7 minutes

Chapter 2: The First Minute

          Our brain has a storage capacity of 2.5 petabytes. For context, 1 petabyte equals 1000 terabytes. It records every second our consciousness sees, no matter how little we are. From birth to death, our brain records everything.

          During the first minute of my death, I relived my birth. I saw the day I was born, from the hospital to the doctors, to my mom and dad. 

         There, in the operating theater, the doctors and nurses who had delivered me were rushing here and there, following procedures to make sure that both the mother and child were okay. Then I fell sound asleep. 

           As I woke up, there was a man next to me. It was my father, and he looked very young. Beside my bed was another bed, and in it was my mom.

           I was seeing all this in the third person. "It does feel like I am dreaming," I thought. I was still recovering from the fact that this was actually happening.

          My suicide attempt had been successful. I was dead and was having flashbacks of my life. I'm sure that if I had told anyone that while I was still alive, they would have thought I was crazy. I mean, even I didn't believe it when I was alive.

          Everyone in that room was so happy. My parents, my elder sister, my relatives - they were all ecstatic and excited when I was born. "How will they react now when they find out I was dead?" I wondered.

          Thinking about it made me regret doing it, but I convinced myself that regretting it now was useless. It had to happen someday; I was just changing the dates, and regretting it now wouldn't change anything.

          I remembered the day my parents had gotten me a braided chain made from some of the finest silver from Spain for my tenth birthday. It had cost them a fortune.

          I used to run around the house wearing it, pretending it was some magical treasure, while sis ran after me pretending to be a pirate. But after that day, I had been really careful with it.

          As these memories played back in front of me, a few tears rolled down my cheeks, and then another, and another until I was sobbing uncontrollably.

         My parents had given me so much. They loved me so much and were willing to spend so much money on something they knew wouldn't even fit me after only a few years.

          Yet I had left them alone with only my sister to care for them. "I, their son, who bears the responsibility of caring for them, keeping them happy when they couldn't for themselves, am leaving them. HOW PATHETIC CAN I BE?" I cursed myself while tears were still dropping from my face.

          "And what will sis think?" I asked myself. My legs gave out, and I was now kneeling on the floor, my head down, and tears still falling on the ground.

          "She has been with me throughout my hardest times as an older sister and a best friend, comforting me, telling me that it's alright and that I'm strong, and as long as we were together, nothing could go wrong. And now I'm giving her a hard time having to face this new hardship and take care of our parents all on her own. I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry," I screamed while continuously punching the hard ground in the same spot where my tears had fallen.

"I'm so sorry, everyone," I said, this time in a lower voice.

          A subtle silence ensued as the room went dark as if to indicate the end of the minute.

          After a few seconds, I stopped sobbing. I got up, and amidst the darkness, I saw a source of light, a door? Indeed, it is a door, I thought, as I walked closer to it.

I walked through, bracing myself for what the second minute might ensue.