Through Hell and Back

Chapter 5

33 YEARS AGO

A controversial experiment group started by Dr. Russel Nome had begun experimenting on human death. He was a German scientist who worked in a lab out of Rotenberg. Their goal was to find a way to "kill" a person and then bring them back to life hours later. The solution would save many lives. For the first few months the world was abuzz with news that these scientists might solve death. But week after week Dr. Nome would report that they had found nothing. The world moved on saying that the group was a failure. But in fact they had made tremendous progress. They had successfully been able to bring a newly dead person back to life. But they could only keep a person dead for 12 hours before the bodies decay would cause permanent damage. The scientists were surprised when they found that the people that they had brought back to life said that they had been in another realm. Some claimed they had been in a place of fire. It hurt to breath and everything felt painful. Others said they were in a realm of light where anything they wished for came true. The scientists measured everything they could to figure out how to change the realm that these people were "going to." And there studies led them to outside the lab. They brought in a test patient that was the head of a non-profit organization and regularly gave his money to the poor. When the man woke up from his death coma, he said the same thing that some patients had said when they woke up. He was in a realm of light. The scientists couldn't believe it. They did a background check on all of their test subjects and found that the ones who had gone to the pain realm had either a criminal record or had broken a law. And the people who went to the light realm were the people who gave money to charities and who were classified by many as good people. The scientists closed the case saying that there was two probabilities: they were mentally insane, or...... Heaven and Hell existed. The experiment was left at that.

Unbeknownst to the world the project was never really closed. Dr. Nome had a full grown son who had his own family at the time. He handed the keys to the lab down to his children and then his grandchildren. And it was one particular grandchild who got the keys. Her name was Erica Nome. She had been a normal child. Obedient child, to rebel teen, to responsible adult. But Erica had a problem. She couldn't manage her rage. And one night she got mad at a man for crashing into her car that she killed him. She escaped the police and hunted down her father. And that night she stole the keys to the lab. She hid in there for 3 months. The lab had emergency food so she was fine. But down in that lab she read all of the test results of her grandfather's work. She wasn't one to believe that her grandpa was mentally insane so she opted for the other scenario. She was going to research more on this "Heaven and Hell." Secretly she began sending out letters to scientists in desperate situations promising them fame and money. She began a new research group called the Fire Brand. Erica told the scientists that they were working here so they could better humans. Erica told them they were going to create a universe. A dream. She told them that they were going to make a dream world where every dead person could go, of course for a cost, and where anything was possible. Erica's first plan was to overwrite Hell. Basically before a dead man's spirit could make it to Hell they would intercept it in the dream world and drag it into the self-made paradise. But progress was slow. The scientists made little progress. Erica had studied the previous research and she fixed the old death coma machines but she wanted to know, she wanted to feel, the research her grandpa had cataloged. So she tried the experiment on herself. And do you know where she turned up? In Hell. When she woke up she was outraged! She couldn't spend her life there! But she sure couldn't apologize to the now-one year dead man she killed! Erica, though, had spent time controlling her rage. When she woke up she told the scientists that Heaven was quite a lovely place and she kept her cool. Until she got to her office. Erica had moved into the 13 layered underground workshop her grandpa created. She ripped her office apart in rage. Blankets, rugs, furniture, all shredded or splintered. None of the scientists knew her past so they were easy to lie to. But eventually the truth got out about her rage issues, not her past, and some of her scientists quit out of fear but a few of her closest assistants stayed because they had believed the lie Erica had told. She had only two scientists left by her side. Vera Meier and Albert Scheper. When she had finally reached her wits end, Erica devised a half-mad idea. What if they could destroy Hell? If God controlled Heaven and Satan controlled Hell then if she killed Satan all of those evil souls would be unleashed. And where would they go next? The only place that they could. Not to the land of the living for they were dead. They wouldn't want to stay in Hell that's for sure! So they would go up...... They would flee to Heaven. And without Satan there to make life miserable they would be in Paradise. They would have to flee from God and God would hunt them down. But some spirits from Hell might be able to hide in this new land. Or at least find another realm away from Heaven.