Tevun-Krus #28 - Theological SF

What Lies After - A Short Story by @fallen_tear

I'm dead. I know I am dead because they had told me, however, they weren't ready to let me go. So now, my mind, or soul, whichever one makes it easier on you, is stuck in limbo from advanced technology.

You see, I couldn't stand living in this world. It was too overwhelming... The advancing wars, the end of planet Earth, the fight to survive and secure your future on Mars.

I had no more right to another chance of life than anyone else, unlike my parents, I wasn't ready to self entitled myself, to self importantize myself above another human being. To me, that wasn't what a human was. I know survival is a major part, maybe for that, I am flawed. But there is so much more: love, compassion, empathy, heartache. The ability to use science for the greater good of all. Not that all could see that.

I know that, even as dead as I am, or maybe more because of it, that humans are capable of great and horrendous acts. I've accepted it, as that is all I can do. Stuck.

Is there more to death than this? I suppose I will never know.

This technology that keeps me here is really rather wonderful- it shows how far we've come. And I suppose for some, it is a welcome. Sort of the holy grail, but I, I didn't want it. This false immortality, my mind preserved and connected to chips and wires. It isn't living, nor is it death. Trapped somewhere in the in between and still too afraid to find out what lies after.

I know that I was ready to end it all, but when I gain consciousness... I'm afraid to let go and lose that part of myself; I've never claimed to be perfect. So I'm left with resenting my parents for this, while at the same time grateful.

You see, I feel nothing. Nothing from the in between place; no warmth, no cold, no hunger, no fear, no safety. There is neither light nor darkness. I fear there is nothing after this.

Perhaps it is our fault for playing God, for our advancements going beyond our realm and destroying what all God had created.

Or maybe, it was never there to begin with.

And maybe, maybe it would become better when my consciousness can travel beyond this machine- to be able to experience the real world once again, not by what my parents can share with me as they communicate through this machine.

I guess we all will always have one thing in common, dead or alive, that hold us together as human beings: the question that has no answer. What lies next?