~Gunshot~

~The Top~

The top...

Instead I met a familiar soft gas. Once again it swirled around my ankles and through the hole in my converse. I looked around me to see the same bright blue sky that seemed to go on forever. I got up and walked over to the edge. I peered over expecting to see my mangled body below, still lying in a pool of my own blood. As I braced myself for the terror I noticed it wasn't that particular gruesome scene. Just more stenches of blue sky... I sat back down on the cloud.

I let the gas whirl around my waist and over my legs. I giggled slightly as it tickled my entire body sending shivers down my spine. I stopped after a few giggles leaked from my mouth.

I was sitting on a cloud.

I was sitting on a cloud, dead, up in the sky somewhere...laughing! What the hell am I doing? What on earth?

Well I wasn't anymore...

I lay back again and shut my eyes how long it had been?, how long had I been up here? A couple of hours? A couple of days? Minutes? Where was everyone else? I know for a fact I'm not the only dead person? I mean where is dad?

I heard a creek.

My eyes snapped open and I sat up. I felt some cloud cling to my head then disappear along my hair and down my back. Behind me, lodged in the cloud was a pair of golden gates...

Heaven?

Are you serious? Heaven! I thought all this was a myth! Just something you read about at School, what people tell you when they can't bear to think about death. I stared up at these golden gates. I wasn't sure what I believed in, I wasn't sure I liked the idea of heaven and hell but I wasn't too keen on the idea of there just being nothing. There couldn't just be nothing after death- there had to be something.

That something being this...

I stumbled to my feet and slowly made my way to the gates that stood before me. They were just like the books described them. Massive golden arches entwined with leaves and birds, I stared at each beautiful curve and admired each fine detail. I reached out to touch, they were cool, smooth and sheer. I wrapped my fingers around one of the many poles. I ran it up and down my hand caressing each delicate curve of the gate. I attempted to push one of the gates open.

Flames ripped though the cool metal.

I yanked my hand back. My hand was throbbing with the pain. I stared down at my hand, it was glistening a red colour.

So you can get hurt, even after death...

I looked back up at the gates. They looked normal, as if nothing had just happened, as if the metal hadn't just over heated and burned my dead hand. I reached out cautiously to see if the meal was still burning. I felt my finger tip meet the gate frame, I was met one again by coolness. I relaxed and started to kneel back on my feet wondering if I had just imagined the whole thing. I looked back down at my hand hoping to see its ghostly white presence.

Red, inflamed and blistered...That definitely happened...

Suddenly the gates burst into flames. Yellow, orange and red swirls danced around the bars and spread out in the clear blue sky. I stumbled back in a vain attempt to get away. The flames came out to me almost as if they were inviting me in. I walked backwards...a bit too far backwards...

The cloud disappeared under my feet once more. I was tumbling, soaring and screaming through the air. The atmosphere hit every part of my body, all this air and I still couldn't breathe. I plummeted through the vast stretch of blue sky. It was never ending. Yet a long way below me I saw more flickering flames beckoning me inside. The more I fell, the wider the flames spread out.