[WP] All humans go automatically to hell when they die. You can gain access to a heaven though, but only if the animals you interacted with while living vouch for you.

I hacked and coughed on my knees as the bright light that had suddenly appeared blinded me. I felt peace for the first time well, I didn’t really know. First I was moving some dogs from a fighting ring, then sulfur and now, I don’t know.

“Welcome!” Came a booming voice.

“The hell?” I cough out.

“Not quite, Woodburn spoke highly of you actually, he said you had the strongest arms, it could lift anything away”

“Woodburn?”

Past memories hit hard. I was 14 years old in an animal shelter. In the night drop off as small pup no more than 7 weeks old by his teeth gasped for his next breath. His mangled back legs dropped behind him as his front paws crawled toward me. I picked him up, knowing that he would not know a day of happiness but, maybe I could offer him peace.

“Yes! And Sunflower is here, she told us how you were a second mother to her young.”

Again I am hit with the guilt, a mother cat surrounded by her five kittens. The hacks, the gasps, the coughs. Upper respiratory infections, the antibiotics were not working and within 3 weeks of delivering her kittens they all died. She lived and was later adopted to a wonderful family but I could not save her babies.

“No, I am not suppose to be here. I didn’t save any of them!” Tears hit my eyes as I remembered all of my failures.

“Would you say that to Aurora?” A voice questioned.

The heart clencher of it all. The old girl, lost her owner by a heart attack. The family did not want to keep an aging dog, so they sent her to the shelter. Curled up in a ball, didn’t want to eat, drink or acknowledge the world around her. I took her in when no one wanted a dog that would die in a few years. Then her kidneys started to fail. I had her euthanized in my arms on a summer’s day. The warm comforting light held little comfort as she took her last breath.

“She would never forgive me!” I slammed my hands to the floor. “Out of all, I failed her the most because she trusted me.”

“They know. Yet they vouch for you.”

/r/WritingPrompts Thread