A/N: I own nothing.
Augustus Waters is dead. Yet it takes time for Augustus himself to realize this.
When he was unconscious all he saw was the dark. He wasn't afraid of the dark but in this darkness he was, because the wind blew in every direction and the room carried many other things. He knew it was a room – the place he sat in – only because he felt like it was, but he was sure it was a room because people began to talk. No, actually, whisper. Augustus didn't like this – the whispering, in the dark, and even more the people who he couldn't see. Maybe there was a special kind of darkness he feared of, but then he played those words again and again in his head and debated whether they were crazy. Perhaps not. Because this darkness was often feared of by many. To not fear of it was to be brave.
Then to his left he heard a sound. The unlocking of a door, silent but rough as it swiped against the ground. He got on his feet, almost loosing balance. The whispers were louder and the wind stronger, but now the wind only came from the west. He faced towards that direction and the door he heard was already fully opened, revealing light and music and more and more light. Too much light to see what was inside. He didn't know what the whispering people would do, but he brought himself to the door and closed it behind him.
When Augustus closes the door, to put it bluntly, he dies. Dying, he discovers, is not letting yourself be weak. It is letting yourself be strong, letting yourself feel alive. Because when he steps inside what he thought was a bright room he falls. He doesn't slip – he falls. It gives him adrenaline. Nothing is beneath him at that moment. Nothing there to catch him as he closes the door. At least that was what he thought. He almost felt himself falling into the thought that dying is an interminable fall down a bottomless well.
But dying – dying is not that. Dying is waiting, a special kind of waiting. It is a kind of waiting that lets you wait in peace and patience, because you will not have an excuse saying you need to "do something". Because this is death. You have stopped living on earth and you cannot do that something you have wanted to do anymore. Here, when you are already dead, you can wait and wait and wait and not worry. This is already eternity.
"Ow." It takes Augustus some time to realize that his butt has been cushioned by space. Space. What is space? Space gives you place to move. But what is space when you are dead? When you die where do you go?
Dying is a journey into a place you never knew you would see with your own eyes. Dying is living above the world – not on the clouds, but Somewhere. Somewhere is not heaven. It is space. It is a place where you can create. It is yours if you choose it to be. Augustus owns a place after life. A place among the stars, where there were no harps but definitely sound. And he swears he could hear waves splashing against his ear drums – music.
There truly lies Augustus Waters, among the star clusters. And what he does is count the stars while waiting for his beloved Hazel Grace so he can catch her in his arms forever.