Death wasn't what I thought it would be.
Granted, I never really gave much thought to death and how I would die, but coming from a religious family, it had been painted in an almost black and white picture. You die and angels take you either to heaven or hell. That's it.
And I believed it.
While I wasn't that religious myself, believing in such things made my life easier, simpler. I could blissfully live my life without questioning anything. I accepted it all for my own selfish reasons since I didn't want to search for nonexistent answers to impossible questions.
Yet, in that moment I wished I did.
Death has been nothing like I imagined. Nothing like I'd ever heard about. It was so much more painful.
No, that was a lie.
Death itself had not been painful, rather an endless abyss promising me relief and rest from all the pains of life. It had beckoned me, calling my name and I had eagerly accepted.
Dying had been the most painful.
My chest burned with a white hot pain, crushing me. Each breath grew shorter and shorter until I could no longer breath.
With each choke and gurgle, I felt the life slowly leave my body. It dragged up from my legs and arms and gathered in the centre of my chest, where my heart stuttered. I felt it pool in my throat, gathering and building until it seeped out the corners of my mouth.
The warm iron of it burned my tongue until the darkness washed it away. Death crawled over me, releasing me from my body.
Death itself was hard to describe. It wasn't anything, but rather it was nothing. It was the absence of everything. There were no sounds, no sights no feelings. I had no body, nothing to feel or move.
The closest I could compare it to was sleeping: a dreamless sleep, specifically.
You would go to sleep and there would be nothing. The only way you'd know you had been sleeping was when you woke up and realised time had passed.
It was the same for me.
It was only after I woke up that I realised I had died.
Slowly, my senses returned to life and I opened my eyes.