What is going on?
The question echoes, not in ears he possess, but somewhere deeper, in the core of whatever this he is now. He feel like he finally free of something, something that felt like a cage, a suffocating confinement that he hadn't even fully recognized until it was gone. And this feeling… this feeling of effortless, directionless movement… it's like floating, but not on water, not on air. It's like floating on… nothing.
Oh.
That's right.
I died.
The realization doesn't hit like a truck or a sudden shock. It's more like remembering a fact he just momentarily forgotten. Like remembering the time he ordered pizza for dinner. Right, pizza. And right, he died. It really happened.
But what now?
Where am i? and what am I?
This is the part that's truly bizarre. He feel like he can move every part of a body – have the sense of limbs, of a torso, of a head, even lungs that don't need to draw breath. He feel like he could stretch, curl up, run, jump. But when he try to perceive himself, to see or feel my form, there's nothing. Absolutely nothing external. He have the feeling of a body, but he is… well.
POV [ First person]-
I is a ball-like structure. A sphere of consciousness, maybe? A knot of pure awareness.
But what is this, this phantom body? Why do I feel like I possess the mechanics of a human form when I clearly don't have one? It's like having constant, vivid phantom limbs, but for your entire being. And I can't see anything.
Where am I now?
It is like the deep sea ocean, but somehow colder, vaster. Or perhaps space without any star or light. It's terrifying in its absolute emptiness, its scale. There are no walls, no floor, no ceiling, just infinite, featureless blackness stretching in every direction that doesn't exist. And why am I floating? Where am I even going? Is there a direction in this boundless non-space? I seem to be drifting, yes, but relative to what? Nothing is here to mark progress or position.
This space is truly terrifying, filled with a frightening emptiness that should induce panic, absolute cosmic dread. But it's also… fascinating. And weirdly, I'm feeling a strange sense of nostalgia, like this is home. It may give the vibe of terrifying emptiness, a void that could swallow sanity whole, but for me, it feels… familiar. It's like the embrace of a warm oceanic space, even when this space is so cold that it could freeze anyone exposed to it at just a moment – if 'anyone' still existed here in a vulnerable, physical state. The cold is not absolute, not biting; it's more like the potential for cold, a fundamental property of the void that simply washes over me without effect. It's an absence of heat, an absence of energy, an absence of everything, that feels curiously neutral, even comforting.
Will I stop floating? Or will I just become non-stop? Or is there any stop at all? The questions drift through my formless mind, as directionless as my current movement. There's no urgency to find answers, only a mild curiosity. Time seems irrelevant here. It could be seconds or years I've been this way. There's no sun to rise, no clock to tick.
Huh!
What is this?
A flicker. A ripple in the stillness of my being. It's not external; it's internal. A sensation. A jumble of… images? Feelings? Sounds?
The scent of stale coffee and damp plaster.
The incessant hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
The low murmur of voices, punctuated by the rhythmic tap-tapping of fingers on keyboards.
A heavy, grey sky visible through a window streaked with rain.
The dull ache in my lower back from sitting too long.
The images coalesce, sharpening into a specific moment. I'm there, but observing. No, not observing. I am there.
My phantom body flares into phantom existence, sitting at a worn desk in a cramped cubicle. The tie around my phantom neck feels too tight. The fabric of my phantom shirt feels rough. My phantom eyes burn from staring at a screen. The phantom air is stuffy and smells faintly of disinfectant. This is it. This is the memory.
Hahahahaa_____ haahaaahaa______hahahaahahah
Oh! This is genuinely amusing.
The absurdity of it! The sheer, mundane intensity of that past existence. The way every tiny inconvenience felt monumental. The deadlines, the office politics, the struggle to find motivation on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, the desperate yearning for the weekend. The "prison." Yes, this is part of it. The routine, the expectations, the physical discomfort, the mental fatigue. The small, enclosed space. The lack of space. The feeling of being tethered, bound by schedules and responsibilities and the need to earn a living. The feeling of being a specific shape – human – confined within another specific shape – a cubicle, an office building, a city.
Now, look at me. A floating sphere of awareness in infinite nothingness. No body, no desk, no deadlines, no tea, no painful back. The contrast is so stark, so utterly ridiculous, that it's hilarious. I remember feeling trapped, desperate for freedom, fantasizing about escaping it all. And now? I have escaped it all. With extreme prejudice, one might say. The prison is gone. And the escape route was… death. Who knew it would look like this? This terrifying, fascinating, silent, formless, floating void.
Here, in this state, I can freely see my memories. They appear not just as pictures or sounds, but as full sensory experiences, complete with the emotions I felt at the time. It's like re-inhabiting a moment, but with the perspective of knowing everything that came after, and more importantly, with the perspective of being this. This spherical ghost, this ball of dead person.
The cubicle memory fades, dissolving back into the silent black. The phantom sensations vanish. I am just the floating sphere again, the core of consciousness drifting through the vast, embracing (and terrifying) emptiness.
The amusement lingers, a warm echo in the cold silence. It's a strange kind of joy, born of ultimate detachment. The problems that consumed me, the triumphs I celebrated, the heartbreaks I endured – from this vantage point, they seem so small, so specific to that brief, physical form. They were real, intensely real then. But now, they are merely... data. Experiences. Stories I told myself while confined in that particular, temporary body and world.
So, until I stop… assuming there is a stop… let's pry into my memories. Let's see what else is stored in this, this… personal archive of a finished life. What other absurdities will I find? What moments of intense feeling will seem come from this perspective? What secrets did I keep even from myself?
Another ripple. Another hint of sensation. This one feels different. Sharper. More emotional.
Sunlight on skin.
The smell of salt air.
The sting of disappointment.
Yes. This looks promising. Let's see this one. Let's dive back into the archive. The silent, boundless void waits patiently around me, neither hindering nor helping, just being. It is my theatre now, and my memories are the only play. And I am the sole, formless audience. The next reel is starting. Let's watch. Let's remember. Let's laugh.
And when he is preying into those memories that's the moment the space tore open, it didn't just appear; it screamed into existence. Not with sound, because there was no air for sound to travel, but with a raw, visual violence that ripped the featureless void around me. It was a maelstrom of colour and non-colour, a spinning, churning maw that inhaled the nothingness and, with impossible speed, began to drag him towards it.
Before he could even register fear, a force unlike anything he had felt clamped onto him – not a physical grip, but a fundamental pull, like the universe itself deciding he is misplaced and needed recalibrating. He tumble head over heels, the endless replays of my life flashing faster now, overlapping, distorting. Childhood laughter collided with teenage angst, moments of triumph blurred with abject failure, love and loss spiralling into a chaotic, unrecognisable mess. The carefully reviewed memorise nineteen times, the twentieth bewildered viewing, all compressed into a single, blinding flash. Then, he is inside the vortex.
It isn't dark, nor light. It is everything and nothing at once. It feel like being stretched infinitely thin, his consciousness a single thread pulled through the eye of a needle shaped like spacetime. Colors swirled – impossibly vibrant, impossibly dull – shifting faster than the eye could track. Sounds that aren't sounds hummed and roared through his, vibrations that resonated not in his ears, but in what feel like the core of his being. Time became meaningless. How long is he in there? An instant? An eternity? The nineteen-point-something hours of floating felt like a lazy afternoon stroll compared to this violent, exhilarating transit.
His memories, the very things he has been meticulously dissecting, seemed to be the substance of the vortex itself. Not stored within him anymore, but around him, manifesting as fleeting shapes and echoes. He saw the face of his closed ones, contorted in a moment of worry he has forgotten. He see the chipped paint on a bicycle he own when he was seven. He saw a conversation he had with a stranger on a train, the words suddenly crystal clear. But these aren't the calm, contained replays from the void. These are raw, untamed fragments, flying past like cosmic debris.
And the forgetting… it intensified. As these vivid shards of his past whizzed by, it is as if the act of seeing them externalised is also erasing them from his internal library. That memory fragment of the chipped bike? He see it, recognised it with a jolt, and then, felt it slip away, leaving a smooth, blank spot where its texture and colour should have been. It was terrifying. He is watching his life disintegrate, piece by piece, as he thrown through this cosmic shredder.
Just as he thought he would be torn apart entirely, the centrifugal force lessened. The colours settled, the non-sounds faded, and the violent motion ceased. He is expel, not with a jolt, but with a gentle release, into a quiet, still expanse.