Death is not a place, or a person.
It’s all there is.
We think it the final frontier the greatest imaginable unknown from whose penumbral shores no traveler may return.
But death is not to be feared, because death is very well understood.
While I was alive I wouldnt experience death, so there was no reason to be afraid now.
When I was dead, I wouldnt be capable of experiencing anything, so fear still had no cause.
Twenty20 / @no_faith_left
What if it is what lies beyond?
It seemed as though every sound was an echo of what it once was; every sight a reflection.
With each passing moment, the world was becoming less real…
But all that sight and sound all that being it wasnt simply disappearing.
It was transforming into a figure beside me.
His cloak was black.
Not thecolorblack, but its essence.
Surely this, I thought.
This is why we were taught without words to fear death.
We dont have time for the usual speech.
I felt myself swept up around him like dirt in a hurricane.
If youre lucky, IT will have gotten bored of waiting for you.
Usually people ask too much.
My voice felt flat and dead compared to his overwhelming substance.
How can I give a shot to comprehend something so beyond mortal knowledge?
But its still human nature to ask.
If anything, our pace was increasing.
I wasnt running, or flying, or anything of that nature.
It was more like the rest of the world was moving around us while we stood still.
One question then, I asked.
What else is here besides you?
And that is why questions are pointless.
Death is not a place, or a person.
Its all there is.
Troubling thought, but made more so by the growing howl which began reverberating the rocks around me.
We still seemed to be descending into the Earth, and the air was growing warmer and denser now.
The sound continued to mount as though the world itself was suffering.
Then what is IT?
What Im here to protect you from.
But I thought you said you were all there is.
No, I said Death was all there is.
We werent moving any longer.
Light glinted off the scythe from some unseen source and streamed into the lake like a tributary.
Once inside, the light didnt reflect or dissipate, but swirled and danced like luminescent oil.
I thought you were Death.
Death is not a person.
The light was taking a life of its own inside the water.
The still surface began to churn with the enigmatic energy.
It took my scattered mind a long while to realize that I was the energy flowing into the lake.
I knew I wouldnt understand, but that didnt stop me from feeling frustrated.
If Death is all there is, then what is IT?
What was waiting for me?
The water pressed in around me and I couldnt speak, although I could still draw breath somehow.
Something was in the water around me.
Hands grabbed me by the legs and began dragging me downward.
I was amazed to even discover I had limbs again.
They felt so alien to me that it was almost as though this body was not my own.
Light flashed from the scythe then again.
The hands let go, and the howling rose once more.
The howling Earth reached its crescendo, and thescreamsmade the water around me convulse and contract like living fluid.
Had the Reaper cut it?
I lurched downward, struggling in vain against their implacable grip.
I tried to shout against the suffocating liquid.
But I couldnt sense the Reapers presence any longer.
The heat was unbearable, but the cold depths the hands were dragging me toward was even worse.
The pressure the heat the noise the hands dragging me into the blinding light.
I closed my eyes and screamed.
I was free from the water now, but I just kept screaming.
I couldnt bear to look at IT whatever had stolen me.
Whatever was Death but wasnt whatever even the Reaper could not defeat.
Real, human words from a real human mouth.
Hes a healthy baby boy.
Most people cant remember the day they die, or the day they were born.
I happen to remember both, and I know that they are the same.
