The Psychonet: Apocalyptica

Afterlife

For the first time in my life, I touched grass. Real grass. It wasn't clear how I ended up here, but somehow, I bathed in both divine sunlight and the euphoria of relief. I ripped the grass off its roots and threw it in the air like confetti. Such precious fragile life. A kind that suffers not.

I hollered to the sky, jumping up and down, "We made it!" Yet, a crippling loneliness emerged. I looked around. I was the only one.

But then, a hand rested itself upon my shoulder. I turned to see.

"Guhya?" Riyon said.

We hugged and I asked, "How did we get here?"

"To be honest, it's fuzzy for me too." Not only had he left his hardly existing life behind, but even his mind was missing and fragmented.

And now, so was mine. "Well... what now??" I asked.

"I think I know the way," he said with an unusual confidence. "Something tells me there's a place by the beach."

"How do you know?"

His hand met his chin, and he looked down, lost in thought, seeking answers. "I don't," he said as mysterious as could be. Then, he looked to me, "But I have faith."

"Wait, didn't you die??" I asked.

"The last thing I remember was plugging into the Psychonet. Then... all of a sudden Hedo was gone."

I flinched, "Oh my god... I can't see your genetic code anymore... It's possible this isn't the same world as before. It's possible I'm not the same me."

Casually, he insisted, "Let's head to the beach. My mind is yearning for it."

I accepted his quest. "Yeah, sure. Lead the way."

As we walked, we tried to recall our last moments.

I said, "From my perspective, you basically died in Hedo. I spent another year or so living it out. I mean, it was seriously insane too."

"Peculiar. So, our stories don't match?" he asked.

I continued, "Only loosely. After you left, your choice echoed into the systems of the Psychonet, letting everyone know that it's possible to survive the horrible thing."

"My choice?"

"You chose power," I said.

He scratched his head, "Power... Oh! Right. It's a bit disturbing that I hardly remember all that now."

"In my timeline, I arrived here just after falling to my death, and at the literal end of the world of all things!" A hint of sadness crept into my heart as the memories revitalized. I remembered: Pandora was gone.

"Guhya? Are you alright??"

Shaking, I wiped away the tear, "Yeah. I'm fine."

"You're saying the world ended?? What do you mean?"

"Oh, right! This place we are standing, it came to be known as the Outside."

"The... Outside?"

"That life from before, it was inside-" A shock was felt through my head.

"Guhya?"

"Sorry, it was in-" Again, the shock occurred. "Agh! I don't think I can say it for some reason. It feels like it's on the tip of my tongue."

"What's that about?"

Defeated, I said, "I'm not sure. To be honest, I can't even remember what I was trying to say."

From that moment on, my memories seemed to drift. As if my life had been a faded dream. The more my brain tuned into the Outside, the further my past life washed away, downstream. Unless I really thought about it, I'd lose track of everything that came before, even all that was precious. Somehow, this felt okay.