Serena’s motto in life was “try everything once, before you’re 30.” She would have never guessed that included dying.

“I just can’t be dead.” Serena told Anna, the old lady in the room, as she was going through every feeling in the world, except the sensation of having passed on.

Anna gave her a faint smile, and told Serena the quicker she accepted it the better.

“So what now? I am destined to walk these corridors for eternity?” Serena asked fearfully.

“No, this, purgatory, is a temporary situation. There is a way out of the labyrinth to the land of milk and honey, and where the lion lies next to the lamb.”

“Heaven?”

Anna nodded and tears ran down her eyes, “once justice has been served.”

“You have to go through all the doors with words on them,” she continued, “each and every one. Even the scary ones… Especially the scary ones. This would be my last room before I am able to move on.”

Serena looked around her and finally asked “What’s keeping you?”

The old woman lifted up her long skirt and Serena saw both of Anna’s legs were chained to the wall. She hadn’t noticed them before, because the old lady hadn’t moved since Serena entered the room.

“I need for both my daughters to forgive me, before…”

Serena stopped listening. There was something about that old woman, who must have been a hundred years old, she recognized. She never knew anyone that old, but she felt she had met her once, possibly in a dream... When realization struck, Serena was mortified.

There was no doubt. That woman was her mother. Her actual mother. Serena ran away.

Out of the room and back into the labyrinth she went. This time the walls became alive. She saw her life projected on them. Every memory from infancy to that fateful night of her death appeared on the walls. She saw every bad and good thing she did. She heard every thought she ever had and when she reached the heart of the labyrinth, a dead end, it felt twenty years had passed.

Somehow she was not surprised to see a figure was waiting for her there. What was weirder was that, as if by instinct, she knew who it was.

It was the Collector and he had been expecting her.

The first thing she noticed about the Collector was the eyes.

They were the only things that betrayed his human appearance. The Collector’s eyes were luminescent shining brightly like two full moons on a dark night.

The second thing she noticed was that the Collector was androgynous, neither male nor female. Nonetheless this celestial being had a kind face.

The third thing she noticed was the awe-striking presence of the Collector. She found herself on her knees as soon as her eyes fell on him.

“Get up Serena,“ the Collector called and it sounded like a thousand church bells ringing.

Despite the Collector’s insatiable appearance, the voice was intolerable. It moved things in her.

“Upon your death you were judged child,” the Collector said and Serena started scratching herself.

“ and we found that you still have the light inside of you… “

Serena now felt her body was weighing her down.

“But you have committed great grievances…”

Serena tried to crawl away from the Collector and that voice, while her sister came to mind.

“and justice must be served.”

“Forgive me Alice!” She called as the Collector came for her and stamped in the ground opening a hole right underneath her. Serena fell through.

TO BE CONTINUED.