Marcus Agosti awoke face down in dirt, gasping for air. The ground pressed unnaturally at his sternum as if gravity were upped a dial. He rose painfully, brushing off his silver jacket and undoing the top buttons of a tucked white dress shirt two sizes small.
He exhaled deeply and surveyed his surroundings.
Before him, a steep volcano rose to a moonless night with bright streams of lava drizzling from its peak. A flickering streetlight extended from its side, illuminating the space around him. Beyond its reach, silhouettes of trees stretched endlessly into darkness.
Below the streetlight, a medieval door stood entrance to the volcano topped with an engraved title, Vesuvius, and an inscription:
I am the way to a forsaking people.
I am the way to their eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
"What is this?" Marcus murmured as he paced, attempting to recall the moments leading to this bizarre place. But his memory was blank, absent everything save his name and the English language.
No, there was something else.
A vivid scene amidst otherwise empty consciousness. A memory of a smiling, wedding-gowned woman with blonde hair and green eyes dancing in his arms on a hilltop under an olive tree that overlooked a sea of vineyards. Even now, he felt a warmth with her every met glance.
A growl interrupted Marcus's vision. He spun, scanning the forest for its emanator.
He found it.
Amidst the bushes, three pairs of catlike eyes gleamed with the streetlight's reflection. Two pairs faded backwards as the third grew larger. A mountain lion with frayed grey fur and an oversized gut stepped into the light. It licked its lips and arched to a prowl.
"You've got to be kidding."
Marcus yanked the handle of the volcano entrance, but it was locked.
"Help!" He banged his fists until they were bloody. "Someone, please help!"
The mountain lion neared. Marcus swung an arm.
"Back! Stay back! I don't want to hurt you."
For a moment it halted and gave him an innocent, playful look.
Then it pounced, clenching Marcus's arm in its fangs. It whipped him to the ground and began to feast.
"Ah! Please! Make it stop!" Marcus begged to the moonless sky.
#
The mountain lion had proceeded to a leg when the volcano door finally cracked open.
A man in a red robe and laurel wreath nightcap peeked out.
"Oh, heavens!" the man gasped. "You're not supposed to be here!" He stepped rhythmically to Marcus with hands at his back and shoulders stooped over the space before him.
"Bad kitty! Shoo, begone!"
He snapped his fingers and the mountain lion vanished in smoke.
Marcus panned in disbelief from the smoke to the red-robed man. "Help!" he cried, too mangled to question what he'd witnessed. "Please, get me to a hospital!"
"None here I'm afraid," the man replied matter-of-factly. "But so long as I'm around you haven't need for one!"
The man snapped once more and flesh returned to Marcus's devoured arms, pain disappeared, and his clothes mended.
"My sincerest apologies, Marcus," the man continued. "This is not where someone like you is supposed to start off!"
With wonder, Marcus grazed his repaired leg with repaired fingers.
"What are you?" he demanded. "How do you know my name?"
The red-robed man bowed until his long nose brushed the ground.
"Dante Algorithmi. A play, you see, on the great Italian poet of whose work this place is quite loosely based. I am a virtually materialized artificial intelligence—emphasis on intelligence—whose purpose is to guide newcomers to their predetermined zones, called cantos, within the simulation."
"Simulation?" Marcus asked. "We're in a simulation?"
"Ah yes, I must remember to start with that! We stand at the entry to one of two afterlife simulations housing human consciousness postmortem. Simply put, a digital Heaven and Hell."
"Does that mean I'm…dead?"
Dante placed a hand on Marcus's shoulder.
"I'm afraid so."
A holographic rendering of Marcus appeared alongside his name and Cause of Death: Heart Attack.
Marcus placed a hand to his chest and felt a heartbeat.
"That can't be…this is too real."
"That's very kind, Marcus! Our architects put the utmost care into every detail. Brain code must accept its new reality for a smooth transition to a simulated body."
"Brain code? You uploaded my brain?"
"Well, not me, but yes! Paradiso, Incorporated—the company who created and maintains the simulations—invented a world-changing technology called digitization roughly forty years ago that takes instantaneous copies of one's neural pathways in the hours proceeding death and uploads them to their servers. You, Marcus, were digitized!"
He scratched his head. "Shouldn't I remember that? I can barely remember anything."
"Digitization does a number to one's recollection, quite like amnesia. But don't worry, Marcus, it will all come back in time!"
"Eternal life," Marcus said, taking it all in. "That's…incredible. But this doesn't look like Heaven…am I going to Hell?"
"No, and that's precisely the conundrum!" Text under Marcus's rendering displays Destination: then cycles from Canto 1 to Canto 2 up to Canto 8 until landing on Heaven. "You see, Marcus, you were earmarked for the Heaven simulation, but somehow wound up in Hell! How curious. The work of that damned hacker, no doubt."
"Hackers? You have afterlife hackers?!"
"Oh yes, they're a dime a dozen these days. But only one has really ached us. A cryptic fellow, or group of fellows, that go by the name Judas. But don't fret, Paradiso poured the vast majority of its cybersecurity budget into the Heaven simulation. Even Judas doesn't stand a chance at cracking it."
"Okay then," Marcus exhaled. "What are you waiting for? Poof me to Heaven and let's be done with it."
"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way," Dante said, stepping to the volcano entrance. "The architects designed Hell linearly, which means no shortcuts. Not even for me. But it's a quick stroll to the pearly gates, I promise!" A demonic growl boomed within as the door opened. "Shall we get started?"
Marcus stepped back and into a puddle of his blood still present from the mauling.
"Nope, no way," he said. "I'm not going in there."
"Come now, Marcus. Eight measly cantos and you'll be reunited with your wife."
"My wife?" he recalled the memory of the hilltop wedding. "She's in here too?"
A 3D rendering of the blonde woman with green eyes appeared over a Heaven verdict.
"Barbara Agosti," Dante started. "Stricken with cancer, passed over thirty years ago. Needless to say, she awaits you eagerly in Heaven!"
She's here, Marcus thought. It was the motivation he needed. A glowing ember in this moonless, simulated night.
"Alright, Dante," he said, straightening his back. "Lead the way."