'Where am I?'
After my encounter with Derek and supposed death, I had awoken in a rather strange place, I was seemingly floating in pitch darkness and my body was somewhat translucent and ethereal, moving it around was quite effortless I would simply think about moving forward and I would, but no matter how long I would move all I would find in my surroundings was the same, complete darkness. It was similar to the bottom of the ocean where no light could reach and so I was unsure about where I was going at all since, I couldn't see anything but moving was the only thing I could do, and so I continued to do so.
'Is this the afterlife?'
If it was then it was a far cry from heaven or hell, there were no pearly gates or blazing inferno just nothing. However, this felt like punishment as well, I didn't know how much time had passed but if I stayed here for too long, I would most likely go crazy. I found this quite odd because I don't feel as if I had done anything worth being punished for in my life, after all I hadn't even lived that long and spent most of my life scrounging up enough money to survive the next day and never resorted to crime or stealing from others. Although that was mostly because I had neither the strength nor the courage to do so.
In that sense I had done nothing worth getting rewarded for either and wasn't remorseful in the slightest after learning of my father's death so maybe I deserve such a punishment, afterlife that is neither heaven nor hell but something in between, an eternity spent in darkness and solitude.
I considered stopping and accepting my fate but in reality, I was scared. I was not afraid of death as I believed it would be an end to my suffering not a prolongation of it, so I kept moving, changing directions occasionally out of foolish desperation.
I continued doing this for a significant amount of time, I had no way of keeping track but it felt like at least a month had passed in this darkness and I was beginning to lose the will to continue, fear could only take me so far I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that I would spend the rest of eternity in this void and so after some more time of moving aimlessly I stopped or rather I tried to stop, an invisible force took hold of me and began to pull me in a direction.
Deciding it pointless to resist and a change from the weeks I had spent aimlessly moving around I began to move along with the force. For quite some time nothing changed but then I saw something I believed I would never see again.
'Light.'
There was a small light in the distance appearing like a firefly, I was excited and willed myself to move towards it faster. The closer I got to the light, the stronger the force became to the point that it was overbearing and the light became brighter and brighter causing me to be disorientated due to the time I had spent in the darkness.
However, when I was just in front of the light the force stopped, allowing me to examine it properly. The light seemed to be a doorway and was the only thing that radiated light in my surroundings but the darkness seemed to be consuming the light and actively attempting to close the gateway as there were tendrils of darkness seeping into the light.
'Why did the force stop?' I was left wondering, it clearly wanted me to go through the gateway so why didn't it force me to? Was it giving me a choice? To stay here or to risk facing whatever was on the other side of the door?
If that was the case then it was unnecessary, while I was anxious about what was on the other side of the door, it was most likely better than spending eternity stuck in void and so I decided to cross the doorway without further hesitation.