For Justice that was that. He’d never get to meet President Lincoln, never see his nation repaired after the fall of The Valley, his mortal coil was shed. All was white and radiant, the warming, welcoming glow of Heaven was all around. Above him, but also before him, was Saint Peter. He was a pretty big dude.

“Well, hello there, young’in. What you doin’ here so soon?” asked Peter.

“Uh … hey there, Pete. Saint Peter. The … guy with the book of sins. Guess this is my judgment day, ain’t it?” Justice felt a little uneasy about this. Funny how Peter sounded a lot like his papaw down home in West Virginia. Mom’s dad was salt of the earth. It was a wonder she ever fell for an accountant in New York City.

“Oh I reckon it is.” Said papaw Saint Peter, slapping a heavy hand on the big book. Giant hands just like papaw. The same hands papaw used to whoop the kids that sassed him. “All the truth of God’s creation in a single tome. Like your Earthly Bible but, y’know … better ‘cause it’s here.”

Those hands. The same hands passed onto his mom. Mom. Justice remembered when daddy raised a hand to her one day. It was the only time. She beat him down something fierce and force fed him raw flour. It was quite a sight considering how much bigger daddy was than she. He had thought to strike her because the cake she baked for dessert was “too dry”. Well, more like a client had yelled at him that day and he thought to take it out on her. That day Justice realized he should never hit a woman. Mostly because there’s a good chance she could whoop him.

“Still with me, boy? You look a ways distant.” asked Papaw Peter.

‘Yeah! Yes. I am ready … for judgment.” He wasn’t. Justice wondered if he was sweating. If so he didn’t feel it. Maybe you can’t sweat in Heaven? Hopefully he wouldn’t find out about how it worked in the other place.

“Awright. Now this is really just a formality. Fine young man like you ain’t even had the chance to sin yet.” Peter flung the titanic tome open with a flourish.

“Wellsir, actually, I did live thirty-one years on God’s green Earth. If I may, however, I was enslaved both body and soul for five of those years.” Clasping his hands before him Justice affected humility.

“Over thirty? Really? And your body … and your soul?” asked Papaw. His tone wasn’t great.

“Yessir. I was barely conscious. Not really there. It was through what must have been a miracle that I finally escaped the prison of my own body, sir.”

Peter started flipping through the book more purposely, eyebrows knitting. This made Justice more nervous and he seemed less like a Papaw right away and more like a judge. “So you gave yourself to some power other than God for five years then?”

“Whoa!” shouted Justice, terrified. “I gave nothin’, sir! My whole Earth, I guess there’s a bunch of ‘em, was taken over by some demon. I … I killed ‘im, sir! I’m a Christian Soldier, Marching as to War! Onward, right? Like the hymn?”

“Yes, the hymn … written in 1865, but not on your Earth because it was taken over by some demon. Is that right?” He didn’t sound anything like Papaw now.

“Wait, didn’t get written? But I remember it!” Justice found his memories muddled.

“And I see you violated the sixth commandment repeatedly. Truly, a violent man.” We were fully back to Saint Peter and Saint Peter clearly did not fuck around.

“No! Please. It was always in self-defense or … or for my country! I was a soldier! Wait, what–” and Justice lost all ability to speak as a violent coughing fit overtook him. The great Saint Peter, co-founder of Christianity, was taking advantage of his massive height advantage by pissing right in Justice’s face.

“Holy shit! For real!?” screamed Justice as he tumbled from the power of the stream; it was like a raging river! “Is this punishment? Or do I get pissed down to Hell!? This ain’t fair! I … wait.” Still feeling the irritation Justice noticed that, while the smell was there, the urine was dry. Dry. “Dry water. Black … ocean…”

All turned an even brighter white though it was really just a flat lack of color. No, wait, that’s a light set in a ceiling. Still coughing Justice struggled to catch his breath before crying out loud. “Tarnation!” shouted Justice, staggering to his feet. “Heaven stinks like hell, concentrated piss without the shit accompaniment of an outhouse.” If nothing else was positive at least his sinuses were wide open now. And you could almost see the stink; yellow smoke sinking through the grate in Heaven’s floor. “Wait. What the hell is this?”

“Ammonium carbonate.” stated a tinny voice. “Took me awhile to parse the ultranet, not a lot of material on humans here, but what I found suggested a cloud of the stuff would rouse you from your slumber.” Whomever it was made a burbling noise that might have been a chuckle. “The formula is colloquially called ‘smelling salts’ but there’s no sodium in the formula. Hilarious.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Blinking hard, Justice had more than the normal sleep in his eyes. “Smelling salts? Like you’d give to a fainted lady? But … shit, how much did you use!?”

“Hm? How much? Uncertain. The drones don’t typically measure powders but … ah, weight differential in your subfloor scales. So seven kilograms by weight of powdered ‘smelling salts’. Hah. No salt in there. Humorous.”

“What in the actual–” Justice sta rted to cough again. The stink clung to every membrane in his head, nose, eyeballs, tongue and more. Worse still he definitely had a relatively minor case of frostbite and it was absolutely everywhere being irritated by the stuff. His whole body was going to be peeling for the next month or so. His condition being mild was good for his longevity, assuming he was still alive, but he might pray for death by the time he recovered.

Suddenly all became blurry. “Oh gawd! What’s happenin’!? I can’t see. Eyes’re goopy as shit! Where’s my bear!? Glen? Glen!?”

“Oh, my, uh, maybe I have used too much of the chemicals. Apologies. Still, your exposure doesn't seem to have hurt your vitals. Looks like between my own quick response time and the efforts of your … bear, was it? Anyway, you’re coming out just fine.”

“Who’s that? Who’s there? God? Saint Peter? You still there?” Justice found the wall; it was glass and rounded. “Satan? Oh shit. I’m in hell, ain’t I?”

“No, sir. Just try to focus. You’ve been through a traumatic experience for any sentient but humans are especially poorly equipped for the vacuum of space.”

“What’s that thumpin’? Oh no, it’s my heart. Why can I hear my own heart? Glen! Fuck, no, wait, I’m in hell. All bears go to heaven! No! Glen!”

Unseen, unheard controls amplified the audio to the point where, in spite of what seemed to be ruptured eardrums, Justice could hear just the background noise. He, in fact, covered his ears as the other voice in the room finally reached him. “Sir. Can you hear me?”

“Yes! Oh gawd, the pain! Please, oh Devil, assault me no more with your voice of doom!”

“What? I … oh.” More fiddling with controls. “Is this better?”

The volume dropped on the voice that surrounded Justice. “Uh … yes, Satan? It’s mighty kind of you. Maybe Hell ain’t so bad?”

“I have absolutely no idea what any of this means. Sir, you were seemingly ejected, like garbage, from a small craft that quickly jumped in and then away, emitting a rather bizarre warp signature. Can you tell me where you came from?”

“Utah! I came from Utah, sir! Oh, but by way of New York. Got the itch to make my fortune on the frontier. Figured it’d be a more pure existence. Guess it was more sinful that I figured, huh? Then the war…” Justice chuckled. “Say, maybe we could do somethin’ about my eyes now that we’re, y’know, talkin’ about my situation?”

“Eyes? Oh, right, yes, I can see there’s aggravation on top of tissue damage from the cold. Here, this solution should help. Just look up into the stream.”

A dribble of fluid started to pour on Justice’ head. Dutifully, he looked up, catching fluid in one eye, then the other, then rubbing it in thoroughly. “Oh wow, what is this stuff?” Repeat, and a truly prodigious amount of crust expelled from his eyes and Justice’s vision was clearer than on any average sunny day. “Holy shit. I … wait a second. Where…?”

Looking around, Justice was surprised to find himself in a glass tube, about ten feet across, standing on a metal grate, covered in a very fine yellow powder. He could see his reflection, he looked like crap, but what was beyond was utterly mystifying. The inorganic shapes of metal, painted white maybe, were everywhere forming a space that reminded Justice of the Doc. “Try to remain calm now. As I was saying, you were ejected from your vehicle in near space. Luckily, I man this space station, and was able to retrieve you using a drone.”

Facing the exact wrong way, Justice finally turned around to see the person addressing him. “Oh. Oh no… It’s true…” Red, bulbous eyes with yellow pupils, green, leathery skin, vestigial wings and tentacles! Tentacles everywhere! On the guy’s face, his hands were just tentacles moving vaguely like fingers at the end of larger tentacles and at least ten tentacles were moving him around like legs. “No! Satan, no! I’m a good man, I swear it!” He was becoming hysterical.

“What is this ‘Satan’ you keep referencing? Hello? My name’s Ran’tical.” and he flopped his left tentacle cluster across where a squid monster might have its heart. Maybe. “I’m a C’thulate? Ring a bell?

It did not. “Oh Jesus! Please, deliver me from this! I’m sorry I done murdered Brigham Young! I believed that damn ‘scientist’ that he was possessed but now it’s clear that he was lying!”

“I am still not at all sure that you have heard anything I have said.” said Ran’tical, annoyance creeping into his voice, scowl on his face deepening.

“Is it the true faith? I’ll convert! I’ll marry twelve ladies, I don’t care! Just deliver me from this!”

“Sir?”

“That damned kid, of course you don’t go out adventuring with a piece of shit teenager if you’re a good, God-fearin’ man! Either that boy was the Antichrist or the Doc hisself was the Devil! That’s gotta be it.”

“Oh, for the love of… Maybe we should just try this again tomorrow?” Shaking his head Ran’tical operated his touch panel and a robotic arm descended within the pneumatic shelter tube housing Justice.

“No! Not the mechanical hand of … wait, mechanical hand of what now? Aghabuhtfff!” and Justice spoke not another word as enough electricity arced through his body to take down a bear. The bear in the next tube could attest to this, were he not also unconscious, having been shocked into that state by a similar robotic arm. Justice hit the floor grate with a thump and the problem with time and its perception continued.