The hospital room went dark as I closed my eyes, my breath stilling. I expect nothingness, to find nothing waiting for me on the other side, to see only blackness. But there was more, so much more: there was colour.

"There he is," a musical voice calls, her face swimming into view.

I don't know her, but I keep thinking that maybe I do. She's tall, much taller than any human I've ever seen, covered in a black robe with black feathers around the edge of the hood. Her eyes are a bright yellow, glowing slightly in her pale face. She has a smattering of freckles across her nose, a tendril of her red hair hanging out under the hood.

I look around as my vision expands, taking on a more surreal vision. I'm lying on my back in the grass, looking up at a sky that can't decide what colour it wants to be. I can see streaks of pink, purple, blue, even green, like the sun is setting and rising at the same time.

I pull myself up, leaning back on my hands as I deal with the faint dizziness. The woman holds her long, thin hand out to me, and I stare at it, puzzled.

"Come on," she says encouragingly. "We have a bit of a walk."

I stare at her hand for a few more seconds, then accept her offer to help me up. Standing, the top of my head comes up to the woman's breasts, her robe tipping open in her movement to reveal the white dress underneath.

"Where am I?" I ask, staring around at the trees. Some of them are tall and straight, others are so gnarled and twisted I'm surprised they're not sending leaves out into the ground.

"To be honest, I'm not sure," the woman says, turning a little and gesturing me to follow her. I fall into step beside her, and she walks slowly so I can keep up. "Humans are usually pretty stable when it comes to predicting their Death Realm. The hell or heaven of their culture, nothingness, returning to the world... but you seem to have built your Death Realm out of forgotten dreams."

I walk beside her, glancing around. Now and then, I hear something familiar - squealing tyres, yelling adults, the happy screams of a child - but I can't see where these sounds come from.

"So... where are we going?" I ask, stepping a little closer. Her black robe, though it reminds me of the Grim Reaper, exudes a feeling of comfort.

"We're going for a walk," she says with a smile, looking down to me. "We're going to discover what will make your eternity tolerable, even happy."

I look down and away. A heavy feeling on my heart makes my mouth dry. I can't feel happy, I don't deserve it.

"Now, now," the woman said with a smile, placing her large hand on my shoulder, "take it from someone who's been doing this for almost three thousand years - no one deserves the flames of hell, even if they think they do. Everyone has a single redeeming streak, and that's what we focus on here."

I frown, looking back to her. "Even Hitler?"

She smiles. "Hitler was kind to his dogs. He got the Death Realm he deserved, though some might not agree." She stops to look at me, her other hand on my shoulder. "What is it about you that redeems all your flaws?" she asks, dragging two fingers down my face so I have to close my eyes.

"I don't know," I say after a while, turning away from her. I rub my arms with my hands, feeling the yawning maw of depression fighting to surface.

"Yes, you do, you just won't admit it to yourself. Won't admit you were a good person." The woman swoops around behind me and places a hand on my shoulder, the other over my forehead. "Focus."

I try to throw her off, but something is holding my body still. I sigh and close my eyes, frowning into her hand. Nothing but regrets pass my eyes.

The woman says something I can't quite hear, and the dark thoughts brighten, twisting. The baby rabbit I saved in high school, taking the blame for some stupid prank my friends played in primary school. The handful of change I gave that homeless guy once.

Little things, little acts of kindness that build up inside me, becoming a big thing. I could feel it, just as I can feel the tears dripping down my cheeks.

"There you go," she says, gently letting me go. "There's your Death Realm."

I open my eyes to find a door in front of me. It's plain brown, a cheap knocker and a frosted window. The door that graced my parents' house when I was growing up.

"Off you go," she whispers, giving me a gentle push.

"What's behind the door?" I ask, and hate the trembling in my voice.

"Forgiveness," she said, a rustling of feathers behind me catching my attention. Your Death Realm... is forgiveness.

I turn back, but the woman is gone. It's just me on the grass. Behind the door, I can hear laughing and talking. Can I do it? Can I open that door?

The choice is taken away from me as someone inside opens the door, a dog barrelling out into the grass. He grabs my pants and pulls me towards the door, where I can see my family sitting around a table.

I turn back again, unsure, and see a large black raven, it's eyes electric yellow, watching me from a tree nearby. I gulp, take a breath, and allow the dog to drag me inside.

Good luck, Keridwen says, her voice carrying on the wind as she opens her wings and sails across the grass, headed for the sunrise.

Hello! You must be Mister Archibald? Yes, very well, thank you. Please, do come in.

Oh, that? That's a portrait of Sir John of Engelheim. Yes, painted that one myself, first year of college. There's some flaws to it, of course, but one must keep their first painting around, if only to see how they've improved. Tea?

Ah, I see you've noticed the Dorchester. Really does draw the eye, doesnt it? One of the strangest commissions I ever had, to tell you the truth.

Oh, nothing fancy. We'll, if you want to hear it, it's a short story, I guess -- no, no, don't get up, I'll grab the sugar. Be forgetting my own head next.

So, the Dorchester. Well. About fifteen years ago, on a dark and stormy night --

What do you mean, 'that's cliche'? It's what happened. It was just past nine on a night filled with thunderstorms, can't get much truer than that. If I may continue?

Well I was sitting in my studio, working on a commission for the Queen, when someone pounded on the front door. No, this was so late, my housekeeper was gone for the night, so I had to go see who it was.

To tell the truth, I was a bit startled to see a bedraggled man, maybe tall as my shoulders, standing on the doorstep but it was a bit wet out. Fellow was young, but didn't seem too bad, 'cept for the pale skin, o'course. Happens around here a lot, people going pale 'cause of the storms all through autumn and winter.

No, this was in late spring, not unusual to see someone pale right up into summer, just depends on their job. Anyway , this poor wretch was soaked through from the rain and he looked a bit manic, to tell you the truth. Teeth chattering, eyes wide, all that. Asked if he could come in, he had a business proposition for me.

Well, at that point, I hadn't become the well-known portraiteer of the rich and famous. I didn't recognise the man, but I knew he was of good breeding -- you could see it in his eyes.

So we came in, and he sat me down and demanded I paint his portrait. Desperate he was, claimed he hadn't seen his own face in more than a century. Well, that caught me a bit off guard, o'course, but the way he was talking, I knew I'd be paid well for the service.

He was a spoiled thing, yeah, no doubt about it. But he offered me a full purse, couldn't have said no, even if I wanted to -- which I didn't. Something told me it would be a fair foolish thing to do.

So anyway, I look him over, and he says he's not crazy, he just needs to see his own face. Now, me, I don't think that's all that weird, Lord in Heaven knows we get some weird people coming in here, but I did find his aversion to Mrs Aldersleigh's famous foccaccias a little on the nose.

Oh, no, famous for her garlic and cheese foccaccias, no doubt about that. I'm sure I could find you one, Mrs Aldersleigh made some before she went off to visit her mother, poor woman, got the long illness, they don't know if she'll survive the week.

What? Oh, yes, the Donchester. Well, the man -- more a boy, to be honest -- was happy to sit still, weirdly still, for a few hours so I could get most of the blocking done. I told him he could come back next week for the first viewing, and he agreed, but after that...

Hmm? Oh, nothing. No, I don't remember much except waking up with a sore neck and a sense of managing to avoid the worse of it, but I couldn't work out what 'it' was.

The man -- boy -- sitter returned a week or so later, took one look at the canvas and burst onto tears. I don't know what he expected to see, but apparently my painting was not it. He screamed at the image, ran for the window and hurled himself out.

We never found the body, but there were a lot of animals in the forest that night, I realised through my broken window. I don't really see what haunted the man so, but then, I'm more than happy to paint people the way they want to see themselves, not as they were. I just didn't do it for that one, what with my commission jumping out a window before he could pay me.

No, I never got the man's name, nor payment. So I keep the Donchester to remind me to be wary of conmen seeking to swindle.

My memory? Well, now and then I forget something, wake up with the window open and so on, but that's just old age. I am seventy-seven, you know.

Good Lord in Heaven, is that the time? Sorry, Mr Archibald, I do have to move you along, I have an appointment to keep. No, nothing serious, just a spot of blood donation. No, it's fine, leave them there, I'll have the housekeeper deal with it.

Thank you so much for coming out to check on me, Mr Archibald. Nice to know there's still some decent kids out there.

I think I'll skip walking you out, my legs aren't what they use to be. No, thank you for coming.

Oh, and if you could let the young man outside into the house on your way out, that would be great. Thank you. Good day, sir.

I told them. I told them that winter would bring the Dead, but did they listen? No. They relied too much on magic and conmen to listen to a farmer whose family lived through this shit before.

When my grandda was seven, I told them, the Dead walked. The blizzard of 358 decimated the land, killed a lot of livestock, and killed everyone who was caught out of the bonfire circle. And then, those what died came back to slaughter their old friends, whose bodies rose and killed yet more people!

'Loony old man,' they called me. 'Lost his mind years ago and doesn't know what he's talking about.'

When the Dead walked again, last night on the Winter Solstice, I was home safe in my circle of fire, with my daughter and her baby. We kept the fires burning all night, and when dawn came, we watched the Dead die again.

You should have listened to me. A few did, and they emerged from the flames with us, seeing the world changed this night. But the rest of you?

An entire town, rotting and bloating in the cool winter sun. We can't bury all of you, and to be frank, I don't want to bury any of you.

We still have the fires burning, just in case. If the Dead stay down again tonight, we'll burn your bodies tomorrow.

It's the funeral you fools deserve.