Waves of hot air billowed through, accompanying the dance of the pillar of flame that towered into the sky. Sirens blared and gasps and wails of sadness and sorrow spread far and wide.
'What's going on?' Damien blinked his eyes open, his memory fuzzy. His body felt strange, lighter than normal, but aside from that, there didn't seem to be anything wrong.
He looked around, his bows furrowed at the gathered crowd. There must have been hundreds of them, spread around the area along the pavement with a few on the road. Their gaze focused on the pile of debris and broken and shattered mechanical parts that littered the road and fueled the flames.
Some were covering their mouths in shocked gasps, some looked away, a few parents covering their children's eyes. Some held their cellphones, recording the incident.
Damien looked towards the pile and his eyes shot open. He staggered back, surprised at his close proximity to the towering flame. He panicked, hurriedly patting his body to find his cellphone.
"Somebody call 911!!" He yelled but no one answered him. If he was calmer, maybe he would have noticed that no one was looking at him despite how dangerously close he was to the flames, how he couldn't feel its heat.
Instead, his gaze focused on the vehicles, an oil tanker, a large school bus, a few vehicles and one scooter that belonged to a delivery company. Mangled flesh, splattered blood stained metal and granite floor, a string burning smell filled the air.
'They see all dead…' he noticed. His heart dropped, grief filled him as he thought of how sudden the death must have been those involved. His head drooped and his heart skipped a beat.
Damien's body trembled as he hurriedly backed away, he stuttered out a trembling gasp. Tears poured out of his eyes, something that he couldn't consider strange at the moment.
His eyes remained focused on a body on the floor, mangled but not as burnt as the others. It belonged to a young man, around his late thirties. He has brown hair, average looks and a lanky body. He looked like he would have trouble lifting a carton of milk.
His grey eyes were wide in shock and terror, so wide that they reflected the environment back. There was no one in the reflection.
The body was all too familiar, even with his hazy memory, Damien knew. It was his. A splitting headache hammered down in Damien as memories poured in like an unfettered dam.
Damien saw his parents smile at his birth. His father's tears after his mother died of cancer. His father's smile when he graduated with honors. His own tests when his father died in an accident.
He saw himself wasting his life around, squandering all that his father left for him. He saw all of his regrets, his woes. His return to an empty home, his struggles, and his feeble attempt to redeem himself by trying to save a young boy's life which was mocked by his and the little boy's death along with a bunch of other innocent victims.
He saw it all.
Argh!!!!!!! Damien screamed, a surge of undescribable emotions pouring into him, threatening to rip him apart. Only then did he notice it all, the unintended disregard for his presence by the living, the lacklustre heat from the towering flames, the strange sensation that he thought was a heartbeat in his chest.
The moment all of these sensations registered in his mind, Damien felt a change in his being. Before he could understand what it was, a large vortex suddenly appeared before him and force unlike anything he has ever felt sucked him in.
…
Damien came to his senses as he fell out the sky, or what he thought was the sky. There was no cloud, or stars, or moon, just a vast expanse of dark grey, almost like ash. It filled the space with a dreadfully somber atmosphere, stunning Damien.
By the time he came to his senses to the fact that he was falling out of the sky and should have panicked like any normal person, he had hit the ground with a thud.
Urgh! He groaned, shocked at the fact that he could experience pain in his current state but also in too much pain to react well. Moreover, he was still somber and yet to reconcile with the fact that he was now a dead man.
It took only a few moments for the pain to lessen and then magically disappear altogether, another shocking thing.
'Seems like there's a lot to learn about this special state… or maybe it's the place. Where is this even?' Damien looked around, there was vast emptiness for as far as he could see, his heart shivered at the existential dread that filled the atmosphere.
The only occupied space was a long line filled with… people, or spirits, like Damien. They all had a lackluster gaze, except for a few men standing outside the line.
'Are these guards?' Damien wondered. Their clothing told Damien that they weren't like the rest; many of the other spirits were dressed in human-like clothing, others didn't even look human. The way they carried themselves and watched over the line also helped his guess.
"Hey! Get in line!" One of them noticed Damien and yelled. There was a strange authority in his voice that made Damien shiver.
"Sorry…" Damien apologised hurriedly. He turned around to locate the end of the line and he had just begun to move when the guard called out to him again.
"Did you just apologize?" Damien was at a loss for how to reply. Shouldn't he have apologised?
He attempted to speak a few times but no words came out. The guard marched towards, only when he got close did Damien realise how tall he was.
'He must be 8ft or something…'
The guard leaned down, staring at Damien like he was searching for something. A few stifling moments later, he nodded, seemingly finding what he was looking for.
"Come with me." He promptly said. Damien looked around a bit before hurriedly following after the guard.