The permanent inanimation of the body is as absolute as it is inevitable.
The frame grows still, and the brain dies along with it; without the vessel, the mind can no longer sustain human consciousness.
Whatever you choose to call it—the soul, the ego, the spark—the animation of the body ceases entirely upon death.
The so-called "near-death experiences" people recount are precisely that: near, but not actual death.
Any consciousness they remember holding is likely a side effect of a brain frantically resuming operations, scrambling to fill the narrative gaps between when its machinery was firing and when it was dark.
True death is the final step into a world from which no one will ever return to tell the tale.
True death is the abyss, the void, the event horizon of a black hole.
Once you cross that threshold, only you see what lies on the other side; to everyone remaining in the light, you simply fade away into the silence.
Death is permanent and unavoidable.
You cannot pause the clock—so make the countdown exciting while you can.