What Makes a Monster

♱Eighty-Five♱

I thought death would be cold. A chilly winter night that brightened with a rising sun. But this isn't cold. It's warm. Bright. Lights flash before my eyes, a kaleidoscope of colors until my mind goes numb. Then I drop. Faster. Faster. Faster. Until the wind physically hurts. My mind screams. Maybe I am too.

I see Dad. I see Mom. I see Soran. I see my friends. I see a cottage on a hilltop with a pond and swings. I see my old bedroom, toys scattered on the floor. The window is open. I see Chandri, warm green fields...then the flames and the bodies. Is this it? My life flashing before my eyes. All this information that I once forgot suddenly returns, as if someone is trying to cram the world into my mind.

Silence takes me. I drift through waves that are as dry as a desert. But then I blink and I'm lying atop a stone floor, peering up into a domed shaped room with holographic moldings and shimmering walls. Sitting up, I peer about the room, feeling like an ant among giants. There are open archways so tall that it aches to attempt to see the peeks.

Standing, I realize that I feel no pain. The aches prior to my fall are gone...prior to my death, I guess. Is this death? Is this the afterlife?

Did I leave Soran...?

Tears prick my eyes. I wipe them away when inspecting the room. There's no furniture, only starlike patterns across the floor. My steps click and echo in the vast chasm.

"Hello?" I call. My voice reverberates against the walls. "Is anyone there?" I try again when stepping towards an archway. Each one appears to lead nowhere, until I actually step through and the darkness twists into a maze of upside down stairwells, limitless caverns, and doors that lead nowhere.

"I think I'm gonna be sick." I gag, trying to focus on where I am as I walk down stairs, although I'm fairly certain I'm on the ceiling.

"D...Dad! Mom! It's...it's me, it's Wallie!" I pray to hear their response, even if I feel guilt for having left Soran. If I am dead though then they're here and I want to see them. I want to see them so bad.

But no one answers.

"Anybody!" I trip down the stairs, shouting as I fall and fall and fall once more. There's still no pain, even when I hit the ground. When I sit up, everything is right again. No upside down stairs or twisting columns leading nowhere. Instead, I'm sitting in a sea of golden sand, staring up at an endless night sky painted with what my mind can't even comprehend. Stars. Planets. So many that I can't stand taking it in. My eyes physically burn. Pain returns, so much so that I can't comprehend it either. I turn away, gasping, feeling that same sensation as earlier, like someone is trying to cram the entire universe into my mind.

"What have we here?"

"Ahh!" I scramble away from the strange creature that, honestly, I couldn't get away from if I even tried. I now know why the archways are so tall now. There's a giant standing before me, towering into the endless sky with skin like porcelain with veins of shimmering glass. They're faceless and genderless, like a mannequin at a store. Their voice changes tune from soft to rugged.

"You shouldn't be here," they say. In a blink of an eye, they shrink so they're no bigger than me. In their grasp is a dark blue stone with sparkling writing that changes every second.

There's too much going on that all I manage to squeak out is; "W-Where is...here?"

They're quiet in observing me, tilting their head to the side. They step closer. I crawl back. The sand isn't coarse like what I've known. It's almost soft, like a blanket beneath me.

"Hmm. She will wish to see you first."

"Huh?"

They snap their fingers. This world morphs into a blur, as if it is moving and we're completely still. Then it stops and I think I'd throw up if I could because we're not on land. We're in the sky, nothing beneath our feet, only an eternity of space.