Chapter 1

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it… White shores, and beyond, a far green county under a swift sunrise."― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

I always believed that there was something after death, but I never did think too much about what to expect. While I didn't quite believe that I would experience something quite like Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings did, what I certainly did know is that I didn't expect to float around in some strange void where everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. I wonder if this is what it's like to be in outer space. While this new sensation was strange and disorienting, it felt was somewhat comforting and relaxing. There was that gentle sway, like someone was rocking me to sleep, and there felt like there was a soft warmth that surrounded my soul. There were no worries and I really wouldn't have minded if I stayed in this void forever. However, this nice and seemingly endless space didn't last. After an unknown amount of time, in a snap of a second, it felt like I was plunging down about a thousand feet before the falling sensation suddenly ceased inside what felt like a small, cramped, muscular bubble that was so small that I had to be curled up into a tight ball. Oh, and it felt like I was upside down. Very uncomfortably, really. I wonder if this is what all people experience after death? It certainly wasn't the heaven people often described they believed they would to go to after death nor did the description fit hell, but if this was any one of those two places then someone really ought to correct people's perceptions so that they weren't expecting sorely disappointed after death.

Throughout my days among the living, I had always thought myself to be an extremely average person, although other people may have thought else wise. People who often just met me would always think: "Oh my! Such an intelligent individual." seeing as I was a trauma surgeon. However, what bothered me greatly about their own personal assessment of me was that just because I was a surgeon there wasn't a single person that ever thought that I was actually just your typical average person. To the normal public, doctors were amazingly smart people that managed to survive med school, internship, residency, and their massive school debt. People just often thought that doctors always had their lives together, always knew what they were doing, never had financial problems because they were "smart", and always knew exactly what to do. Most never really stopped to think that doctors could make mistakes, could be unsure about decision, and had very real fears of not being good enough. Not all surgeons had the so called "God complex". I was an imperfect mortal and I was well aware of it.

While I may have been regarded as someone amazingly special by the masses, I believed that I wasn't special at all. In the world of doctors, I was as average as you could get. Yes, I did survive med school and all those necessary steps required to become a surgeon, but I barely scraped by when it came to paying off those school loans. Those heavy loans could really knock the life out of someone, like me. Figuratively, of course. I think I would have been rather pathetic if it was those loans that killed me. A word to the wise, don't take unsubsidized loans unless necessary. They explode in your face right after graduation. I had learned the hard way.

Well, back to my totally average life. As a surgeon I didn't save anyone famous, I didn't do groundbreaking research or surgeries. I was just one of those trauma surgeons you would always find on call in the emergency room. Sure, I did save lives and I'm certain that those people who got to live because of me thought I was amazing and above average, but I sure the those people would have obtained the same results if they had been operated on by a different surgeon.

Even in med school I was the most average one could possibly get. My test scores and my overall grades were always dead center at fourteenth place in my class of twenty-seven people. If someone really wanted to say I was amazingly special then he or she could say it was amazing that I have managed to always have the middle score of my class because there was not a single time I was placed above or below that center line. This was phenomenon was especially baffling to my professors. They always believed that I should have been in the top quartile of my class, but data doesn't lie. I was always the median.

So, what about my life outside of work? There must have been something eye-catching there, right? Sorry to disappoint, but no. Never did anything noteworthy, wasn't too charismatic, no forceful personality, just so normal to the point of almost not being noticed. I had group friends, I had a loving family, no mental illnesses or chronic health conditions, and I was never married nor did I ever have kids. I did have my strange quirks, just like everyone else did, but it wasn't anything mind blowing. My most obvious quirk was that I was rather oblivious to the emotion of romantic love. Okay, maybe that quirk was a little mind blowing since I was so oblivious that it was like I was a character in a comedy routine. I noticed the emotion of romantic love just about as much as it snowed in Egypt, which was never. Sure, I did have my fair share of boyfriends, but they never lasted long. They always broke up with me after about an average time of three month, the exception being one guy who lasted nine month. The reason was always the same "it feels like I'm dating a plywood board" and "everything just goes over your head", but honestly, it never really bothered me nor did I care. The only reason I continued dating was because my parents kept hounding me to get married and give to give them grandchildren. I wondered why I never really care for romantic love though. Maybe because I had always thought love was too much of a hassle to deal with? I always remember watching my friends' breakups in middle school and high school. They would cry for the week then move on to the next one then repeat. There was just too much drama to make me ever want to deal a significant other, so this is probably why I never paid romantic relationships any heed.

Then what about my death? Did I at least go out in the most spectacular way, like when fireworks did? Sadly, no. I died in the same way a baby bird did when it fell out of a tall tree, very commonly. I died in one of those common drunk driving accidents one would watch on the morning news. While driving home after another long forty-six hour shift at the hospital late at night, another car, that was going thirty above the speed limit, turned a corner and smashed directly into my car. The person that was driving behind me didn't have the chance stop, thus crashed into the back of my car and sandwiched me between those two cars. The impact of the drunk driver's car was enough to shred the front of my car and shatter my windshield while the impact of the car behind me was what forced me forward into sharp jagged strips of shredded metal. This resulted in me being pinned to the driver's seat by a large shard of metal that speared me through my liver and left kidney, and the driver's seat. In the process of trying to remove the other pieces of my car to get to me, the rescuers had accidentally shifted the shard of metal that was pinning me to the driver's seat, resulting in me bleeding out before I was even pulled from the wreck. I died in the company of strangers at the age of 31. My time of death was at 2:34 in the morning, not even twenty minutes after the car accident occurred. I was the only one that died in that accident. The drunk driver was an underage college student that had been binge drinking. The statistic that 67% of all fatal automobile accidents that happened between midnight and 3:00 a.m.[1] was very true, especially in my case.

So in light of my absolutely normal life it was a complete mystery that, me of all people, was placed in this bizarre situation. After being curled up in a tight ball for an unknown amount of time, the taut muscular wall around me began contracting and before I knew it, I was uncomfortably pushed through a small tube and into the blinding light. After being pushed into the light, I found myself begin to struggle to breathe immediately and I covered in some sort of strange and disgusting goo. When I couldn't breathe at first, it felt like I had a pneumothorax, or otherwise known as a collapsed lung. With great effort and large amounts of struggling, I finally inhaled what felt like my first gulp of air, I felt palpable relief when my lungs inflated. This brought many questions to mind with the first one being, "Why the hell were my lungs collapsed in the first place?" and the next one being, "What is this strange liquid I'm covered in?" I seriously hope that I get to take a bath soon because this goo that was coving my body smelled very strange and was uncomfortably slimy, not something I wanted to be covered in for a moment longer.

"It isn't crying." a feminine voice said tiredly while sounding relieved. Those were the first words I heard since my untimely demise.

Still being totally confused at what was going on, I tried to turn my head and look around so that I could gain a better understanding of my situation, but I found that I had little control over my body parts nor could I see very clearly. Testing my limbs next, I found that I had even less fine control over my limbs. The movements were all jerky and wonky. Nothing felt right. Trying to figure out what was going on in this state was like waking up after a night of getting plastered for the first time after turning twenty-one. Nothing made sense and I didn't even know where I was. All I knew was that I felt small and there was a newborn nearby somewhere.

"Is the baby a stillborn?" the same voice asked, sounding strangely hopeful.

Most mothers normally broke down into tears of happiness after they gave birth to their child, but not this woman… No, this wasn't a woman's voice, but a scared girl's voice. This was an unwanted pregnancy and the mother was a teenage girl. Something had happened and this girl was now dealing with the consequences. But even if the baby was the result of an unwanted pregnancy that did not give the girl the excuse to hope for a stillborn. If she didn't want to raise the child then that was fine. This was why newborns could be given up for adoption and still have a chance at a good life.

"No, despite being born too early and too small, your baby girl looks healthy." a woman's voice answered the girl. "Would you like to hold your new baby?"

"No! I don't want to hold that—that thing! I don't want to hold anything that bastard created! I never asked for this!" the first voice screamed with resentment and distress before breaking out in a quiet sob. "Please…Okaa-san…don't make me hold it… Please…please don't… I can't… I can't do this…"

Okay, I understood this girl's situation, but I seriously didn't understand why I was here in this situation. It really would have been nice if things started making sense now. And another thing that would be nice is if the giant hands underneath me would be more gentle. Wait… Giant hands? Oh shit... Please tell me that what I think happened didn't really happen.

"Stop that!" the woman, the girl's mother, admonished the girl with little to no sympathy. "This baby may be a product of rape, but she is also as much you as she is of that man. You are her kaa-san and you should behave as such."

That last statement was all I needed to confirm my fears. I was now sure that I was that baby, that product of rape. I was a misplaced soul that should have passed on. At that moment, I had never been more unsure of my future.

[1] August 2010 NHTSA