Imagine if you died tomorrow, and found everything you believed about the afterlife to be true. Now imagine that it wasn’t just your afterlife that was true, but everyone else’s as well. Finally, imagine if it was all true at the same time, and in the same place. All the collected hopes, thoughts, and dreams of all who have ever lived and all who have yet to live smashed together into one world; such a world might be described as:
“…a hodgepodge of statues, Greek and Egyptian stonework, books, paintings, rusted gears, car parts and tattered flags…like some inter-dimensional mish-mash halfway between the world’s greatest antique fair and a universal garbage dump.”
That is the world of Afterall.
Afterall is a two-act rock opera/fantasy adventure through the afterlife set to the music of the chart-topping darkwave band The Cruxshadows. The story is a collaboration between Brenton Lengel and Cruxshadows frontman, Rogue, and revolves around the journey of Jennifer “Reddy” Redmond, a recently deceased young woman, and her quest to reach the gates of judgment, through the nine kingdoms of the dead. Along the way Reddy will be aided by companions: the famous historical crusader Roland, The Illiad’s Cassandra, and the Norse god Odin. Together, they must face The Stranger, a mysterious and powerful entity, as well as a coming disaster of apocalyptic proportions. Afterall is somewhat reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno, and also pays tribute to, and draws from, the works of Lewis Carroll, E.A. Poe, J.M. Barrie, and two Williams (Blake and Shakespeare) as well as the work and mythology of the Cruxshadows, which Rogue has spent over two-decades developing.
