She felt her heart sink to her stomach. Her eyes widened, her pupils dilated to show as much fear as they could. She didn't get in. This was a woman named Josephine. She was being interviewed by St. Peter in a dark office. Right outside were the pearly gates, where the rest of her relatives were.
"I am so, so sorry. But there is this.. this one flaw with you, it prohibits me from allowing you in, I hate to see you so sad" he sorrowfully announced to her. She looked crushed, her lower jaw was shaking uncontrollably like she might cry, but she was more of a mix of confused and breathless.
"What.. what flaw? I didn't do anything that bad right? What was that bad?" She asked.
"It wasn't even that bad" he said. "But it's bad enough to restrict you from going to heaven."
"So… is hell really that bad?" she asked him, her mind was still racing so her voice came out monotone-like.
"Listen, you're 'terrible act' is too bad to get you banned from heaven, but your record is too clean to go to hell. This means I have to go with the third option" St. Peter replied. She had looked at him, slightly confused and untrusting "..Third option? What do you mean third option? There is only heaven and hell right?"
St. Peter had corrected her. "Wrong, this middle ground place is profusely filled with people with the same kind of flaw you do. You will be there with each other for all of eternity, monitored by the Administrator"
"And who is the Administrator?"
"I do not know, I don't monitor that area, nor do I know what happens down there. So please, stand still" St. Peter answered. Before she could realize what was going on, six tiny but very long needles pierce her spinal cord, and start pumping a large amount of black liquid to clog everything there. While in all of her pain, all St. Peter did was put a blindfold over her eyes, and all of her senses faded
Josephine wakes up in a strange hallway. She wears black long robes with a red and yellow trim, and something of a flimsy witch's hat different from what she wore when she was in St. Peter's office. More importantly, an eyepatch she couldn't remove for some reason. A strange figure stands at the end of the hallway, facing his back to her and himself to the door in front of them. The door had a bright light shine through, obscuring whatever was beyond the door.
"Just a quick word of advice" the figure said, "Everyone here that you see, is all destined to be killed by The Mercy Place. They will fall agonizingly, one by one, no matter how much they try to avoid it. They're on thin ice, you're not. You will not remember most of your life before, so don't go looking to get those memories back. Here, take this." The figure tossed her a keycard attached to a lanyard without looking back. "Don't trust anyone in this purgatory, none of the monsters in those halls are trying to be the last man standing, so try not to get yourself killed."
The figure walked through the door shortly after, but Josephine stays there, she has so many questions. What Monsters? Why is there a threat of being killed? But time doesn't let her get answers. She passes out again when she holds the keycard. The view switches to the figure continuing his walk down the hall, his face barren of any features. eyes, nose, or mouth. There was only deep burns that go to his skull of a symbol. The symbol looks something like the eyes of a human and the beak of a crow, just drawn lazily
When she wakes up, Josephine isn't in the hallway anymore. Her memories of the past 6 hours of going through Heaven's processing have been erased, along with most of her previous life. She is currently at the bottom of a very tall spire, the spiring tower has many doors and she has to find the one that will accept her keycard. The card itself looked like this:
THE MERCY PLACE ENTRY TICKET
ISSUED BY THE MONITOR, ADMINISTRATION OFFICE
TO BREVERA, JOSEPHINE
TO DOOR BLOCK C, 2,454
"2,454, that's all I have to remember, and I'll get out of here" She said
Josephine travels through the near infinite rows of doors to go through, After finding a map, she finds that Door Block C is west of where she is now, but she looks around at the other doors. The numbers start to get huge. 2,889,326 was the highest number. At door 4,703 she drops her lanyard. When she picks it up and looks back at the door, the number had changed. The door was turned into #2,454. She checked her card again and saw something new scribbled in pen on the back
"ANYTHING HERE CAN CHANGE IF YOU'RE NOT LOOKING AT IT. DON'T LOSE FOCUS"
Josephine was equally as confused as she was scared now. It sounded like a door somewhere had creaked open, so she quickly puts the card into the reader next to the door and hears the click that unlocks it. She opens the door, and there's a black wall with a small slit in the middle beyond it. Out of the slit comes a yellowed piece of paper, it was torn in some areas. It read
"When the French government seized the translated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in the mercy place, all felt that human nature could not bear the strain nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect."
Josephine finished reading and looked at the bottom of the page, there was something written under those words "the mercy place" but the letters were so faded that she couldn't tell what it said. In the area between her body and the paper was glass that wasn't there before. Through the glass was the maze she had just been in before, now she was much higher up in the spire. She takes her eyes off the paper and realizes she's in a new place. It was dark, the only light had shined down on a small pedestal. She walked over to it cautiously and stood on it. Before she knew it all the lights turned on at once. That pedestal was one of many, and 8 more people were summoned to these pedestals, all were questioning why they were brought there, and no one could step off of their pedestals.
One of the people there spots her and realizes why they were all brought to the pedestals. He looks a little older than the rest of the confused people there. He has medium length blonde hair in a center part. He wears a heavy dark brown jacket, dark old purple cargo pants, and a black, red trimmed sailor's hat. He gave her a welcoming smile, which made her feel a little bit better about her situation