Not Kansas

The floor wasn't much of an improvement from the hospital tiles.  It was still cold, clammy, and stretched out in a long hallway.  Waking up in a cave had been a bit disconcerting to say the least.  Go to sleep one place, wake up another, wonder where some slippers would be.

It wasn't a dream, he thought.  The floor proved that with the cold, and the wall proved that with his stubbed toe.  He even felt the warmth of the torch that had been set in the wall next to where he woke up.  It was an alcove carved into the stone, much the same as the countless others that lined the hallway.  Torches were in holders above them, but none had been lit besides his own.  All the rest of the alcoves had been empty too.  He could have sat and waited, he supposed, but he was more of an adventurer at heart.

Well, until his heart had given out on him and landed him in the hospital.  He was rather resigned to boredom after that, but he felt much better after he woke up today.  That was an upside.  The downsides were the cold floor, not knowing where he was going, the outdated technology of the torch he had that flickered and spit off sparks every once in a while, and the sinking feeling that maybe atheism had been the wrong choice after all.  It wasn't exactly what he would have expected for an afterlife, and he didn't remember hearing about any religions like this.

Still, it wasn't non-existance, it wasn't a dream, and it probably wasn't aliens.  Aliens would have been more high-tech.  It was boring though.  It felt like he'd been walking for hours, and the corridor just kept on going straight ahead, little alcoves off on either side every few feet, large enough to lay a human body down in.  Besides his torch it was all dark as well, which created a closing in sensation that tugged a bit at his claustrophobia.  It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

It was not a feeling that let up when he slumped against the wall in exhaustion a few hours later.  It accompanied a growing gnawing at his stomach.  Maybe he could eat the torch-wood if it came to that?  He felt his eyelids growing heavy, struggled against them, set the torch in a holder near him, tossing the unused torch aside, then was claimed by sleep.  He did not dream.

When his eyelids opened, he felt rested, confused, and thought that something might be poking his leg.  The hunger had not gone away, though.  The ground was still cold.  He could make out a shadowy figure, cloaked in black in the blackness in front of him.  It was not in fact holding a scythe, though the staff it did have in its dry hands did give him that impression at first.  He would have jumped up, but the adrenaline wasn't pumping quite yet.

"Haven't seen one of you earthlings in a while.  Get up and follow me.  Take the torch."

The hooded figure turned and started walking.  It was back towards where he had first appeared.

"What's going on?  Who are you?  Where am I? What..."

"Less questions, more walking."

The voice was raspy, like sand flowing down a sheet of metal.

"But I..."

"Quiet, earthling."

"No, really, wha..."

The figure stopped and turned.

"Fine, waste your time, waste your energy, as is you may not make the walk already, and I'm certainly not carrying you."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Good, now follow me earthling.  I can give you a few facts to chew on, as the saying goes, but little else.  There are laws that I must follow."

The figure started walking again. The sliding of the dark robe on the floor accompanied by the staff's thump echoed down the path.

"If you want to call this place something, you are in Caspieth's, my, hallway in the land of Whence.  All names you earthlings gave, by the way.  This extends in length sixty miles, and we are almost at the halfway point."

The light from the torch flickered, shying away from his mysterious guide.

"I do not deal with you earthlings much, I just walk the length of my tunnel, showing such as you the right direction.  The other way leads to a bad place for mortals.  A good place for the slavers though.  Do not ask what my business is, just walk.  I know you are curious, but it really is best to just imagine things and then find out when we arrive."

"Ok."

The figure tsk'd up ahead, and kept walking.

"On our walk, your torch will not go out, you will tire and hunger, but it is still possible to overcome.  You will be a skeleton when you get there, only flesh and bones, but you will arrive.  You look determined enough."

He wondered how the figure could tell, having not turned around.  He did feel determined though.

"It was the footsteps."

Another five steps.

"No, I'm not."

Three.

"I don't lie, you earthlings are just predictable."

Twenty more steps.

"Five hundred years, and more came through here in the past.  That is the last I will say."

Just the swish of cloth on cold stone, the beat of a staff, and his own footsteps as company.  It was a long walk.  Caspieth slowed down a bit as he tired, but he kept pace as best he could.  Before long it became a mindless exercise of one foot in front of the other.  The end of the tunnel finally grew a small light.  There was the smell of salt water, though no real breeze came into the tunnel.  Then the exit seemed to spit the two out into the sunlight.  He slumped to the ground, looking around.  All around him was a giant beach, sand everywhere, and behind him a giant mountain, one in a range that stretched back as far as he could see.

"Welcome to whence, deadman.  You'll want to take a left."

he just sat and stared around.  Caspieth walked forward, pulling a bottle from beneath his robes.  Clear and glass and ornamented with small jade figurines he couldn't pick out as the cloaked thing walked to the sea, submerged the bottle before corking it and stashing the thing back where he had hid it before.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I has a tunnel to walk again."

And the figure disappeared into the blackness.