Awakened across the lavender-colored sea or on the purple horizon.

            The Welcome Hall is sitting on top of the giant hill before us, peering down like a king in all his malevolent grandeur. The building seems to be made of the same material as everything else in the Underworld. I wonder what that stuff is, anyway. The Welcome Hall has only one door that leads outside and no windows, as far as I can tell, which looks exactly like the door of the Chamber of the Awakened: metallic gold, humongous made for a giant, with a smaller version inside it.

            When we reach the top of hill and the shining door, another Raven doorman greets us. He’s standing behind a dark gray podium.

            “Hello! I am RavenM54690-1, Ticketmaster of the Necropolis Welcome Hall. I am here to give you your tickets. When inside the Necropolis Welcome Hall, walk up the stairs and enter the Welcome Hall where the Welcome Ceremony will take place. Your ticket will tell you where to sit,” he instructs.

            RavenF0227-6 says her goodbyes, the door opens for us, and we walk inside. The only thing is this room is a wall-to-wall staircase without any railings or banisters. A sparkling, silver carpet has been rolled down the stairs. The room is pitch-black; however, the shining carpet provides our guiding light. At the top of the stairs are silver double doors. We open the door and light pours in.

            “Ooh, ow,” I say under my breath, squinting. I’m not used to seeing light now that we’ve been in this dark stair-room.

            So, this is the Welcome Hall. There are gray-clothed seats all around the immense place, all leading down to a circular area. In the circular area is a single silver podium with a microphone attached to the top. Half the seats in the hall are filled with the gray-cloaked dead.

No sun☼shine here

            “Hello! Welcome to the Underworld!” says the man at the podium in the center of the stadium, his loud and clear across the giant room. From my position in the Welcome Hall, he appears to be a Raven, only a rather muscular one. His hair is green, but long and flowing. I can’t tell what color his eyes are, but if he’s a Raven, they must be yellow. His skin looks nice and suntanned, too. How strange. Also, I’m surprised that he didn’t introduce himself like the other Ravens. “You have been gathered here today, because you are officially dead. Every one of you will be residing in one of the various cities of the Underworld for the rest of eternity.” Eternity—what fun. “Upon leaving the Necropolis Welcome Hall, you will then attend another meeting at the Welcome Hall of the town you will be residing in and also a tour there, too. In your own city, you will reside you’re your already dead immediate family members. If your immediate family still lives, you will dwell alone in your new home until they pass. When they die, they will come to stay with you. So, let us begin by assigning you all to your new hometowns.”

            The weird Raven concludes after an eternity of calling each and everyone’s names and assigning a place to each and every one of them. I’m to stay here in Necropolis, supposedly with Mom, Dad, and Andrea. Oh, and also Grim and his sons. We’re all at the capital city of the Dead, although, not in the same house. Anyway, I have to remain in Necropolis’ Welcome Hall for another ceremony thing, and then I have to go for a tour. Ugh, when is Andrea coming to get me? She told me that she would meet me at the Chamber of the Awakened, but now I’m already in Necropolis, and there’s no sign of her anywhere…