My conscious mind was in a state of complete white, there was nothing but the color everywhere the eye could see, yet there was no one; I was alone in this unfamiliar place. I've always heard that purgatory was merely a white space where nothing actually existed, where you waited for God's judgment, and where you contemplated all of the sins you had committed within the span of your life, but it was completely different to actually experience the emptiness of this white room or whatever it was. I don't remember dying, though I'm not sure if that's even possible, and in this state of mind, I decided that I would ask Arie when I saw him again, and then realizing that the statement was better implied if I saw him again, because I wasn't sure if I would see the world anymore. The thought of being dead terrified me, knowing that this would be proof that a God existed, and expecting anger from this higher power because I had doubted him or her on various occasions.
There was a dark spot in the midst of all the whiteness. Curiously, I inched my way closer, trying to figure out what this speck of blackness could possibly be. As I neared its location, the speck seemed to double in size, then triple, growing larger as I got closer, until finally I stood in front of this enormous circle of black. I stared at it, suddenly realizing that I was looking into a dark tunnel, wracking my brain to understand what was happening, the faint sound of a ticking clock surrounding me, filling me with discomfort and anxiety as I wondered where or what this was. Something deep within me urged me on, almost pushing me into the tunnel, but my mind was unsure of what to think, refusing me access to this portal. Ignoring the anxiety that was building in my chest, I crawled my way into the tunnel only to find that it was large enough for me to stand, and so I stood, walking upright, further into the depths of this strange tunnel I had discovered. A speck of reddish orange appeared at the far end, just as the entrance to the dark tunnel had suddenly formed. There were voices that I didn't recognize coming from this light, and so I ran towards it, desperately hoping to find another person. As I entered the new space that was made up of this reddish orange color, everything began to spin, swirls of different colors turned into pixels that formed a picture that I couldn't make out, until finally I found clarity, staring up into the eyes of a man with dark hair and black eyes wearing green scrubs who was looking down at me.
"Sleep." He said. His voice was raspy, reminding me of red velvet cake or a silken sheet, smooth, yet roughly shaped at the edges. I obeyed, feeling too caught up in my own exhaustion to deny his request. My dreams were nonexistent; all I saw was the atoms in the darkness of my eyelids, small pixels that made up the air around me. These small figures taunted me, mocking my existence. Chemistry had always described atoms as the structure of everything, small, non living objects that somehow made up the entire universe, but the ones I saw could speak. I'm not crazy. Though death seemed like such a simple option that left me with no obligations to anyone or anything, I was relieved to find that I was alive.
Death seemed so final, like an eternal prison sentence, the torture reigns on even though you expected it to end, because with every heaven, there is always a hell. When it came to dying, there was always that chance of burning for eternity, and that completely terrified me. If I was constantly running from being killed, was I really living anyway? Or was I just surviving a nightmare? My entire life had become one huge wreck, with my feet trudging through the rubble, broken pieces that had once made up the foundation of everything that I was. Sleep, however, was just a temporary escape, because unlike death, I could always wake up in an instant, and there was never a chance of it lasting forever. The groggy state had overtaken my body, yet my senses were still in overdrive, my mind racing past millions of different thoughts and ideas, just waiting to become something real. Within what must have been a few hours (I knew because I kept count of every second that passed, even in a half-conscious state) my eyes fluttered open, once again revealing the white room full of silence that I had found myself in only a few days earlier.
