I must have died I thought, I remember being shot to pieces by the bank robbers as they had a gun fight with the cops and I happened to be stuck in the middle. The last thing I remembered was laying on my back bleeding to death hearing bullets whizzing over my body. As I close my eyes for the last time, I sudden realize a slight pull as I feel being dragged under. The pain of the bullet wounds are gone, so I must be dead, so why do I feel like I am sliding backwards?

I open my eyes are see what looks like nine different colored gates swirling in a dark void. They look like those seen from various movies I've watched, but much bigger than I expected. I also realize I am being pull slowly away from them, so I glance back to see what is behind me and see even a larger more menacing gate trying to pull me in. But the distance to much further away than the nine gates in front of me, must be why the pull is so weak. That is when I notice thousands of semi transparent souls struggling behind me trying to avoid that pull.

I take the time to glance all around me, that is when I notice many souls passing though the nine gates. I quickly turn around and look and the souls entering the huge gate behind me and as I carefully watch one soul get pull in, I see the soul get shredded by tremendous pressure and finally get absorbed by the huge gate. I definitely don't want that to happen to me, I realize instantly then that huge gate will destroy my soul. All the souls I see near that huge swirling dark gate are struggling madly with terrified expressions.

Which means those nine gates in front of me must be nine chances of survival. I trying swimming, but that don't get me no where and the pull of the huge gate is getting a little stronger. I start to panic, but my eyes watch the souls in front of me trying to figure out how they are moving forward. They are moving forward like super heroes from the movies, they are struggling but definitely flying forward.

I stare at the nine gates and notice the three on the right are much more vibrant with richer colors while three on the left have much darker undertones. The three in the middle seems to be a balance between two, a feeling of having attributes of both but much less severe. Well if my soul body can't move forward, then that must mean mental power? I began focusing with my mind to move forward. Will, desire, and desperation has allow me to stop being pull backwards.

Hope fills me and I concentrated like never before and I began to inch forward. I close my eyes so I can avoid distractions. It takes a huge amount of effort to inch forward, but I also realize as I move forward, the pull from behind starts to weaken. I relax as the terror of that huge gate slowly subsides as I feel it's pull weakening. After a while I decide to take a quick break and observe the nine gates, but as soon as I stop moving forward, the pull from the huge gate intensifies, so I have no choice but continue to struggle with all I have to move forward.

Hours seem to past by when suddenly I realize a slight pulling sensation from the nine gates! I realize I am moving much faster that before, I must have cross a boundary where the pull of the nine gates is stronger than that doom gate. So I experiment by stopping and notice my speed slows down but I am still being pull forward. Nice I thought, time to observe the nine gates.

I watch many souls like me struggle past the boundary and also observe the gates. That's when I notice a few souls that are much more brighter than anyone else and they seem to fly towards the gates like they done this before. They slip into the different gates with ease, and their faces shows an eagerness as if they are going home? I see various souls seem to just pick a random gate to enter, while many others gather in front of the gates in wonder.

When I arrive behind the crowd of souls, a voice booms in my head "Choose a divine gate to serve in the Underworld!" Divine Gate?! Does that mean each gate leads to a divine being? I stare at the three vibrant gates to the left and get a feeling of honor and virtue while those on the right have a sense of corruptions and vices. The three gates in the middle must be something in between those two, and I sense a balance of nature? Thinking a bit it makes sense, neither good or evil, a balance of nature seem to be a fitting description of the three center gates.

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While examining the gates I couldn't help but suffer a backflash of my life. I was a person who support family and friends. I didn't care about fame or fortune. My goals in life was reasonable and simply enjoy the comfort of having good friends and family. As I view my life with a smile of contentment, I was shock to notice I was being pull slowly backwards again! Quickly I stabilize myself from moving backwards and notice the increasing effort I need to maintain myself. A time limit? That must be it, if I take to long to choose a gate I will be pull backwards to oblivion.

Realizing I am not a good person or evil person, I simply choose the center middle gate and with a thought dove towards it. As I close the distance the feeling I get from it seems to be absolute balance? I hit the gate and entered a new world. A world of souls because I have no heartbeat and didn't need to fill my lungs with air. Also everyone looks like they are in their prime, I notice a old man who entered the gate before me regain his youth before my eyes until he reach his late teens. I also notice a young girl quickly growing up to her late teens. What an interesting world! This afterlife starts everyone at the same starting point.

As I take in my surrounding, there is the gate behind me and it's at least three hundred meters wide. looking up I see clear blue skies and looking forward I notice I am in a very long corridor that stretch forth about a mile away that ends in three arches. The walls on the side reaching towards the sky, they must be over five hundred meters tall built from blocks of stone, each must weigh several tons. I look around and shocked by the different races all around me! Apparently this afterlife world connects to many worlds, perhaps all worlds as I see about a hundred races here with me. As soon as people gain their prime youth, with nothing else to do but move forward towards the arches ahead.

Moving forward I notice a strange feeling on the top of my brain. A cool sensation like a thick liquid is seeping into my brain, it is definitely the strangest feeling to have. This feeling gets stronger the closer I get to those arches. I estimate I have reach past the halfway point to the arches and that cool liquid seem to have permeated half of my brain. At that point, huge amounts of information like old memories begin to awaken in me. I couldn't help but smile, because these memories are all about the Underworld that I am currently in. What an interesting way to indoctrinate new souls to this world. It certainly beats having to teach everyone from scratch how to live, talk and read.

By the time I reach those arches, my entire brain is seeped in that strange coolness, and I remembered it all. I've lived hundreds of lives, as a man or a woman and as many of the races I saw around me. As the memories of those lives flash past my awareness and vanish without a trace. What memories I retain builds up my current knowledge of the world I am in. Once I past the archways I know how to survive in this world, all those memories of past lives made it obvious to me what I need to do.

The Underworld is a place for souls to struggles against rival divine powers in order to develop an avatar for your next life! The time limit you have is exactly the amount of time you lived in your previous life. You can choose to safely pray daily inside this fortress citadel to earn merits for your new avatar or you can leave the citadel and battle it out with the multitude of powers outside. Praying daily will give you a basic avatar while going out to do battle can earn far greater rewards.

Those who choose to pray are consider followers of the faith, while those choose to go out are named devoted to the faith. Then there are champions of the faith, these souls retain their knowledge of the Underworld and serve their faith in life and in death, such extreme devotion! Only those devoted who have made extreme contributions to the faith can be acknowledge by their patron deity to become their champions. My patron deity for this current run though in the Underworld happens to be Lord Death.