Stare into Death and Be Still

The afterlife is diseased. All your people had the same vision that night, and knew in their hearts it was true. Creeping tendrils of violet pestilence enveloping the realm beyond, seeping rot into the sea and skies and turning them to poison. The eternal works of your ancestors fumigated, now little more than hollow barracks as the disease wracked their souls, transforming them into horrific, mindless monsters, alike to soldiers marshalled for some unknown war. The people panicked. Many turned to a paralytic despair, the eternal life they had been promised now turned to a vicious hell. The cruel turned to killing, taking gleeful opportunity in condemning their despised to torturous eternity. The greedy turned greedier, demanding that their desire for gold and silver be met in this life if it could not in the next, taking them by whatever means necessary. The priests and shamans bickered, arguing over the rites and incantations to ferry the dead that they had used for millennia, ravenously searching through mountains of scripture to find the way to protect them or to cast away the pestilence for good. They could only think of one singular solution. And none had the strength of will to attempt it. Except you. They were not reassuring companions, the pistol and warding charm you bought with the last of what you owned. Even imbued with the greatest of the mages' spells, you only had a few hours to work with, and you had but a blind hope that you could claim better weapons from the dead. But they had to be enough. If you fail, you would become no different to the beasts that shamble along those hallowed halls. If you succeed? Hopefully they would remember you, and thank you for your sacrifice. You steel yourself, press the gun's barrel to your temple, and begin the lifeless advance.