[ WP ] When you die the afterlife is an arena where you face every insect and animal you killed in your life . If you win you go to heaven , lose you go to hell . Your job was an exterminator on earth .

She sat in the back of the dusty cells, decked head to toe in cracked leather armor, like some poor sod out of Mad Max made manifest. She had the options of heavier armor, but she figured the lighter armor would keep her nimble. The keepers here could conjure any sort of arms and armor that she could conceive. 
 
 Her first cheeky attempt at requesting something ludicrous, say a tank for example, was met with a pointed `` No''. She hated that moment. Not because an ethereal being from purgatory had dismissed her handily. That was easily the least of her worries. 
 
 It was what the tone betrayed beneath it. 
 
 It was n't the exasperated `` no'' of a retail employee who had answered the same question one time too many. It was n't the furrowed brow and irritated tones of a humorless middle manager in some software development company somewhere. 
 
 It was a habitual response that found no humor, joy, sorrow, bemusement, nothing at all. There was nothing there. Everything currently happening to her was a process with natural immutable rules, like a change of season or an ocean current. This was her first clue that she was a part of that process. Something to be attended to in short order. 
 
 That's all... 
 
 Her hair had been a tangled mess of dirty blonde in life befitting the blue collar work. 
 
 It was now as short as can be. 
 
 A bleeding scalp that was white hot with pain following her first encounter with a gargantuan termite. That taught her to cut her hair. 
 
 Another battle with a beetle. New scars. New lessons. Dead inside. 
 
 Four more. Various insects. She gasped for air and humanity against the corpse of a beetle. The usually disinterested crowd that was there out of obligation -their role in the process- murmured at the young scrappy woman still alive somehow despite six consecutive battles. It turned into a boisterous cheer. 
 
 Something flickered in the depths of who she was. It was n't a scorch that brought her back to life. The apathy had snuffed out what it could. But somewhere down there it was flickering, barely holding on, just like her. 
 
 A few more battles. The insects stopped entertaining the crowd, so they started moving into the smaller rodents. Mice and rats and the like. She had noted the sideways glances of the keepers during her off time. 
 
 Curiosity! 
 
 Her recent victories had lit a blaze and force of will in her she was n't sure she even had known in life. But the crowd's deafening approval could only spark so much. But the notion that the resigned keepers, whom were the embodiment of the process, had been made different through her. The thought made that light into a powerful inferno. 
 
 And so brings us to today. The day prior she had made short work of the largest rat available. They would move onto the larger vermin such as Possums and Raccoons today. Scars painted her bare arms like a tapestry of warfare. It was a macabre bit of symbolism, but it was a chronological map of her will to become who she was in this moment, sitting in the dusty interior of a gladiator cell with no significant anxiety but the thrill pounding with each pulse of blood through her veins. 
 
 The cell keeper came. A bald fellow with pale blonde eyebrows that made them difficult to see. He was dressed in pale blue robes that gathered the dust of the cobblestone floor as it brushed along. 
 
 He unlocked the gate and swung it open, stepping aside for her and her spear in the process. `` My dear'' he said warmly like he did before every battle. She did n't know his name yet, but he almost got him to tell her once. It just gave her more motivation to survive the raccoon out there. She could never know his name from one of Hell's nine circles ( She had verified the nine circles were real. One of the other keepers had spilled that bit of trivia ). 
 
 She could hear the crowd calling her already. She nodded at her keeper friend, and departed for the adoring crowd. 
 

