Where does one go in passing?
Heaven or Hell?
To be reincarnated? To be dispersed into the stars scattered throughout space?
The afterlife is a terribly drawn-out joke.
When Alfred awakes, he is already dead.
The first thing he notices is: there is no God .
No everlasting happiness settled among floating white clouds of impossible fluffiness that stretch on for miles and miles. There are no large, shiny golden gates awaiting his arrival. No seamless chorus of angelic voices singing beautiful melodies. There is no bright spectacle of light symbolizing hope at the end of the tunnel. It's all a lie.
There is only the eternal shadow of darkness cast by the heaviness of his eyelids. A horrid dampness that crawls across his skin, fills his mouth and weighs down his tongue. It surrounds him, seeps into his pores, clogs his nostrils. It pushes with unyielding power against the weakness of his body until the heart slowly pulsing in his chest stutters to a halt. It crushes him, compresses with frightening strength.
Sensation is a fleeting dream, guided in and out of existence by his slipping consciousness. Sleep sucks him into a warm embrace before he is tore away by a stone building beneath his ribs, a piercing pain sparking along his nerves. His skull fractures with agony, growing much too small for the spontaneous combustion of the brain rattling around in his head.
His mouth is dry, throat tight and constricted. Everything is still. Everything is muffled and quiet, not to be disturbed by a voice he no longer possesses.
Like a phoenix, he rises from the ash-fertilized soil of another's mistakes. He is brought into respiration among previous death, tottering in faulty balance between both.
But he does not feel alive.
He does not feel anything.
The frigid breeze of the cooling morning is lost to him, though it pricks goosebumps up and down the length of his dirtied arms. His body quakes, shuddering in its effort to draw forth oxygen. He hacks and coughs, snorts forcefully to expel the softened earth that has crept into his body.
When his eyes finally flutter open, dull and paled by impending expiration, there is a steady drip that obscures the vision in his left. It leaks from his eyelashes, falls into fading baby blues and drains down his cheek like spilled tears.
Light is limited. Far out into the distance there is a sliver of heating oranges passing the line of the horizon, broken into tiny pieces by strong tree trunks standing tall in the surrounding forest. Still, it flickers like an apparition in his sight, wavering and oddly distorted. The image bounces, shook into trembling vibrations that blur when he attempts to stand.
He stumbles under the increasing weight of his own body, knees nearly giving out. Each step forward is made heavy by fatigue, incredibly slowed. He presses a hand against the fullness of his stomach, stretched taut into roundness. The skin ripples beneath his palms, rises like rolling waves as his muscles spasm. Nausea simmers, unable to make it past swallowed organic remains.
He drags himself forward against the lead bleeding through his anatomy, crunching fragile branches and brittle leaves below his bare feet for hours until his toes are rubbed by sleek asphalt. Like traveling through a disintegrating memory, his vision darkens steadily, colors dulling, images fluttering teasingly into view seconds before disappearing swiftly. They are chased away by inky shades.
Between living and perished, he wades, awaiting rescue by either.
Then, a horn blares in his ears, headlights tear brightly into his eyes, and he feels relieved by nothingness.
What happens when you die?
Where do you go after death?
When Alfred awakes, he is in Hell.
The first thing he notices is: it's like he never died.