Warped Perception of Reality

Where the hell is my afterlife?!

SUICIDE, ALCOHOL, AND DROWNING TW. ITS SAFE TO READ AFTER THE DASH. (—)

~

You couldn't swim.

That thought hung deeply in the back of your mind as you carefully paddled out into the middle of the lake. It was midnight, full moon dangling in the sky and giving off a silvery light.

Why are you out here? In a canoe at midnight, over a freezing lake with no life jacket?

Simple. You wanted this.

You were sick and tired of the way your family treated you. Your father had died in the streets- robbed, shot, and left to die in his car. After that, everything got worse. Your college grades plummeted, and your mother began to smoke more frequently and turned to alcohol for comfort. Your sibling was absolutely unbearable to be around anymore, with how petty and annoying they were.

They made you feel like you were nothing. And you KNEW you weren't, but what could you do to get away? Nowhere and no one in this world could make you happy again, and you knew it.

You stick your hand into the icy water. This would be painful, but you didn't have any rope and didn't want to leave a mess of blood anywhere. This was the only way.

You take in a shaky breath. It was now, or never. Maybe you'll find peace in whatever oblivion awaiting for your arrival.

A tear slips from your eye as you murmur a soft goodbye to the world and let the canoe tip over. Your body instinctively rebels, panicked breaths drawing in water that tasted faintly of dirt and grass.

It's so pretty, you think as you gaze at the moon one last time. Your lungs scream for air, but your heart screams for the relief it's about to earn. A shame it's the last time I'll see it.

—
A shame, really. That soul wasn't really ready for it to end.

How can you tell?

I hear it's cries from the depths of the void. Normally, I would let them sit for a moment to come to terms with their death before passing them onto their next life... but I think I will speed things up a bit.

Are you sure? I don't want to get in trouble with the higher ups. Time says to wait at least 500 years.

Trust me, darling. You don't get in trouble for something they don't know about.

—

At first, there is nothing. No sight or hearing, neither feeling, smell or taste. You can't even feel your own body as your conscience drifts in the never ending black.

You hear soft whispers. They're melancholy, as if they're telling a sad secret that few others know. You feel the intent, but no words at all. However, the heavy presence of comforting.

Soon, you hear something.

Bubbles shifting, making noise from some sort of liquid. You could also hear the full humming of electricity around you.

The next sense that comes back to you is feeling. The sliding of wires against your body. They seemed to be attached to you, and you could feel the energy flowing into you from where they were attached. However, you couldn't taste a single thing and you couldn't even feel your tongue or lips.

Slowly, your eyelids slide open. They're quickly shut when you're met with light- certainly not blinding, but much more than there was inside of that strange void you were asleep inside of for so long. You carefully open them again, and begin surveying your surroundings.