5. Hell

Merging? …are you a Borg or something? Am I being assimilated? No, you’re too polite to be a Bor—WHO ARE YOU?!?

CHOICES is the first book in the Chronicles of a Hero fantasy series. This is the story of Wendell P. Dipmier, who I’ve been writing about since 1990. I hope you’ll join me on this new adventure….as I tell the honest, complete story of this amazing 17 year old, exclusively on Life of Fiction.

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CHAPTER 5

Is there a Hell?

I’ve wondered about this. If you’ve ever been in a no-win situation, you might agree that there is. Sometimes our only choice in life is to endure. You make the choice and do it.

The choice sucks, I get that.

It may be Hell, or whatever name you want to give it, but my dad would probably tell me about now that it’s also the accurate test of one’s character.

Well, if I wasn’t dead.

You’re not dead, Wendell.

Great, now I have voices in my head. At least you have some company now, Doubt. You can make friends and team up to criticize me until I can’t face life anymore.

*snort* I made a funny.

Hey, you missed your chances for a punchline…Doubt?

Huh.

Where’s the light? I thought you saw a light when you died.

You’re not dead.

What do you mean I’m not dead? A fist-sized diamond just went through my chest! I could hear it. I FELT it. Bones snapped, there was blood…all over my hands…

…so much blood…

Then I fell, and it went dark. Of COURSE I’m dead.

No. You are not. Not yet.

Not yet? *whimper*

Wake up, Wendell.

Wait, who is this?

We are you.

Then I saw it: the light. A sphere of cool white light, blurry in the distance. Kinda like trying to perceive the sun on a cool spring day, but you’re looking at it through squinting eyes. All blurry and fluffy, but you can feel its presence from the warmth. It was growing. No, not growing,…it was getting closer. Good, it’s coming to me. At least the pain is over.

Wendell, you need to wake up.

Half way to me, the light stopped moving.

Wendell, wake up.

I wasn’t listening. My mind just couldn’t let go of the events leading up to the snuffing out of my charming potential. Kidnapped by an ugly, smelly, short, but very strong, mean, green monster…taken to another planet…

My thoughts meandered through the events of my last hour of life.

It wasn’t a very long life. Only 17, and it certainly wasn’t the life I wanted to live. It was all I’d had, though. Choices, and then consequences of those choices. 

Met a blue guy, who wanted to give me an inheritance. It could have been gold. Would have been better if it was cold, hard cash. A ‘treasure’, he said. Then he gave me…a floating, TALKING diamond…the size of both my fists.

‘Accept the gift, Wendell.’ That’s what he kept yammering on about. ‘Accept’ it. All you have to do is ‘accept the gift’ and it can leave with you…IN YOUR CHEST!

The blueberry lied to me. He knew what I’d choose if I had full disclosure, and he took advantage of it. 

But that wasn’t the truth, and I knew it.