Do you believe in the afterlife? You might, or you might not. I sure don’t though. Why, you ask? Well, that’s tough. I technically still exist: my death wasn’t the end. It’s just that this is no life: walking down a long blackened tunnel, with a glowing exit with shining shafts of light reaching out from it, yet never getting closer or farther, darker or lighter. It’s torture, Sisyphean torture.

While you’re walking around here, there’s always a nagging feeling that some beings, one from above and one from below, are watching you with cold and calculating hearts. And if you look up or down to curse your ethereal tormenters with the foulest words in inexistence, all you will get in reply will be a harmony of delirious laughter.

And with all that walking, your memories, jumping out of nowhere, will take over saying, “Stop. You’re thirsty. Haven’t you walked a long time? How about a rest?” But if you stop to take a rest, an ungodly moan will sound off in the distance, and fear will grip your heart, and push you on. Not like you need to lie down and sleep; you’re dead already. Technically you’re sleeping every moment you’re dead. If you didn’t get cremated… As for that thirst you have, that craving thirst for liquids, it’s all in your imaginary imagination. Whatever you remember about your drinking habits, you will continue to experience- until you forget. The same goes for nearly everything else too; how far you can walk before your legs burn and you get a cramp in your side, the general sense of when you eat and become hungry, even what you look like is based off of what you remember. If you remember yourself as a short plump man who died in bed half-naked, that is what you are now. And if you were really like that, but you forget that you were chubby and short when you died, you could be of any size: skinny and tall, gargantuan and average sized, or the exactly same. Basically, once you forget, the things from above and below will find something suitable to their tastes.

There’s no one around this dark hole either. For all the time I have been walking, not once have I set eyes on another soul. What’s that? I’m lying? Well… I suppose I am. I just wanted to forget. Forget that one time. It started when I saw a little girl up the endless path. She had frizzed black hair and had sharp facial features. She was shrouded with a grey mist which covered all but her head, hands, and part of her arms. She was crying as I walked up to her, and I asked what was wrong.

She stopped crying, looked up to me with a demonic grin and flaming eyes, and hysterically answered, “I’m happy. So, so happy,” and was gone.

I then heard a deep, resonating moan behind me. I turned around and saw a monstrosity larger than a ten-story building, composed of two large, tube-like legs and vaguely human feet. It had a headless egg shaped body with arms similar to the legs, yet without hands. And it had thousands of glittering scales of darkness all over its body. Then it opened dozens of mouths - remnant of black holes - with sharp, sterile-white teeth, all around its body, and roared. At once I fled.

Wait! What that? I hear good cheer and jeer! A party! A feast it must be! Yes, I smell the aroma of something familiar, something juicy and flavorful. And what’s that?! The light is getting closer! It’s no longer stagnant! I see golden gates dividing! I’ve made it! It’s finally over!

I pick up my pace into a jog, into a run, into a sprint, and I pass through the light, shielding my eyes from the shining light. And then I stop. I uncover my eyes. But there’s nothing there, just the empty tunnel in which I was in before. I look around, and everything is the same. The enteral void of darkness behind me, and the ethereal light before me. Heaven above me, and Hell below me.

I fear I must abide.