Afterlife

People ask me all the time: “Do you believe in the afterlife?” I always say yes, but the truthful answer would be “No, but I want to believe it.” See, I have a very evidence-based mind. You can’t fully convince me of anything without some kind of proof, and the concept of the afterlife has no proof.
    So you can probably understand my confusion when I died.
    How I died is information best kept from the public; it’s not very kid friendly. But what happened after is something else. I died, of course, my limbs going limp and my eyes drooping shut. But then, everything got really warm. Almost hot, but not so much that I broke out in a sweat…not that I could sweat. I don’t even know how I was able to feel the temperature, given that I didn’t have a physical body, but I could. After a while, I also started to see. I’m not sure how long it was before I could see, because time without space is always kind of weird.
    When the black dots finally disappeared, I saw a sort of grid. It was like a three-dimensional graph. The lines were all wiggly and weird, like someone had drawn them with their non-dominant hand. Everywhere I turned, it was the same scribbly square pattern, stretching forever and ever…
    …then I blinked.
    It was like switching the channel on a TV. The second I opened my eyes, there was something new in front of me. This time, it was a long blue carpet. On either side of it was white, cold nothingness. I started to walk forward, careful not to touch it. I didn’t know what would happen if I did, but I knew it definitely wasn’t hurting me to avoid it.
    The world changed for a second time as I blinked again. Now, I stood in an empty room. There was nothing but a blank picture frame on the wall in front of me. I turned, and discovered that the room was unfinished. And I don’t mean bare floors and unpainted walls. There was nothing there. The fourth wall didn’t exist. It was just more nothingness.
    I stared at it for a while, unblinking. I thought I saw something in it, far in the distance. It was a single black speck in the white, so small I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not. Soon, though, my eyes started to water and I blinked again.
    A large concrete building stretched up and up. Its doors contradicted the simpleness of its unvarnished facades. They were golden and ornate, and well over ten feet tall. In front of the building was a fountain. It was just as detailed as the doors, if not more so. What looked like a Greek statue stood on a pedestal in the center with a hand pointing straight up into the sky. Water flowed from the tip of the statue’s finger and into the pool below. Suddenly, I realized that the scenes were getting more and more detailed.
    I tried my hardest to keep my eyes open; I knew at this point that blinking triggered the change. A tear trickled down my cheek as I approached the gold doors. I reached for the handle, then quickly backed away. Through the window, I could see a dark, blurred face staring back at me. It wasn’t my reflection, and it wasn’t another ghost like me. It was something else entirely.
    When I blinked again, I found myself in a very familiar place. It looked like a space exhibit; planets orbited a glowing sun above me, and the floor looked like the surface of the moon. This place looked almost like reality.
    Suddenly, I felt an intense chill of foreboding. There was something wrong about this place — about all of these places. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here. I don’t think I’m supposed to be dead.
    I could sense something creeping up behind me. At first, I froze. Slowly, it got closer. So I ran for it. I blinked over and over again, not knowing anymore which way was up and which way was forward. Eventually, I stopped blinking and the scenes stopped coming. It was now just darkness. I wouldn’t be able to see the face without light. I blinked again. My head started to hurt…then I realized I shouldn’t be able to feel pain…I was dead…
    I felt a white-hot sensation slide down my back, and my eyes shut. I felt like I was falling through lava. I began to smell burnt skin, even though I had no skin to burn. The darkness under my eyelids grew denser…
    …and then I woke up. I was no longer in pain. All I smelled were lilacs and roses. I sat up too quickly, and my head started pounding again. The darkness was gone. There was only warm, pleasant light. I was still dead, but I was okay. I was safe. I had made it to heaven.