Chapter 1

Death is different for all, yet the same. The circumstances change; people experience death differently, but the same process happens. Nobody escapes the grip that death holds. Where do you go once you die?

That question plagued humanity, and only those who perished discovered the answer. Of course, since you find yourself reading this book, you’ve ended up here, in Eternity.

Chapter 1 - Reborn
Beginner’s Guide to Eternity (2002) by Viviette Grenadine

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Blood spread across the grass, seeping over it. His own blood drenched the scene. He couldn’t see the blood, but he felt it and knew it as his own. It soaked through his clothing. Everything was numb. His eyes fluttered open and closed, yet he couldn’t see. The space was dark, and vision could only discern blurry shapes and lights. Ding, Ding, Ding, the car chimed repeatedly, filling the night ambiance; it was mixed in with the car’s radio, which still played “Running Down a Dream” by Tom Petty. The night air echoed every sound, amplifying it with a horrifying echo. Crickets didn’t care about death, they chirped and sang away.

Stupid, Liam thought. Recent events were flimsy in his mind, he could barely grasp them, yet they pulled away, like trying to remember a dream. His consciousness tugged on him, stay awake. Stay awake! He knew he had to, but didn’t know why. A coldness washed over his body. He lay almost flat, but on a slight angle, upside down.

It must be… The thought was foggy. Car crash. The memories were coming back slowly; he knew he was in a car—he had been in a car. But who was in the car with him? Who was the driver? Faces flashed in his mind, Derrick.

The blurry vision subsided. Liam lay on the ground, just outside the open passenger door of the car. The car’s front end bent inward, a collision with a tree. The memories cascaded back; a deer ran out, and Derrick panicked. The last thing Liam saw was the tree, growing at an impossible speed.

Derrick remained in the car, passed out or dead. The driver’s side looked less damaged, not too bad. Derrick hit the tree on the passenger side, Liam remembered. Where is help? Liam wondered; he tried to move, failed, and tried again. Each attempt felt like a drain; staying conscious was nearly impossible.

Liam rested his head back on the ground. This is where I die. Everything culminated in this moment. The cruel world playing a joke on Liam. His hard academic work gave him the opportunity to attend his college of choice. Another flash of memories bore into Liam’s skull with migraine intensity. He felt himself scream but noise never left his thought. A soul-aching scream, an internal mind-numbing scream.

The thought of leaving his friends and family pulled at him. I am going to die! Comfort was nowhere close, only the cold and empty darkness.

It was Liam’s own fault. Socially, Liam wasn’t adept, but prom night brought him into the inner social circles. A group, the group he always desired, held an after-prom party. Liam remembered the alcohol. One shot turned into two, then to four, then—Liam couldn’t remember how many he took, or what else he might have drunk.

Why’d I get into the car with Derrick?

It went against all the common sense. Liam was smart—or was he? Surely Derrick was drunk, he always was.

Hope kept him glued, maybe survival was possible. Help would surely arrive at any moment. If he rested his head now, he might wake in the hospital or even his own bed. Perhaps it was all a nightmare, a bad dream that seemed real. That didn’t explain the pain. Liam knew it as a hopeful delusion. He knew the situation was bad. Sometimes living in delusion helps the pain of reality, helps to avoid the cold truth. Liam wouldn’t survive.

Liam’s chest sank and he felt a piercing anxiety. What happens now? He anticipated eternal blackness, nothingness. His mind couldn’t accept that, couldn’t grasp the concept. How can something turn to nothing? A person reduced to only what? Matter and energy?

No!

A deep-seated panic took hold, one he couldn’t control nor resolve. Liam tried to keep his eyes open, but the eyelids sank, heavy as an anchor. He was sinking, falling into the depths. Life was the flowing water that fell between his fingers; he couldn’t hold on despite all the effort. It all poured away, draining at the source. The waterfall stopped, and the blood dripped off his hands. A black void, a black liquid passed over him. Hands grabbed at him and pulled him deep down. Their grip a cold, relentless iron. Layers of awareness disappeared above him as he fell, his eyes fell too. Closed forever. A final note. Finality.

All was black. Nothing perceived, no input. Just blackness.

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Liam felt as if he was somewhere or nowhere. He perceived, was still conscious, just of thought. He had no eyes, no ears, no senses. The tools he would’ve used to perceive, test, and probe were useless to him, only consciousness. Liam felt adrift in space, lost.

Is this life after death? He asked himself. Endless consciousness.

No—something was up; he just didn’t know what. A force pulled and tugged on his consciousness, a feeling that sent his mind into a frenzy. Images and sensations flashed into his mind, blinding his inner eye. A lightning storm of memories—all of his life in an instant.

A cascading wave of despair washed over him. The finality of death felt so potent, an unyielding force. But Liam still perceived. He died but still remained. It was a cruel contradiction.

The inner bundle glowed green, he saw, but didn’t see. Green? He didn’t understand how or why he perceived the color; it had simply appeared in his inner thoughts, in his round prison of consciousness. He tried to find a way out, extending his consciousness in each direction, finding a force—a glass sphere—blocking him in.

A blinding pain struck him. He screamed without a mouth. Everything exploded from his chest—out of his chest, or what felt like his chest.

His body was whole; he was in a dim alleyway.

Liam clutched at his body, feeling the renewed sensation of life. He felt his fingers brush against his clothing. He felt his chest. He was real.

Cobblestones lined the ground with grass, weeds, and greenery growing between the cracks. Archways rose overhead. The architecture seemed like something out of a medieval fantasy novel. He gazed upward at the buildings made of stone and fancy windows. It reminded him of the architecture of the college he wanted to attend, a gothic look. Those buildings felt like they were from a different era.

Liam walked forward, and each step echoed on the stone. The air was cold, a chill crept through him.

“Hello?” he called out.

No reply.

This must be a nightmare!

His right forearm burned, a searing pain, engraving itself into him. He lifted his right sleeve. An orange pattern swirled around his arm. The pain was blinding. He screamed. The orange light subsided, leaving a scar traveling from his wrist up his forearm. What is happening? The pain faded away.

Liam had heard of euphoric visions of death, meeting god, or some sort of nothingness, as if that sort existed or had a lack of existing. This was pain.

Is this hell? He looked around and felt silly asking the question in his mind. The scenery was beautiful and enchanting. The fires of hell weren’t present, or as he had heard of them, this didn’t fit the description of how the movies depicted hell. Not that Liam even knew what hell was described as, he never read the bible or any other religious literature for that matter.

The breath in his throat was erratic. The top priority was figuring out where he was. The path forward called to him, he ventured forth. The path stretched on and on, maybe miles, passing by vacant buildings.

The architecture didn’t make sense. It was like someone mashed up different eras and placed them in a blender. Some buildings seemed right out of modern times, while others were old brick. A castle-like building appeared at one point, right next to a Victorian-styled house. Liam marveled at a gothic monolith that he passed. As he walked, his fears grew.

Liam turned back at a noise and saw a figure robed in black exit one of the buildings. The figure turned toward Liam, face hidden by a hood. Liam backed up and turned, he kept walking. The steps of the figure echoed on the stone behind him, seeming to grow closer and closer.

Liam didn’t know what he feared more, the isolation or the unknown figure behind him. He burst into a sprint, heart pounding. He turned a corner and nearly threw himself into a woman.

“Hey! Watch it!” she screamed at him.

The street was bustling with people. All wore different styles of clothing, a blend of eras once again. None of them acknowledged Liam. He found himself swept into the crowd.

He bumped a man, brushing against an arm. A vision crept into him, a noose called for him, swinging softly on the gallows. No! He bumped another, a flash of a knife came cascading toward him, tearing his flesh. The pain seared hot. Then he was back, without pain. His heart rate grew in speed. The crowd grew tight and cramped, he tried to part through them.

A bearded man grabbed him and dragged him to the side. “What’s your problem!” the man sneered, grabbing his clothing below the shoulders.

“W-w-w-where!” The words wouldn’t spill out, Liam’s hands were shaky, his teeth chattered.

The man’s expression flickered, changing from harsh to understanding. The man released his hold on Liam.

“You need to calm down, son. You’ve died,” the man said.

“Died!” Liam repeated, his breath ragged. He saw it, knew it, but didn’t believe it. Had he died? The car crash, he remembered, the car crash.

“It may seem hard to believe.” The man placed a hand on Liam’s head. A flash flew into Liam. His right arm burned again. His vision flickered, he saw wolves. A snowy landscape. He was surrounded by wolves, all hungry, craving flesh, craving blood, craving meat. They leapt at Liam. He felt the bites, the gnashing of teeth. The pain exploded through his body as he was torn apart.

The vision ended and Liam pushed the man, knocking him over. Liam sprinted through the crowd. Escape! His body shuddered at the pain, one moment of pain, the next normal. An uncanny experience. He had to outrun it, outrun the pain, whatever it was. Wherever it was coming from.

Visions of pain and suffering plagued him in flashes as he bumped through the crowd, making contact again and again. He twisted and turned, contorting, disoriented. He was in the crowd, then elsewhere, then back again. The cycle repeated. Some pain worse, some not so bad, but pain nonetheless.

Voices berated him and yelled. People shoved him, he barely held balance.

Another hand brushed his. He saw a void, a black dark expanse. In front of him were chains, giant chains that swept up into the dark expanse and down. They all converged at a single point in the distance. He tried to take a step, the vision transformed. Fire took hold. It surrounded him. He was bound, unable to move. His wrists and feet were tied. The fire licked his legs, it quickly leapt up with terrifying speed, engulfing Liam completely.

The pain was unbearable for a moment. A scream rang out, not his own, one that was a high-pitched shriek, a lamentable cry! He reached out, not with his hand, but with something else. Some energy, a desire. A desire to escape the situation. A desire to harness the fire and put it to an end. He absorbed the fire, the pain, the suffering. He ended the vision, closing it off.

The hand he had brushed took hold of him, grabbing his wrist with an unyielding embrace. The hand was small, but it locked tight around his arm beyond its size.

Liam looked up. A girl wearing an intricate red and black Victorian dress gazed back at him. The dress was elegant, refined. Metal decor traveled its length and added to its complexity. The skirt flowered wide and rippled.

Her hair was white as snow, cascading around her head. Untamed hair. Unnatural red eyes bored through him. They didn’t look at him, but in a void beyond him, at something else maybe—No, they were looking at him. Eyes that were filled with confusion, maybe even fear.

Liam tried to pull his arm free, the girl kept her grip. Her face was one of disbelief, she stood frozen, keeping him in place.

“What didst thou do!” she demanded, her voice shaking. Her frame trembling. “How art—what hast thou done to me!”

“I don’t-” Liam tugged away once more. “Please, let me go!”

Liam tugged again. She let go. Liam ran.

I need to understand. What is going on?