I never wondered what life after death would be like. Never thought about where I would go or what would happen to me.
My life was pretty simple. Boring, in fact. No, I wasn't bullied, abused, or killed by some rich guy to get some girl. Thank God for that. I'd come to know the irony of that thought soon, though.
I'm Drake Velcester, an eighteen-year-old high school graduate. I'm an average-looking kid with green eyes and short black hair. Neither lean nor muscular, I had fatty flabs at different parts of my body. I wouldn't call myself fat, though—just lacking the motivation to get rid of the several meat lumps on my frame.
Well, to the main point of this story: it's simple, I died. Not from murder, bullying gone wrong, or an accident. Nope. I had the most okay death—if anything about dying can be called okay, that is. It was the day I got my admission letter into college. I slept off.
When I woke up—well, not really woke up, more like realized or attained awareness—that was when my story truly began.
The environment around me was different. I knew because I always woke to three or one of two things: my alarm, my bed, or my dog Milo. At the moment, I woke to none.
Everything felt empty, like there was nothing within reach. It was alarming and confusing. I felt myself afloat within this space of nothing.
I hung there for a long time, doing nothing. Throughout the time I spent, I realized I lacked something important. It took me a while to figure it out, but finally, I connected some dots—don't ask how. I just knew I lacked a body. Myself, whatever I was now, was just floating about.
Of course, the various questions hit me at the beginning. But I had never been one to stress over events that had happened or lacked understanding. I mean, I was dumb—why stress my poor brain cells over matters that it could barely comprehend?
At least, I thought that should be why I wasn't questioning anything. But really, I guess the situation just hadn't registered.
In that space of nothing, where I could feel, see, or hear nothing and where time felt irrelevant and inconsequential, a brightness came into being.
At first, it shone as bright as the sun, then brighter. It could have been the sun, for all I knew. But, of course, all I could do was think, nothing more.
The light, whatever it was, intensified, and a force began pulling me.
My mind, confused and my thoughts in shambles, resisted. But it pulled on. It felt like attempting to resist an elephant. I struggled and struggled, refuting its pull, but the light failed to give up.
Of course, I never had a likelihood of victory. The light stalled tugging for what felt like a minute or so before I felt myself ripped unceremoniously toward it.
Everything turned red and hot, blinding my vision. And it stayed that way.
Time slowly passed, with the surroundings red and hot. At times, I could feel liquid on myself. I would say body, but I doubted that—just the warm feeling of something around me.
It felt like ages went by, and time spun slowly. I neither slept nor ate nor performed any humanly functions. There was nothing but my awareness in the situation.
As time went on, the boredom grew, and the discomfort with it. Soon enough, my boredom led to various thoughts. At first, they were thoughts, then conversations.
I spoke and replied to myself while feeling the nothingness around me. Throughout it, I felt various things—from pain, to heat, warmth, chills, and downright freezing cold.
At times, I felt like there was wind within the area but couldn't be sure. After all, I still lacked sight. More time passed as all these experiences occurred, sometimes separately and other times simultaneously.
Finally, something new happened. It started with a crack, like the breaking of something. Then I felt something warm and refreshing expand out of me, rushing to escape my confines.
At the same time, a flood of coldness rushed into me, then simultaneously out. A subconscious feeling rose in me—more like a thought than a feeling. At the same time, I felt what should have been my brain click.
Then a DING sounded within my head or mind or whatever I had now. At the same time, I realized something new.
I couldn't see, but I could feel my surroundings. It was like a radar of sorts, very enhanced—like if I stretched my mind, it would bounce off different things and objects around me.
It was like how movies depicted a whale's sonar or a bat's radar to be, but with images appearing in my mind. The shape, structure, and size of everything around my mind's reach formed within my head.
It was strange and weird, but not as much as the images being recreated in my mind.
I refused to understand what I was seeing. I wasn't smart or anything. In fact, when alive, I was normal. Not much IQ or anything. But I wasn't dumb or stupid, either.
So, of course, I kinda understood the images being created, but I refused to accept them. In fact, it wasn't just about accepting but more like being unsure.
All around me, in different sizes and shapes but only one state, were lumps of 'earth?'. They were huge, rock-like, but definitely not stones or mountains. If anything, they all felt—or should I say looked—like Earth from space.
Not in images, but in size and feel. Each was as huge as Earth or even larger, sometimes three times or five times bigger. Only a few were as small or smaller than Earth, at least within my mind's range.
While occupied over this environment I was in, a ding sounded in my head, and with it came a line of prompts that banished all other thoughts from my mind.
[CORE FORMATION COMPLETING]
[ATTEMPTING BODY CREATION]
[WOULD ????? LIKE TO COMMENCE BODY CREATION?]
(Proceed Y/N)
I just stared at the line of words. If I had a body and hands, I would be scratching my head right about now.
'Was I reborn or something? If I indeed was, was I actually supposed to create my own body?' I doubted this was how it worked. My mind could barely keep up with the new thought process.