The darkness.
It's all there is. This deep, endless black that would make a
moonless night seem blindingly bright. Never would I have imagined
that such a darkness as this could exist. But it does, and now it's
all I know. I stopped searching for the light a long time ago. It's
funny, because I actually thought I knew darkness before.
I was wrong.
The pain.
It's all I feel. There are many types of pain in this
universe. That which accompanies a desperate need to breathe met with
a complete lack of oxygen. The sharp sting of a hunger and thirst
that will never be satisfied. The dull, icy ache of complete isolated
loneliness. Heart-wrenching regret. Mind-numbing emotions that have
the power to completely overwhelm a soul. Anger, sadness, fear. I
feel them all. They consume me and override my senses until my mind
and body reach the breaking point. But the thing is, I don't break.
This whole time, I have remained in tact. I want so desperately to
make it stop, but I don't know how. Even if I did, something deep
inside me knows that this will never end. The agony will continue.
I thought I knew pain before.
I was wrong.
The memories.
These are my only foothold to sanity. And this sanity is one
that is very quickly cracking. Because every minute, I can feel them
slipping away. I've already lost so many. I don't know where I was
born, or anything about my childhood. I can't remember any family or
friends or pets, and the only thing I know regarding my age is that
I'm an adult. Or was an adult. I'm not sure how that works here.
Seeing your memories drift away into void is a pain that few of
the living have come to know. It is a horrible sense. Imagine
everything that ever mattered to you just vanishing, your entire life
becoming an insignificant blur right before your eyes. I've seen it.
And it's loss beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
I thought I knew loss before.
I was wrong.
The only thing I can remember clearly is the water. The fear.
The feeling of my lungs burning for the air I would never find. It
wasn't so bad, now that I think about it.
The truly awful thing was the sinking. I remember watching
distorted the light of the sun drift further and further away from me.
I remember the darkness closing in on me as I was consumed by the
cold realization that I would never get back to the surface. That's
when I had given up, when I'd stopped fighting, allowing myself to be
consumed by the blackness.
God, how I wish I hadn't stopped fighting.
The thing is, I expected light after that. I searched so long
for the legendary bright aura that beckons us out of life. But all I
found was darkness. My world continued to get more black and cold to
a point that I would never have imagined possible. And that's how I
reached this place.
We think we know what's waiting for us after death. So many
have come to expect warmth and happiness when they leave the world.
We think we'll reach some "better place" where we can rest when the
toils of life have reached an end. Well, I've seen what waits for us.
And, believe me. . .
We were wrong.
