I moved forward on the broken up red path. I honestly thought that it would look better than this. My heaven, the one that I always imagined, I would walk the path of peace. One that was lightly coloured and surrounded by such beauty. The smell of the wild flowers that grew on either side, and birds that greeted me with their song as I traveled up to the gates that waited for me. But this path was nothing like I could have thought up. Deep red almost like the colour of fresh blood, holes that where deep ran along it making it difficult for me to walk without my ankle turning over. Death was the thing that greeted me at either side of this path. Every step that I took was a reminder of death from the blackness of the ground to the skulls and bones of what looked like various creatures. I stumbled a few times and it forced me concentrate on where I was heading and not on what I was leaving behind me. I started to wonder then about what I would find at the end of the path, where was my little slice of heaven that was supposed to have been waiting for me at the end of my time?

Eventually the path grew narrower and at either side the blackened earth made way for huge gouges. I felt truly alone now. I could see some iron bars making an appearance in front of me and I knew then that I had arrived, I hadn’t arrived at the place where I thought I was heading, but at least I had arrived somewhere.

The gates were a rusted red colour and I could already feel the heat that was on the other side as I got closer to them. For the first time since my life ended I was beginning to feel scared but not only that I was starting to realise that I probably hadn’t been placed in heaven at all. Of course I had started to think about the place that I had come to on the walk up but now it was really starting to enter my head. I reached out after a few moments of looking at the bars of the gate only to snatch my hand away in a nanosecond after the boiling hot bars scorched the flesh on my fingers.

“Step away from the bars! Do not touch the bars!” The deep voice roared as a heavy set man walked towards me. “Name.” He snapped at me, not giving me any chance to speak first.

“Dean Maple.” My voice came out in a whisper of sorts as I could feel my voice box shaking.

“Name!” He barked louder at me.”

“Dean Maple.” I managed to repeat this time a little louder.

“Not on the list.” Was all he said before stepping further away from the bars.

“What? Sorry what do you mean.” Nothing about this was making any sense to me.

“Your not on the list, must of come here by mistake.”

“I don’t understand, where is here?” I asked, hopeful that at last I might be able to get some answers.

“This is hell. You are not on the list.”

“Hell.” I was so confused, why had I been sent to hell? I always did my best in life, tried not to live in anyway sinful manly for this reason. Why had I been sent here?

“You are not on the list so therefore you are not meant to be here.” The man spoke again and moved back towards me slightly.

“I don’t no where I am supposed to go. I don’t no what to do.” I sounded desperate now but this strange man, whoever he was that was in-front of me was my only hope.

“Step in.” He said suddenly after a few moments where I honestly thought he wasn’t going to talk to me again.

I stumbled forward slowly, of course I was nervous about walking through the gates of hell. After the way I had lived my life and all the story’s that I had heard about the place that I was now about to walk into. And don’t forget I was not supposed to be here.

“What happens now?” I asked as I washed him close the gates behind me as soon as I crossed over to his side.

“I’ll find out how to get you to where you are supposed to be.” He said and his voice had softened slightly. An overnight feeling of great fullness came over me.

“Thank you.” I managed.

“Keep walking and settle in, I will find you when the time is right.” And that was the last thing he said before he left me.

It has been weeks now, I am not sure of just how many, but a lot. It’s not all bad though, yes the time drags and as you might imagine it is hell but that is all to be kind of expected. When I first set off though from them gates and walked the long distance further into this place, I hadn’t a clue what to expect. I walked onward on a black gravel path. The place was as black as the sky at midnight with not a star to be seen. The only light coming from red lamps placed along the path. The sky erupted with the screams of hundreds if not thousands of me and my once beating heart jumped as if it still had some life left. Looking to my right and left faces started to appear out of the gloom. Both men and women were watching me as I walked, all with the same sorry full expressions on their faces. My blood ran cold. A doorway for what looked like the entrance to a room appeared out of nowhere in front of me, pushing it open I was greeted with yet more screaming, this time much louder than what was on the outside and people. People of various ages turned to look at me, all of them had ghostly expressions. The screams that could be heard didn’t appear to be coming from any of them. I noticed a number of people crouched down against the wall of the room all with their hands over their ears and heads, some rocking back and forth as if they couldn’t take the noise anymore. I wondered how long those people had been here, how long did it take for the noise around them to get too much?

I had been in that room for what I thought to be a few hours before a man turned to speak to me. “You have an eternity in here.” Was what he said, I didn’t correct him. I somehow didn’t have the heart to tell someone who would have that long in that place that it was only a matter of time before someone came to take me off to heaven. He had the same face as everyone else, like what ever had once lived inside of him was long since dead, there was nothing behind his eyes. I asked him then why he was in this place. “Life.” Was all he said at first.

I saw the same man again a while later and it was then that he told me about what his life had been like. He wasn’t the only person there then though and it wasn’t long before I was talking to a group of men about how it was that they came to be in hell. All had done truly terrible things when alive but not all the reasons behind them had been so simple. None of them that I had spoken too had done the things they had because they were terrible people, most did it in order to just survive and yet here they were for the rest of time in this place. All I kept thinking was how easy it could have been me. All it would have taken is one wrong move and I could have made the same mistakes as they had. Something else struck me though while speaking to them, it was just how honest they all were. They had done those bad things and they weren’t about to hide it.

As the days and weeks went on, I spoke to more and more of those that now called hell home. Most of them where the same, they had made bad judgment calls but all of them were honest. I had spent my whole life going to church and talking to the people that went there and never once could I have said those people where as honest as these, and non of those church goers where here. No they had made it into the place where I was heading, heaven. I started to think, where they the people that I wanted to spend forever with? I had spent my years on earth surrounded with that type and if I was honest they made me feel like nothing but crap. Why would I want to put myself through that again.

Hell is awful, as I guessed it should be. But there was something real about the place, more real than I would find anywhere. The people where honest about what they had done. Most of them where the worst that man kind could have spat out but they were all real and honest. No one lied about what they were l, no one was trying to be better than anyone else and no one stabbed another in the back, well in this place they didn’t a few had on earth but they told me about it.

Now that the weeks are passing and still no one has come to move me along, and I am glad in so many ways. The screams can get to you like they do so many every single day, but for me I want to stay because of the people I have met, real people.