I would die soon.

In the stories I had heard, they said that a sense of tranquility would wash over you as you look through your life and realise that you had stressed over nothing; how only in your final moments do you ever feel at peace. 

Here, in the midst of these blaring sounds, all I could feel within myself was an insatiable emotion named regret. The surgeons seemed to be rather shocked, considering how they were scrambling around without much consideration for their surroundings.

I could admit it.

Really, I wanted for their attempts to save me to fail. Perhaps, I would die an unjust death here, attract the pity of some higher being and be reincarnated as a being whom the world bent over for. 

A stark difference between my current life. Nothing went the way I wanted it to go.

It wasn’t fair. Why, regardless of how hard I wailed, had nothing come to save me?

There was a misjudgement on my behalf. 

It was expecting some good thing to fall on my lap and change my life into the fairytale I wanted it to be; nothing of the sort would ever happen. 

My life was quickly seeping away.

There was a chance that I never got to feel that serenity because I was too immature. At 19, what beautiful life experience was there for me in store? No less a life lived like mine.

Everything was becoming heavy. 

The surgeon was shouting something, but it was nothing but a distant static. 

I wanted to thank him. 

Maybe, this was all just a trial before I could live a more beautiful life in another world.

Of course, it most likely wasn’t. 

Life hadn’t treated me that kindly. 

Something welled up in my eye.

All I saw was a haze, until even that vanished. A heavy darkness enveloped the entirety of my sight. Considering all things, I was slightly surprised I was able to think. This…was most likely death, no? 

Nothing much had changed, apart from not being able to see of course.

No. There was something. An almost invisible line pierced through the darkness; the line had no end, simply extending out infinitely. There was a strange compulsion spreading inside of me.

To follow that line. 

Looking down, there was no body to see, yet the ability to ‘walk’ still remained—if it could even be called walking. My consciousness willed itself forward, tracing along the path paved by the line. 

Time was an idea that could not exist here. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of how long I spent aimlessly chasing after the line. Sometimes, the line passed through what looked like bodies, wrapping around the entirety of them until they eventually dissipated. 

Eventually, I came to a rest, ceasing the pursuit of this endless string; instead of trying to feed my curiosity, my mind instead went back to my life. 

Plagued by disappointment and worry, I continued to be a passive onlooker of my own existence. There were countless things of which I sincerely hoped I could go back in time to change. 

I may have had a future to look forward to if I made the right choices. 

Instead, I left the world with nothing. 

What use was it to lament what had already happened? Like I had always done, I suppressed the thoughts contaminating my head and tried to move forward along the line. 

In the midst of following the line, a small change in scenery had flickered into my vision. A…building? Two towers were attached to the side of an enormous building that held a miniscule difference in shade to the surrounding. If it hadn’t been in my direct line of view, then it would’ve been impossible to detect.

The line ended at the entrance of the building. Me seeing the building—it wasn’t me who ‘found’ it but ‘it’ revealing itself to me. 

I had waved it off as an impossibility; reincarnation was nothing but a fantasy in books. However, an uncontrollable intrigue was flying around within me at the nonsensical sight of the building. Thousands of meters would have been an understatement to describe the size.  

There was a tremor of hesitation in my mind, but an equivalent amount of curiosity mixing together. After the shock wore off, I stepped inside. 

All it took was a single second inside the building. Blinding light was rapidly descending down, forcing me to shut my eyes. Looking at such a blazing luminance, even if I couldn’t confirm the existence of my eyes, I felt that my mind would be scorched.

When I opened them again, nothing greeted me.

Not darkness.

Not light.

Nothing.

This must have been true death.

But, just as I came to terms with dying, I heard something. A dark, murky voice bellowed within my head.

“Time short.”

Blood popped from my ears. No, it made no sense. I didn’t have ears. Yet, I felt rustles of wind swarm around me in this void—logic, just where was it?