Afterlife.

[BoxHead]

This is my first fan-fiction. Apologies if you don’t like it and cheers if you do.

Chapter Links:

Spoiler:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27

AFTERLIFE.

Chapter 1: Memories.

“D-don’t leave me… HAYDEN!” Everything got dark. I could barely grasp her face anymore. I almost forgot her name… It was… Laura…. It was getting darker… I could see faces. It was the faces of my parents, of my friends, and of her. Everything was turning dark…

My eyelids stretched open. I rose from my bed and scratched another mark in the wall. “How long has it been since then…?” I thought to myself. “How long since I’ve died?” After a few minutes of counting, I got roughly over a year and a half, exactly 555 days. I walked towards the door and shoved it open as I gazed over my fate. It had been over a year and a half since I had been assigned here. Unlike that previous memory, I remembered it clearly…

BANG! BANG! BANG! “Next…” It had called to me. The death guards, skeletal figures with black smoke fuming out of their heads, pushed me forward with their spears toward the large podium. Above me was a skeletal giant, embellished with a lavishly jeweled necklace and a long purple robe. His hand held his gavel that he would hit he podium every time someone was assigned. His black, soulless eyes literally pierced into my soul.

“Another young one…” Said a booming voice mixed with anger and sorrow. The Judge stared down, either pitying me for dying at a young age of 17 or being stupid enough to perish at this age. You could say it is a mixture of both, but it didn’t matter as he quickly made his decision by going through my life. “Your life is filled with many good things… Bravery, responsibility, trust, love… However, you have tainted that with sacrifice, lust, solitude, and despair,” I wish I could’ve explained everything to him, but my mouth was sealed. Even if I could explain something to him, he would have just ignored me. However, inside me, I knew he was right.

BANG! BANG! BANG! “Level 3. You have earned to live your afterlife in the Field of Rest. Live it well, as this is your last life. Next…” As I trudged onwards with the death guards, escorted me to an elevator, which I took up. Inside there was a diagram showing 7 levels up and 6 levels down. From the top:

7: Eternal Palace
6: City of Bliss
5: Islands of the Blessed
4: Realm of Light
3: Field of Rest
2: Forest of Mystery
1: The Mountain of Peace
-1: Plateau of Inferno
-2: Blighted Fields
-3: Basin of Demons
-4: Realm of Shadow
-5: Frosted Volcano
-6: The End.

That last level scared me a bit, however, seeing all those amazing levels above me made me feel even worse. It’s called the Field of Rest? Seriously? Would I just sleep? The Eternal Palace and City of Bliss sounded perfect, and levels 5 and 4 weren’t s bad either. Heck, even 1 and 2 sounded better than level three. I told myself that I had to wait and see if it was as bad as I thought. When the elevator doors opened, I was in an apartment.

“This is your living quarters from now on… Do not complain and do not rebel, or your fate will be worse than your previous one.” Said the death guards as they pushed me. The elevator doors closed as a wall appeared in its stead. I started touching the wall, seeing if I could get, out but it was useless. Luckily, my mouth and hands were unbound as I walked to the front door to see this Field of Rest. Was it as bad as I thought? No, but it wasn’t good either.

This field was a wheat field that seemed to go on for miles and miles. It was just endless hills of wheat and grass. As I stepped outside, I saw old men and women trudging along, quietly talking and staring at the sky, an endless orange sunset sky, even though there was no sky at all. I could tell by their presences that they have been here for a long time, possibly even longer than their mortal lives. I talked to them as they looked at me in the same way The Judge did. It did me no good talking to them, as they would seem to daydream and nod after I finished talking.

As I walked on, I had sudden memories of Laura flash to my head. As I was falling someone caught me and said, “You okay?” It was a voice of a guy around my age. I looked up and saw a guy with a flannel shirt with jeans. He must’ve been in his early twenties, probably 21 when he died.

“I-I’m fine. Just some…”

“Memories?”

“Yeah. Who are you, and when did you, uh you know...”

“The name’s Alex Snipe, and I kicked the bucket in 2001. It was an accident when a couple of guys and I were driving and the driver took a little too much beer that day. The Judge barely let me into this place, but he thought it was just one act of foolishness, or whatever. How about you?”

“I’m Hayden Johnson, and thanks for saving and stuff, but can you explain what’s happening here?”

He noticed that I was trying to dodge the cause of my death. “Uh… Yeah. You see, the main reason you life is to achieve a perfect afterlife. In the ‘good levels’ everything is supposedly better, but I don’t think so. Watch this.” Alex tried to punch me but his fist was blown back with a puff of black smoke. He shook his hand in pain as he continued, “In this life, you are supposedly immortal, but I heard there are ways of dying. When you die in the afterlife, you cease existing. The only people that have the power of doing that are the death guards, you know the ones that let us in the messed up little excuse for heaven?” Alex stomped his foot, but quickly calmed down. “This was explained in the manual, but I don’t blame you for dodging it. I wanted to see the outside, and I wouldn’t have noticed a small piece of paper taped to the sink. Well, anyways, I’m so freaking happy that there is actually a cool guy here.”
I had a puzzled look and said, “You mean there are no guys our age here?”

“To tell the truth, there was a bunch of friends I used to hang out with, but for some reason, the death guards moved me into this sector. There are hundreds of thousands of sectors in this level. For some reason, they forced me to live with the old farts for around 4 years. It was torture, man. Since you came, I don’t know if these guys made a mistake or something, but at least there’s someone here.” He replied.

“So… What do we exactly, do here?” I asked.

“For us, I don’t know. I’ve been walking around and watching TV for my whole time here. Yeah, if you don’t know there is a TV, but I heard that guys up in level 4 get Internet…” He said with envy. “At least they can only talk to other level fours, so it must be pretty dull,” He smiled trying to lie to himself. However, I wasn’t doing as well, Laura’s images kept on flashing. Darkness kept going flashing in my eyes, as I blacked out.

From there, Alex had brought me back to my house, and we hung out together for a while until today. I heard some murmurs and then I saw her. She didn’t look at me for a while since she was reading the manual, go figure. It wasn’t possible, that she had gotten here. It couldn’t be Laura, but she almost looked identical. She had her brown hair in a short bang combed over one eye and the rest down her back.

She waved to me, “Hi! My name is Alice Ryker, and how are you?” She seemed jumpier that Laura, but her voice was almost identical as well.

“Ha-ha, I’m fine! My name’s Hayden Johnson. Someone’s a bit jumpy…” I replied. I wanted to destroy whoever had assigned her here. The second person around my age after a year and a half HAD to look like Laura. I put my hand to my face as I tried to take this all in. Death itself was mocking me. When I got back to my house, I had to make sure that I wasn’t in the floor -3.

“A-are you okay?” She asked with concern and pity. She was probably thinking on what type of weirdo I was right now. I couldn’t care less, though it was probably for the best of my psychological health that the farther away from her the better.

“He’s fine. Alice? That was your name, right?” Alex appeared behind me. “I’m Alex, nice to meet you, Alice. Heh, they sound the same. Kind of a funny coincidence, huh?” At this point I thought that Alex was about as appealing as me, but that chattered in small talk as they walked off. As I headed back to my house, ready to take a nap, I noticed that one of my walls was missing. Actually, it had changed into metal doors, which opened as fast I had laid my eyes on them. It was the death guards, but they seemed different. They didn’t have gray cloaks and spears riddled with black blood. These death guards were wearing het black hoods and wielded scythes.
One of them beckoned, and in a voice as sharp as a blade but as powerful as a steel club, “Hayden Johnson. We require you.”

[BoxHead]

Chapter 2: The Assignment

I walk into the elevator, not like they gave me a choice by herding me in with a scythe. As I get in, I am shackled and my mouth is sealed as one of these death guards presses the button marked as, ”7,” Suddenly, it dawned on me. I’m being transferred to the Eternal Palace! I shook my head after realizing that The Judge had still given me a list of grievances and faults. I could only imagine my future that lie ahead of these steel doors.

It seemed like an eternity before I could escape the elevator. I started doubting the so-called Eternal Palace. Suddenly, the doors opened with a smooth slide as I saw something greater than I could have ever pictured. I see rolling hills as green as an evergreen tree, paved with a stone street with shiny pebbles- no, they aren’t pebbles but diamonds. As I am escorted out, I see trees embellished with gold streamers that look like actual gold. I peer ahead at pure white walls of the palace.

As we pass over a steadily flowing river on a bridge made of a perfectly painted red bridge, I see animals around me, rabbits, deer, sparrows. The smell in the air was sweeter than any rose in the world. However, the best part is the overall feeling of it. Inside, I felt more at peace and filled with more joy than before. It felt so good that I stopped in my tracks, forgetting I was dead, with all of my worries disappearing.

However after a few painful jabs from a scythe I continued to the castle walls. The strange thing about it was, there was no door, and so I stopped and looked around. The guards looked annoyed, which was strange because they had skeletal faces. They beckoned me to go on as I walked towards the wall and was instantly sucked in.

In front of me was the most grand, lavish, and extraordinary castle I had ever seen. It looked like it had an English design with a strange twist to it. As I crossed the drawbridge above a crystal clear moat, I strolled inside of the castle only to see even more designs everywhere. However, I then was brought back to reality after someone said, “You’re finally here, huh?”

I looked to my side and saw Alex next to the cursed one, Alice Ryker. “How are you guys here already? It hasn’t even been an hour before I had left level 3!”

They had a puzzled look on their faces. Alex said, “It’s been over six hours since we had gotten here. I think you were knocked out on the elevator and only woke up when they had started to move. We had been here-“ His sentence was interrupted by one of the scythe wielding death guards who signaled him to shut up.

They drove me through some fancy hallways into a large throne room. In a giant golden throne embellished with every jewel imaginable sat a king dressed in a blood red robe while wearing a bunch of rings and necklaces. The strangest part was that he didn’t have a skull face. His face was a human’s. He had a long, furry beard and thick bushy eyebrows that covered his eyes. On top of his head was a black crown studded with ambers.

His presence made me gag a bit. I dropped to the floor after a rush of memories had come back to me. I remembered Laura and I sitting in a park, with her next to me as we watched the stars and talked. It was too much for me, as tears rolled to my eyes. His presence made me sick to my stomach, his presence yelled out, “I am the king, and I rule over you!”

More memories flooded in of Laura and I watching a movie, eating dinner, but it got even touchier. I remember us hugging while she kissed me softly. At that point, I started rolling on the ground, as my head felt like it would explode. Suddenly, the kingly figure grunted, as he seemed to see my memories, and they all faded into black. I panted as I looked up at him.

“You have such a close relationship with this female. However do not let this trouble you, or you will fail at the task I am going to give you.” I used my strength to stand me up, first as a kneel, and then a hunch, but finally I stood tall and looked him in the eyes, or at least what I could see of it. I felt more confident as time went on.

“Somehow, in the negative level’s prisoners have rioted and are killing the guards. You may think that we are weak, but these prisoners have gotten powers of the shadow. We are not sure on why this phenomenon is happening, but it must be stopped. The call themselves revolutionaries and dawn the organization name of the Black Dawn. They have been rioting and attacking many innocent death torturers,” The King spoke.

“Innocent death torturers?” I said sarcastically.

“They are just doing their job of torturing the damned. It’s not their fault that they were killed. We are currently fighting back them with our special death guard forces, known as the Reapers. Every dead soul has an inner power, however, some are stronger than others’. You happen to have a strong soul and have been selected along with those other two.”

“We have penned you together so that you could know each other well. However, Ms. Ryker has only accompanied you two for only a few minutes, before we had to call you two, and it seems that your relationship with her is… rocky.” The King spoke.

I thought that was the biggest understatement of the decade, but what troubled me was that I, out of all people was chosen to fight a horde of damned rioting souls. However, since Alex and Alice know about this, then I would either have to go with them or abandon. I could handle losing a flashback machine but not my best friend.

“I know it is hard on you, but you must decide quickly as these Dawns have already taken the Frosted Volcano. You and your companions will be guided by these two Reapers here to the training facility to learn your powers, if you accept, that is.” He said.

I thought about my life, watching TV and strolling in an endless wheat field. Then I thought about fighting a demonic revolutionary cult. I couldn’t really decide, to be honest. Although I have read many action mangas, it can’t be all as amazing as it is shown as. I then thought about Laura, and then I decided that I had to do something worthwhile with my life, something that would make Laura proud when she dies.

“King, I accept your assignment as a Reaper.” I said.

“Good, I as the King of all souls, announce you a Reaper!” He shouted as a wave of black energy fell on me.

[loganace]

I'm loving this fanfic. I WANT MORE!

[BoxHead]

^
Win comment

[loganace]

Do you like the character I made for you? Yaaaaaaaay I have thewin comment.

[royelric]

Yeah, this is pretty good. Why am I not in it? xD

[loganace]

Because you didn't send him a character. I don't know if he needs any more.

[royelric]

He didn't ask for one o.o

[loganace]

He only asked for one from me and Zombie Ruler.

[BoxHead]

I might need one more. Just send me a character with a realistic name, powers, personality, and appearance.

[loganace]

Who will this character be?

[BoxHead]

I'll PM Roy, it'll be a captain Reaper. Chapter 3 is coming up in 5 minutes.

[zombie ruler]

Yes Chapter 3

[loganace]

Chapter 3!

[BoxHead]

Chapter 3: A Reaper's Job

I stand up and look at myself. Nothing has really changed except my clothes. The King’s clothes design ray had me wear a rugged black cloak with a hood that had holes in it. I had to admit, I felt pretty cool looking the Grim Reaper, but I was a Reaper after all. I also had a skull mask at my feet that the King gestured me to put on. Suddenly, my head became a skull!

“These masks will hide your identities when doing field work. You will follow Akio and Giovanna there and learn how to fight as a Reaper. You two take him to the training room. He needs to learn how to fight the Black Dawn, also can you take the other two newcomers with you?” The King said.

“This is just perfect,” I thought. The more I work with Alice, the more migraines I get. As we walked along the hallways, the decorations got less and less regal and more and more war-like. There were old scythes, staves, spear, swords, guns, and any weapon you can name decorating the walls.

As we entered the training room, the first things I noticed were all the training dummies, large punching bag-like structures with a skull on top. “So do we attack this thing?” I asked. “Are you going to give us scythes here?”

“Obviously not, retard. Do you think we just hand out deadly weapons to reaper noobs?” Said the female Reaper. She took off her mask and I saw that she had hazel eyes and medium length brown hair that covered part of her face, luckily, she didn’t look too much like Laura.

Alex patted my back, “Don’t mind her. Her name is Giovanna Russo, just to let you know in advance; also she usually acts like this. She’s the type that is actually nice on the-“ He then got hit on the top of his head with the shaft of Giovanna’s scythe.

“Hey Akio, you deal with this guy, Haven, right?” Giovanna asked.

“Hayden,” I corrected.

“Whatever,” she said after hitting me on the head. “I’ll take care of those other two, Alice and Aaron,” Alex was going to correct but decided it wasn’t the smartest move.

“So you’re Akio, huh? Nice to meet you,” I held out my hand attempting to shake his.
He looked really embarrassed and quickly shook my hand. “Um… Nice to meet you, I’m Akio Hamaka…” He said really quietly. This guy seemed like the really silent type, and the guys who assigned him and Giovanna together must’ve been trying to get a kick out of it. He had a small black fohawk that goes down to the top of his ears, and his face didn’t have as many scars as Giovanna.

“So what now? How do I get the scythe to fight with?” I asked.

“”Well… You need to shape it yourself. Here’s an instruction manual,” Akio gave me a piece of paper that said:

Reaper Scythes and You!

Step 1: Thrust you hands forward and shape your hands as if they are wielding a staff

Step 2: Concentrate all of your energy into a shaft form, approximately your height.

Step 3: After creating your shaft, concentrate a thin, but strong curved blade at the top.

Step 4: Ask your trainer if it is the correct shape. IF not, repeat this easy process!

__________________________________________________ _______________________________________

It sounded easier said than done. What was concentrating energy anyways? How do you actually concentrate energy in the first place? I follow step 1 and placed my arms and hands in the correct position and then tried to picture a staff and star at the empty space as hard as I could, but nothing happened. “How do you do this concentrating stuff?” I asked Akio.

He just awkwardly smiled and said, “Y-you have to use your feelings to do it,” I had no idea what he was talking about, and that’s about as cliche as cliche gets. I then realized what he meant. I closed my eyes and pictured my hands again. I then remembered my memories with Laura. Sure, it made me want to bludgeon my head, but I knew that this would work.

[BoxHead]

Chapter 4: Reaping Training

I remembered when we first met. It was when I was I was working Part-Time at our local Cinemark. She approached me, and I thought she was the greatest thing I ever saw, although I shook it out of my head because I knew that dating her would be impossible. However, after she got her popcorn, she gave me her number and winked me goodbye, and the rest was history.

I heard yelling and then I opened my eyes. I had fallen to the ground while holding a perfectly formed scythe, sort of. Its shape was like a regular one, but its shaft was a long bone with different holes in it. The blade was serrated like a steak knife. It was up to my temple when stood straight up, and it felt surprisingly light. I waved it around, almost skewering Akio.

“W-whoa…” Akio said in awe. I also looked down at my robes. They were waving, like there was a small breeze nearby. “You should take a swing at this dummy here,” It didn’t look too promising because of its lightness and being made out of a bone with holes, but I decided to swing at it anyways. I decided to make my first swing artistic by spinning around at stabbing it from the side. I pulled back and it went through the dummy like a hot knife on butter. I started taking multiple stabs and slashes, quickly adapting to it while circling around the dummy. I jumped in the air as a final hit and I swung straight down onto the skull attached to the dummy.

“W-whoa,” I said in awe at my self. I know it might seem arrogant of me, but I felt REALLY cool right now. I felt like I could destroy the Black dawn easily, no matter whom they were. However, I told myself that a dummy and a legion of shadow souls were two different things and that I had only started learning how to use a combat scythe.

“That’s weird,” Akio mumbled. “Why is your scythe shaped like that? It’s only at level 1. They change shape at level two…”

“You mean that there are TWO LEVELS?” I asked excitedly.

He jumped a bit when he noticed I heard him, “Yeah, but we need to hurry with this training. Fight me, please. When I activate duel mode, we fight to the death, but no one gets hurt afterwards,”

As he pressed some buttons, I nodded and tried to take it easy on him, but that was a big mistake. Even though he was very shy, his fighting style contradicted that. He lunged forward delivering powerful strikes that I could barely keep up with. His speed and aggressive style resorted me to being defensive; something that I quickly learned wasn’t my forte.

He spun around me delivering many cuts, while I couldn’t even get one on him. I could tell that he was holding back, though, slowing down after every hit, and leaving blind spots, but it still wasn’t easy to hit him in any way. I was quickly losing blood. Suddenly, time slowed down as I could sense everything. Was it my adrenaline kicking in, or was everything getting slower as I was dying in duel mode? It didn’t matter.

He spun his scythe around and tried to attack my throat, I bent my back so well that I could’ve won any limbo contest. I kicked his feet, tripping him as I delivered a large slash to his chest. His eyes lit up as he suddenly appeared behind me and stabbed my heart.

Everything reverted as it was before the duel. “What just- what just happened?” I asked, panting.

“Y-you’re the first rookie Reaper to have survived that long and have actually been able to get a hit on me… W-wow,” Akio stuttered. “Let’s go to the elevator and head out to fight for level four. I think you’ll do well,” He smiled as I ran to the elevator after taking some ration. Alice was there with a shorter scythe that went up to her shoulders and Alex ran up, with a scythe a bit taller than mine with a giant smooth blade. They all looked at me in awe as Akio explained what happened during the duel.

“You're just a wimp, Akio,” Giovanna scoffed. I could tell that she was hiding her being impressed. I felt pretty good this day. As we stepped inside and pressed -4, we journeyed down to the Realm of Shadow. I felt, extra powerful that day, but if I would have found out how the skirmish in the Realm of Shadow was going to be like, I would have felt as weak as an ant.

THANKS TO LOGANACE AND ZOMBIE RULER FOR GIVING ME THE IDEAS OF AKIO HAMAKA AND GIOVANNA RUSSO!

[zombie ruler]

Yay! Our character were included!

[loganace]

Awesome chapter!

[BoxHead]

....DId it really take you THAT long to read?

[loganace]

Yes! You portrraid my charac perfectly. I couldn't say how much Il ove this! You needto copyright this.