"Ah, what a comfortable place."
"I just want to stay like this, for eternity."
Suddenly, a current-like sensation passed through me. "WTF" I jolted awake from my trance-like state. My five senses returned to me.
---
"Where am I?" I wondered. "I clearly remember dying. Is this heaven or hell?"
A small blush crept over my face as I thought, "I really hope someone had the sense to delete my browser history and didn't see it."
"I'll worry about everything else later, but first, where on earth am I?"
---
I looked around and saw nothing but darkness. The only source of light was radiating from me.
"Glancing down, I saw my hands and legs glowing with a pure white light, casting faint shadows in the surrounding darkness."
Curious, I tried to touch my left hand with my right, but my right hand passed straight through it, as if my left hand were made of thin air.
Yet, I felt a slight tickle where they intersected. I tried the same with my right hand and had the same result.
The same happened with my legs. Even when I tried it with my stomach, my hand simply emerged from the other side of my body.
"I think I'm in my soul form right now. But where is this place?"
No one was there to answer my question.
"Strangely, I felt no emotion—no fear, no sadness, no anxiety. Just a hollow calm that seemed alien to me."
"If I were alive, I'd probably die from a heart attack in this situation. Maybe I can't feel any emotions because I don't have a body."
"But why can I still sense things? I can see, touch, and think just like normal people. Have I become a ghost or something? Just what is this place?"
----
I called out into the empty darkness, but there was no reply. I started thinking about what this place could be: maybe it's where souls rest after death, or perhaps it's the underworld where souls are judged and sent to heaven or hell based on karma. It could even be the place where souls reincarnate to Earth once again. Honestly, I had no idea.
There was no one else in this vast darkness. I began to think about my family.
"What about my family? Are they okay in the world?"
"How much time has passed?"
"Time felt different here. Was it even passing?"
Looking around, I couldn't tell how much time had passed. It was as if this place was frozen in time, and I was the only moving entity. With nothing else to do, I began questioning the nature of this void.
Questions swirled in my mind:
"Why am I here?"
"What is the nature of this void? Is it something created by my mind, or is it an external reality?"
"What is my purpose here? Is there something I need to do?"
I asked myself a million questions, but no answers came. I had no idea how much time had passed—or if time had passed at all. Suddenly, a voice rang in my ear.
----
"You have glimpsed the nature of the blank space."
"Affinity with blank space +1."
"Hello, is anyone there?" I called out but received no reply. I suddenly felt a connection to this place.
"Am I hallucinating after being here so long?" I wondered. "Yeah, that must be it. But I could have sworn that voice called this void 'blank space.'"
I couldn't tell what was real and what was imagined. But knowing that this place was referred to as "blank space," I began chanting the name.
"Blank space. Blank space."
I didn't know what drove me, but every time I said "blank space," I felt a strange connection to the void. I chanted "blank space" over and over—once, twice, three times, fifty times, a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times, a million times.
"Eventually, I lost track of how many times I had said 'blank space."
"With each repetition of 'blank space,' the darkness around me seemed to shift subtly, like the surface of a still pond disturbed by a breeze."
Then, once again, I heard the same voice from before.
"You have glimpsed the nature of the blank space."
"Affinity with blank space +1."
The voice was soft yet chilling, unmistakably feminine.
"Hello, miss, can you hear me?" I asked, but there was no reply. Determined to hear the voice again, I kept chanting "blank space."
I lost track of time as I repeated the name over and over. Eventually, I heard that same voice once more.
"You have glimpsed the nature of the blank space."
"Affinity with blank space +1."
I tried to communicate with the voice, but received no response. This went on for an indeterminate amount of time. Each time I heard the voice, I felt a stronger connection to this place.
However, as time passed, the voice grew more distant, until one day, no matter how much I chanted "blank space," I could no longer hear it.
---
No longer hearing the voice and with nothing else to do, I began to move my body.
It wasn't the first time I had moved in the void, but something felt different this time.
"As I moved, the void seemed to thicken around me, transforming from an empty abyss into a dense, liquid-like substance. It enveloped me, offering resistance and support in equal measure."
Strangely, the void now felt like a liquid. Before, it was just empty space, but now it was as if I was surrounded by liquid water. In this water, I felt like a fish, able to swim freely. I felt comfortable and peaceful here.
Previously, when I tried to walk, it felt like I was just moving my legs in the air without actually going anywhere. It was frustrating, and I eventually gave up. But now, when I moved my hands and legs, I could actually feel myself moving.
"If only I could interact with someone here," I thought to myself.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I felt a tug in a specific direction.
It wasn't the first time I had wished for company, but it was the first time I felt drawn toward a particular spot in the void. It was as if the void itself was guiding me, telling me that I could find someone there.
It was like my intuition, like when you just know that this is right and this is wrong. Without any further thought, I started to move toward the place where my intuition was pointing.
---