falling stars

Chapter 2: Death is boring

‘Yo, it is still me. I know I kind of get blasted into nothingness, but here I am again.’

It has probably been a few hours since I disintegrated, and let me tell you, death is overrated. I

didn’t know what to expect when I was alive. Although I have been going to church from my

youngest age until my college years, I am not really a devout believer. So I wouldn't have

minded being sent to hell or just disappearing into nothingness. As for going to heaven, my

research history or the lack of it in my case, would have stopped me from even thinking about

that. There is absolutely nothing here. No sense of touch, sound, or smell, not even colors. I

don't even see blinding light or darkness. Oh! Dear, I would have loved to see those things I

know, but I didn't have those luxuries; it is just a plain empty void.

‘My brain probably got overwhelmed and put me into comas. That is probably it. Maybe when I

fell, I hit my head and passed out. Maybe I just imagined myself getting turned into dust by a

meteorite. '

‘Nah, what meteorite? It doesn't make sense if a literal rain of fire had happened; the authority

would have warned the people, right? I mean, it can’t be that difficult to track down interstellar

rock, right?’

‘I probably passed out after Antony choked me, right? Yeah, that must be it’

I spent hours rambling about what possibly happened to me, like maybe this is all a dream or

that it is a prank, or maybe I got drugged the night before. I kept making hypotheses again and

again; some are realist, some are madness. Near the end, I even tried to believe that I managed

to escape the matrix and that someone would make me choose colored pills later.

How could I not know? I got incinerated alive, I felt every damn cell of my being got dust, I felt

my eyes get blinded, and I felt the overwhelming feelings of injustice when dying. I felt the rage

at the idea of disappearing without story, without having done anything about my life. Likewise, I

hated the idea of not being able to accomplish any of my dreams, not being able to talk to the

girl I liked until the end, not being able to sit, drink my favorite beer, eat my favorite food, or read

my favorite novels.

Oh, you don’t know how many times I thought about ending myself, imagining how my close

ones would react. I thought about how to make my death more dramatic, like writing a text for all

of them. I wanted to know if they would feel pain if I died, and truth to be told, I wanted them tosuffer a lot for my absence. But in the face of true death, I was unwilling. I want to live; there is

nothing wrong with that.

‘Why would I have to die? Why can’t I be immortal like those gods of legends? Why am I

suffering in the void while the one who tried to kill me probably survived and still has chances to

live a happy life?’

‘I don’t want to; it is not fair. Why him, not me? I probably should have let that bastard die;

maybe I would have survived if I did.

I then started to blame my death on Antony. I cursed him for I don't know how long. Treating him

with many undeserved insults. Dark thoughts kept going through my mind, like how I should

have let him die or directly pushed him to make him die the same death as me. The more

I rambled the more I felt like trash, but I kept cursing at him, at the world, at an unknown god. I

just wanted someone to hear my pain, but here in the void, I was alone. No one would listen or

care about my suffering, but that also meant no one would care if I said the greatest profanity; I

said the worst things I could imagine, and I felt even more trashlike. If I wasn’t already dead, I

would have committed suicide for even having those thoughts.

At some point I started to call the names of every known gods of every religions I wanted them

to pity me. Hearing no answers, I turn to every devils of the ars goetia I could remember,

including Baal, Asmodeus, Belzebuth and many other offerings ranging from gold to the souls of

children, wishing internally for them to not heed my call.

Being unanswered by the ‘oh so high’ gods and the worst demons of hells put me in a state of

rage again. Then I would start to deny reality again, convincing myself that I would wake up

from a coma again.

People say that the "stages of grief" include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and

acceptance. But I was not in grief; I was just keeping my head occupied in the void. The rage

stopped me from thinking about anything or getting bored as long as I was expressing any form

of emotion I keep existing, a twisted form of “I think, so I am,” if you want.

I don't know how many times I kept deluding myself, but at some point I just stopped thinking

about myself, I was not egocentric enough to think about me for days, yes days, I was here that

long. How many days? I am unsure, but I know how long days felt like.I still didn’t understand what happened to me or where I am, but instead of trying to earn pity for

myself, I used all my wrath to keep me sane and spit on all the world for putting me in this

situation.

It was that or being bored.