In a void of nothing, what looks to be a young man floating there, his eyes open and as they do voices echo "Close your eyes, you're at peace here, there is no pain, or need to try." The man starts to close his eyes again as the voice continues to urge him to sleep, the moment his eyes close again his mind screams out that "this feels wrong." As this happens the void he was floating in shatters into pieces like glass and he wakes in a field surrounded by a thick, impossible to see through fog on all sides but one. The side with no fog stands a massive wood wall stretching into the fog with a gate closed in the middle. His mind begins to race with questions "where am I? What is this place? What was that void and voice?" as it hits him "Who am I?" in panic he notices lots of others slowly shuffling around the field he runs up to one and shakes them "hey what is this place, where are we?"

    The other person just keeps walking trying to walk around aimlessly so he lets them go. From behind him he hears another man's laugh, and turns around to face a giant brute of a man he asks "and who are you?" The man Answers "Me? My name is Birger Ulf and you? Well you're the first one here to wake up in a very long time." The young man replies to the man "Birger, where are we and on top of that, who am I?" Birger scratches his head for a second "Who you are? no clue. As for where you are, well that’s hard to explain, you're dead." The young man stumbles backwards for a second startled thinking "He must be lying" as a flash of his final moments play out in his memory. A fight between two norse clans over the last scraps of food from a poor harvest in which he met his death in fire. He looks at Birger "...is this Valhalla?"   

    Birger laughs at his question and answers "nope, Valhalla is that way," as he points to the gate "however, I can't open the gate I don't have the strength, we are in what would be called the fringe, it's the border, outside of Valhalla." The young man looks at the gate, then back at Birger “it’s just a big wooden gate, how hard can it be?” Birger gestures an after-you motion toward the gate, the young man heads forth confidently and tries to push it open. After what seems like hours of pushing with no luck the young man walks back over to Birger “It must be barred on the other side or something it wouldn’t even budge.” Birger replies “I once thought so as well, but I’ve seen others throw the gate open in my time here. While others fail time after time, and sooner or late become like the walkers over there. Lifeless just shuffling around until they wake up again.” The young man sits on a nearby rock and tries to think “There has to be a way. Odin must be testing us, but how do we pass?” 

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    Birger shrugs his shoulders and lays down in the grass beside him, “Wait Birger, how is it you haven’t fallen back into that same state as the others? If you’ve seen so many come and go.” Birger answers “I’m just not willing to give up, we've lived, we've fought, and we've died for our right to enter Valhalla, I can’t let a little gate beat us.” The young man stands up “That’s it! Birger we’re using the strength of our bodies, but the gate isn’t there to test our muscles. It’s there to test our resolve and spirit, our strength of will!.” Birger stands up “Then let us show Odin's test we have the will-power to open his gate.” The 2 men approach the gate. Both pushing on a door, there past lives flashing fleetingly before their eyes showing them every moment till their deaths.The gate begins to creek under their pressure, almost sounding like it's about to break as it starts to open. The moment the gate opens enough for them to get through the young man collapses to the ground, Birger grabs him and carries him past the gate as it starts to close, and sets him against a wall on the other side. Birger waits for the young man to wake up. After a while, the young man starts to come-to, and asks “what happened to me?” Birger replies “oh, kid, you're up, I thought you might have fallen back into the void. We did it, we’re past the gate. However that may have just been the first test” The young man sits up “What do you mean?” as he looks out into a forest with a single path going into it, as he looks down the path it becomes so dark no light enters or escapes “Oh, guess we have to go through that.”

    Birger helps the young man up on his feet and asks “So, you ok kid? You dropped pretty hard.” After standing, the young man answers “Yes, I’m fine. Also I have a name, it’s Halvor Erling.” Birger looks at the Halvor “So you remember your name, anything else?” Halvor looks at the ground, and avoids eye contact “I remember everything, I don’t belong here, my soul should’ve been sent to Hela.” Birger gets a confused look on his face “What you mean kid you're the reason we even passed that first test.” Halvor replies “I remembered how exactly I died, it wasn’t a good death, I died a coward. While my village was under attack I tried to fight at first, but we were so overwhelmed that I ran to hide in the horse stable. My thought was that if I stayed hidden in the hay maybe I could’ve survived, but something caught the stable on fire and the beams blocked the door. As it continued to burn down I became trapped inside, I died a slow cowards death burning.” Birger puts his hand on Halvor's shoulder “So maybe your death wasn’t the greatest, but let me tell you something I have no clue how I died. Maybe this is why Odin’s testing us, because we didn’t earn our way into Valhalla in our lifetime.” Halvor looks over to Birger, then back to the forest trail and says “Well no time like the present, though it looks like we won't be able to see well once we enter.” Birger chuckles a little then says “You afraid of the dark of something.” Halvor responds by shaking his head “no, let's get going.”