They say your life flashes before you when you die. Every important moment of a lifetime compressed into seconds. Mine would be violent, near the end at least. It would start out bright, sunny days cooking with my mother or playing in the park with my father. Then it would darken, an alley in January, burning midnight oil in the records room at the precinct, desperately trying to solve the puzzle and near misses. Then Castle, he might make it a little brighter, but the events of those years would still be tainted. A black rim around each picture. Too many more near misses and broken moments. A bomb, a freezer, a bullet to the chest, a car plunging into the river without an escape, hanging off the side of a building, it would change again, still blurred with darkness but also filled with hope. Kisses and smiles and a warmth that hadn't been around since my mother, something that I hadn't known how much I longed for. Then him, just Castle because in the end he's the only thing that truly mattered.
They say there's a blinding white light that greets you as death. The hand of a loved one stretching out from the beyond to greet you, and you accept, because you must. The glowing happiness irresistible, no matter that what you love must be left behind. It wouldn't be so bad, to see my mother again, to tell her how much I love her one more time. For warmth and light to be the end instead of pain and darkness would be a blessing, although to die at all can only be a curse.
I don't know if these are right. Although maybe there is no right, each mind ending in a solely unique way. Maybe it all just ends, no heroic music, no fade to black, just something turned to nothing. But I think there's a moment. Not peace or enlightenment, nor light or images, just a moment, where the world exists but you are not a part of it. A moment that is just, still.