Though these last minutes were not his last, it sure felt as if they were. This dying man felt as though it were all over as his body dropped into darkness, as the light of his eyes faded away, and as his life dwindled to nothing but a mere particle of existence. Some shrill voice sang on the borders of life and death, and he was its audience, listening with neither thought nor feeling. The sword that had struck him in the heart and the pain that had accompanied it were no longer recognized. Even the terrifying products of his fury were undetectable upon his soul. Yet, these were not the last minutes of his life. This was his beginning, masquerading as that final, bitter end that all life faces.
Time no longer existed in parallel with the physical world. Years past in flashes, and only in rare occasions did it slow into some form of correlation. Was this a heaven? Was it a form of hell? Was he watching down from the clouds or from the viewpoint of a soul ****ed to the earth? There were so many questions he had to ask; yet, like a dream, his consciousness was twisted into paradox. Those questions barely registered in his mind, and instead, his mind only scanned what was before him.
But what was before him? The only things that past before his eyes were glimpses of the past, and visions of random segments in time. Whether he was moving forward or not was unknown to him. Even these events, these things he saw, seldom made sense. They were vague, and the details unknown. What is more, his senses were affected in the most peculiar way. He did not sense through touch, sight, smell, hearing or taste, but through a different form of understanding that seemed ethereal.
It was obviously the circumstance of having died that he experienced this entirely new sensation, but he did not know what it meant. At times he felt as a spirit or ghost, trapped between dimensions and planes of existence. Other times, he felt like a being of nothing.
And then it was at this time that feeling began to return, coupled with thought. Immersed into a new light, he felt the sensation of warmth did exist in his plane of reality. Something had stirred in his new life and awoken him. But the vivid glow of life not too distant to him was comparatively small and unnoticeable to the man’s realization.
Amidst his dark plight, a tear rolled down his cheek, and he remembered his death. Blood had crawled down his chest as the last breath of his true life escaped him. He had knelt in utter disbelief while his killer looked down upon him, eyes in absolute horror as to what the now dead man had done.
He would never let that murderer harm the body of his loved one…
He opened his eyes and shuttered in terror.
Scrambling weakly to his feet, he ran and fell one shaky step after the other til his hands came suddenly to a rough, chipped wall. But he had no time to recover from the sudden reality around him. Memories crashed over him and took place all at once. Thousands of voices spoke in dark tones, accompanied by screams, loud cracks of thunder and burning flame. Swords shattered upon each other in the heat of battle as bright lights swelled into massive blasts of heat. A surge flowed through the supposedly dead, fearful man, and he only whimpered a feeble response.
Spontaneous events played before him, including the screams of a woman for the life of another called Sara. He also heard a sweet man’s voice tell his son that he loved him “no matter what”. The weeping of a new woman came into play inside his mind. Her pain was for the death of her husband, whose name she muttered over and over.
These voices only scared the dead man. It was a particular voice in his mind, speaking repeatedly, that flushed him with tears and weighed his heart heavily on the other hand. Regret tore through him as he fell forward, involuntarily listening to the memory of a young woman who had begged him through tears to please stay, to never leave her again. She had loved him so much, but now…
The man howled in fury, slamming his fist recklessly into the rough floor.
His bellow echoed through his new dwelling. Haunted by his memories, he looked around him, still weeping. It barely registered to him where he was. He did know the place. It was a prison, a prison covered inside-out in rust, blood, and debris, a prison that had no windows and no doors. It was a hell.
Realizing what was left for him and his future, he lay down, ignoring the puddle of water beneath him. Tears continued to roll down his face as he wallowed in defeat. The fire of his soul burned hatefully with pain, dangerously with pain.
This can’t be happening… She can't be gone... I said we would get through this — I said we would all get through this, goddammit!
And then it happened.
The man’s eyes burned murderously in an epitome of hatred and malice. Horrible, horrible pain burned in his heart as any form of love or happiness became ash in its wake. The need to hate, kill and destroy were all that mattered as the last bit of humanity in him vanished. Something had woken within him. And so, he said cryptically, “Everything…will be swallowed whole…”
