Darkness. Silence. "Where... where am I?" A jarring blank in my memory. How? My heart hammered against my ribs. The first thought that clawed its way through the fog was panic. The realization hit like a physical blow. "How did I get here? Did someone kidnap me while I was asleep?"
"Ugh! Wait I remember... I died."
The admission tasted like ash. Died. That heavy, final memory—the screech of tires, the blinding flash of the semi-truck, the impossible pain that had swallowed everything. There should have been nothing after that. Just... nothing.
I cautiously pushed myself upright. The surface I lay on was firm, smooth, and oddly cool to the touch. It didn't feel like a bed, or a coffin, or the floor of a kidnapper's van. It felt like polished marble.
A soft, ambient light began to bloom, not from a lamp or a sun, but from the very air itself, gently pushing back the blackness. The space was enormous. A cavernous, white room, shimmering faintly, stretching out further than my eyes could resolve. There were no walls, no furniture—just infinite, pale nothingness.
"This isn't the afterlife I was promised," I mumbled, running a hand over my perfectly intact, non-squashed body. I pinched my arm. It hurt. I'm solid.
Suddenly, a presence.
It didn't walk in, or appear in a puff of smoke. It was simply there, standing perhaps ten feet away. It was a figure of light and shadow, impossibly tall, wearing robes that seemed woven from stars. Its face was indistinct, yet I felt an ancient, profound intelligence gazing directly into my soul, It felt weird but what I'm really feeling.. is fear.
A voice—a sound that resonated in my chest more than my ears—spoke.
[WELCOME, SOUL 754-F. YOUR TIMELINE HAS BEEN TERMINATED.]
I took an involuntary step back. "Soul 754-B? Who are you? Where is this? Is this... heaven? Or the waiting room for hell?"
The figure of light tilted its head, a motion both alien and surprisingly familiar.
[THIS IS THE JUNCTION. AND YOU, SOUL 754-B, HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR RE-INTEGRATION.]
[OR, AS YOUR PEOPLE CALL IT: REINCARNATION.]
To be Continued...