It is a question that transcends time and culture. It has been asked from the very beginning of time, longer than the oldest immortal has walked the earth. It will probably never be answered, definitely not in the lifetime of neither you nor I. Every belief system that ever was has attempted to give us insight into its mysteries, but in the end none of us will know until we experience it for ourselves. The question is: What happens to us when we die?

Jennifer felt as though she was waking up from a very deep sleep, the kind that takes you an entire morning to rise from. It's a place filled with false starts, the realization that you must return to the world of the living yet you are reluctant to do anything more than to stay right where you are.

There was no light at the end of a long tunnel for Jennifer. There was only a slow and gradual return to reality. It felt much like swimming to the surface from the depths of a very deep pool of water. Her body felt like it was in slow motion, the surface seemed so close she could touch it and yet it took forever for her to get there.

Oblivion surrounded her and she felt comforted by its presence. She knew nothing of herself or who she was. She knew nothing of how she died or the pain and terror she was in during her final moments on Earth. She only knew that she was content where she was now.

Closer and closer she came to her return to consciousness. She was aware that she was about to leave where she was for somewhere else. Finally it hovered right in front of her and it felt very much like simply walking through a doorway. She didn't know where she was going. In fact she knew absolutely nothing about anything until the moment she…

Light, and heat, and cold and darkness, and a million other sensations suddenly flooded Jennifer's body all at once. The terror of her death totally enveloped her consciousness. She shook and convulsed, trying desperately to roll around on the ground, to put out the consuming flames that were surrounding her. Her senses filled her with twin signals, one of extreme heat and the other of extreme cold.

A terrifying banshee howl filled her ears, it was almost deafening in volume and intensity. It was easily the most terrible and frightening sound that she had heard in her entire life. Jennifer was totally unaware that she was the one making it, and that she could not stop screaming. A primal terror had taken control of her body and for the time being she was incapable of getting back control.

She could not comprehend her surroundings. Everything seemed new to her; new and alien. Eyes unfocused and darting around, she was surrounded by browns and greens. Her mind was still split. She was certain that she was (Falling. Falling and burning) sitting on something cold and wet. Her skin was covered in (Searing gasoline, blistering her skin) goose bumps. She knew she was (Dying) alive.

She scrambled to her feet, her bare feet. Her mind was still trying to tell her to extinguish the flames that enveloped her body. It gradually dawned on her that she was, in fact, screaming. She was almost hoarse from the strain on her vocal cords. Only then did she get some control back of her body, and her scream tapered off and faded away.

The girl spun around in circles, trying to figure out where she was. Her surroundings were convoluted and closed in around her. A forest… she was aware this was a forest but she didn't know how it was that she got there or why she had this terrible memory of being on fire.

The car. She was in the car with her mom. They were on the way to school; it was her first day of middle school. The last thing that Jennifer could remember was talking to her mother and then nothing.

Awareness flooding back to her as the pain and terror receded and she became acutely aware of the fact that she was naked. Her clothes had reduced to ash, the fire scouring the lacquer off of her finger and toenails. The temporary tattoo on her shoulder was not even spared, the heat vaporizing the synthetic materials that were bonded to Jennifer's skin. That her hair was unmarred and looked completely normal did not occur to her.

Finally it caught her eye…smoke.

Jennifer had been thrown over a hundred and fifty feet from the car when it landed in the valley floor. That had been over an hour ago and now the remains of the Toyota Corolla were nothing more than a smoldering shell of charred steel, melted plastic and ash. Only a small curl of smoke still rose up from the wrecked hulk.

The moment that Jennifer saw the car she remembered her mother and took off toward it at a dead run, heedless of the spikes of pain in her feet as she stepped on small rocks or pine needles. She stopped short of the car and knelt down, a flash of color catching her eye.

When she stood back up she was cradling in her hand one of the badly burnt but still recognizable yellow sandals she was wearing with her matching dress to school this morning. It was the only thing in the wreckage that showed any sign of color.

"Mom?" Jennifer asked in a quiet voice, cautiously approaching the car.

There was no answer except for the steady "tik-tik-tik" of cooling metal and the call of the birds in the trees around her. A few more steps had brought her around the front of the car to the driver's side; and it was there that she saw what she was most afraid of.

The driver's side door was open slightly and what was half in and half out of the car could scarcely be described as human. It was nothing more than a desiccated and burnt husk stretched across a collection of brittle, heat-withered bones. It looked like Andrea Woods had survived the final impact with the ground but had finally given up her hold on life as she tried to escape the burning wreck of her car.

Jennifer let out a great loud sob as she saw what was once her mother. She simultaneously was repulsed by the blackened corpse yet had an overwhelming urge to cast herself upon her mother's body and cry for as long as it took for her to feel better. Tears streaming from her eyes she looked up, wondering why it was that nobody was here to help yet. Where were the police cars and ambulances, didn't anyone see the wreck?

Jennifer stumbled away from the wreck, still holding the shoe in her hand. Her vision doubled and tripled as she tried to blink away the rain of tears that fell from her eyes. She could hear rushing water and decided to go in that direction, she had no clear idea of what she planned to do; but she wanted to be away from the body of her mother.

Nothing made sense; she didn't understand what had happened or why it happened. She couldn't understand why she was alive and seemingly unhurt. She remembered the pain and the terror; she remembered being engulfed in flames. She was certain that she should be dead right now – just like her mom was. And yet here she was as though nothing had even happened, albeit with no clothes on.

She was moving as though she were in a dream. Her mind was racing and everything in the outside world seemed distorted. She didn't remember taking the walk that got her to the edge of the stream, she just remembered that sitting down next to it and unleashing another volley of bitter tears. She was cold and lonely, but was too tired, too emotionally exhausted, to do anything about either problem.

She suddenly remembered her mom's cell phone, probably still somewhere in the car. Immediately she saw the flaw in that idea though; even if what was left of that phone was still recognizable, there was no way that it would work. Not after the wreck and the fire.

She wasn't sure how long she had sat by the riverbank. She was very close to completely giving into despair when a sensation unlike nothing she had ever experience before struck her. It felt like her eyes were opened, only they already where. It felt like a sense that transcended the five that she was used to had told her some critical bit of information.

Wide-eyed, Jennifer slowly turned around. She was certain that there would be someone standing behind her.

And there was.