I was surrounded by bright golden light. If I was dead this was not how I pictured the afterlife starting. Peering around I couldn't see anything. While the golden light was bright it seemed to be emitted from a fog that surrounded me. It was a thin wispy fog, just barely dense enough that I wasn't able to make out anything more than a foot away from me.
Glancing down at myself to see how much of myself the fog obscured, I realized that I didn't have a body. Whatever was going on, whether it be a dream or something else.., shit I had no idea what was going on. I started to panic but another wave of intense heat rushed through my body causing my stomach, or whatever it was, to send another intense wave of pain through me.
My panic subsided a bit with the pain. Whatever was going on I still had a body, even if it wasn't here with my mind. Looking around again in hopes of figuring out something, or seeing something that I missed previously.
I still didn't see anything, except maybe the fact that the golden fog seemed to get denser. Another wave of heat, followed by more pain and I was certain that the fog was getting thicker. Yet I couldn't understand the sudden change. When I had passed out the heat washing through my body were unceasing waves, now that my mind was here in this golden fog it had slowed down? Same with the pain. It didn't make sense.
Unsure what was going on and scared of what was going to happen I tried to wave my arm before remembering that I didn't have any here. Yet despite that the fog seemed to move as if it obeyed my thoughts. Excited I tried to push the fog back so I could see around me. As soon as the fog began to shift away the wave of heat became a raging inferno while the pain intensified to the point that all I wanted to do was scream until my lungs were hoarse then scream some more. Quickly I tried to pull the fog back closer to me in hopes that would relieve the heat and pain. As soon as the fog stopped moving away the heat and pain stopped increasing then as the fog flowed back towards my consciousness the heat and pain eased up. In fact the closer I pulled the fog the less I could feel the heat and pain. Hoping I wasn't making some kind of mistake I kept pulling the fog closer to me. There was another wave of heat through me, but it wasn't nearly as intense as before, and didn't cause nearly as much pain, but the fog I was trying to manipulate became a little denser and harder to manipulate.
I still had no idea what was going on, but I had an idea at what I could do to reduce my pain. So I kept with it drawing the fog closer and closer to myself, more waves of heat came without any pain, just a thickening of the fog that made it harder to manipulate. The lack of pain with those waves made me sure I was on the right track so I kept pulling the fog closer and closer. When it finally became too thick to see anything but a dense fog I paused unsure what to do next. I still had no idea what was going on or what I needed to do, I just knew that gathering the fog closer to myself and away from whatever was out there caused me less pain. Yet I still had no idea what was out there past the fog.
Another wave of heat passed through me, but this time the pain returned. It wasn't as bad as before, but it was still there. I could only think that by pausing in gathering the fog closer I had allowed it to spread back out to whatever was causing me pain.
I started to pull the fog towards me again, but this time I concentrated on pulling it into a ball below my line of sight instead of just blindly pulling the fog closer. Before the fog had gathered around me forming a cylinder like shape with me at its center. Now I pulled it into a ball below my line of sight, while concentrating on making it as dense as I could, like that I hoped that I would eventually be able to see what was beyond the fog.
I had no idea how much time passed. My idea seemed to be working as the fog started to thin, then a new wave of heat would pass through me and the fog would thicken again. Gritting my metaphorical teeth I pulled hard and pushed the fog into the fog orb with greater determination, yet every time the fog thinned enough that I could see more of the golden light shining through, the faster the waves of heat came to replenish the fog. It seemed a pointless endeavor except for the fact that I knew the moment that I stopped and the fog began to drift away again the pain would return. So I kept on pulling at the fog.
Finally there was a change. Time had lost all meaning to me as I mindlessly pulled and compressed the fog. At times my effort had waned, but the pain would return reminding me why I kept on. Then as if the orb of fog had reached some kind of critical mass it began to move on its own spinning in place as it drew the fog in on its own. I sighed in relief hoping that I was done now until another wave of heat followed a moment later by pain, woke me up to the fact that the orb might be working on its own but its' pull was slower than what I had been doing on my own. Gritting my metaphorical teeth again while unseen tears streamed down my nonexistent face, I started to pull at the fog again and push it into the fog orb.
After some time I noticed that my efforts were causing the orb to get bigger which in turn seemed to cause it to begin spinning even faster, allowing it pull in even more fog on its own. I grew excited. If the orb grew large enough then it would be able to pull in all the fog on its own without my help. Once it was big enough the orb and I might be able to clear enough of the fog so I could finally see what was out there causing me so much pain.
With renewed hope I worked even harder to help the orb grow in size. With each new wave of heat the fog thickened again, but soon more fog was being drawn into the fog orb than was appearing with each wave of heat. Finally I was able to see beyond the fog. The golden light was a brightly shining sphere that surrounded me completely. With each wave of heat the fog seeped through the golden sphere that surrounded me only to get pulled into the rapidly spinning fog orb.
I felt underwhelmed by the sight, I had no idea what the golden sphere surrounding me was, or what had been causing me pain when I stopped pulling the fog in. Then as the last of the excess fog was absorbed into the orb of fog, it began to change again. It began to glow with a golden light that matched the surrounding sphere. As it grew brighter I tried to face away from the intense light, but it overwhelmed my entire being. I was sure it would hurt, but instead I felt relief. The light calmed my mind and the heat that was rolling through my body seemed to become gentler like a soothing heat instead of scalding burn. With the change to the fog orb came an intense feeling that everything was going to be fine now. I had no idea where it came from but I believed it and with that belief my mind fell back into the darkness, but this time it was the comforting darkness of well deserved sleep.