What is the greatest pain you've ever felt?
Maybe it was a broken bone, a gunshot, or even torture.
Just take a moment to think about it.
Now multiply it by infinity.
Whatever you're imagining, I can say with certainty, is nowhere even close to the realm of pain I am currently going through.
It feels as if my very existence is being rung like a rag, hung up on a line, and incinerated in a bonfire.
The pain was so great, I momentarily forgot everything else.
All I wanted was to escape this unbearable pain.
But I remembered something.
I was already dead...
--
My name is Frederick Isen Alomar.
The son of a moderately wealthy American household.
I had relatively no troubles growing up, and even right before my death, my life was basically all I could ever ask for. Such that before this, my most painful experience was when I decided to jump from my friend's roof onto his trampoline during his birthday only to miss spectacularly and land gracefully on my feet, breaking both my legs.
This pain, while it hurt a lot, is understandably nothing, in comparison to the pain I am feeling at this very moment.
It feels like everything I own is being torn out from my corpse and horribly mangled to oblivion. There really just isn't a way to properly describe this pain.
But the pain wasn't just death.
While I hadn't felt the pain of death before, I'd imagine it wouldn't hurt nearly as much. I would just feel the pain while I'm still alive then float away into heaven after death, relieving me of all my suffering.
But, nope. Not at all.
I cried out for the pain to stop, but nothing answered.
The pain just kept increasing. I instinctually felt that this pain would not end until I was snuffed out of existence.
Then, all of sudden, I felt a POP, and immediately, every facet of my being felt a surge of relief.
Silence.
The horrible pain was gone, replaced with the feeling of peat moss on my back.
"Am I in heaven?" I asked as I opened my eyes.
My surroundings were utterly alien.
I appeared to be in a forest of some kind. The trees, oddly branchless with smooth curvy trunks, stretched farther into the sky than I could even see. The ground, covered in peat moss, was devoid of much of the plant life that one would expect in a forest, filled by the occasional small purple flower.
But most immediately alarming, was this alien feeling I felt from the surroundings. I felt 'something' in the organ where my appendix might have been. It felt strangely oppressive but also comforting at the same time.
After looking around for a while I came to realize that I also felt extremely "free". If you've ever had a song stuck in your head for a very long time, I liken this to the feeling of suddenly being able to remove it from your thoughts. It felt incredible, as if I was completely in control of my thoughts.
But no matter how clear my thoughts were, I was still extremely confused. This situation was just that hard to accept.
'I died.' That much I was sure of. Whether or not I am "alive" again or in heaven is a different question.
I was hit by a truck going way over the speed limit as I was trying to cross the road.
There wasn't anything heroic or poetic about it, I just didn't see it coming.
That revelation was saddening to me. I had a family. A happy one at that. My wife Melissa is an angel that I don't deserve and my parents are walking blessings. For such a pitiful death to befall me hit me like a truck all on its own. Not to mention the pure sadness welling up thinking about my wife and family learning of my death.
'Now my mortal enemy is a truck huh?'
'Speaking of, does this place even have trucks?' I mused, trying to cope with my own thoughts.
'Better question. Is this heaven, hell, or neither?' I didn't know. I couldn't know.
There was no god or goddess reincarnating me, no magic circle, no system telling me how things work, just pain, and then silence.
'Is this the new up-coming horror Isekai genre?'
'...'
'Guess I can't rule out the possibility.' I shuddered.
The silence was deafening. I could almost hear my own thoughts. Worst of all was this feeling of eerie serenity. This place was beautiful. Too beautiful. It almost felt AI generated. Then there was this pressure. The atmosphere was suffocating me, as if every particle of air had the presence of a giant beast.
As much as I wanted to lament, complain, and reminisce, I could clearly tell it wasn't a good idea.
Instead, I need information. If for some reason I was reincarnated and not in a celestial realm, I needed knowledge of my surroundings to survive and progress.
Firstly, I cannot climb these trees nor do I really want to. I tried to climb them but they were way too slippery and had no branches. They looked more like very large, already whittled sticks than trees.
Then, after walking around without a single clue what to do next, I decided the best course of action was to walk around aimlessly until something caught my eye.
I was nervous, but that felt like the only way forward.
So I walked.
and walked...
and kept walking.
The pressure suffocating me never eased up nor did it increase. Only adding to my anxiety.
Then, after what seemed like 6 hours, I stumbled across something.
I walked closer and saw that it looked to be a ruined stone building.
'Well I guess there is some form of life here.' I thought.
The ruin didn't appear to be an alien structure so I found myself hoping I could find other people from earth here.
'As if' I scoffed, trying to keep my expectations low.
I walked over to the ruin, hiding behind the trees fearing there might be something here. While I might not have sensed anything, it just felt better to stay vigilant.
As I approached, I noted the church-like architecture of the crumbling stone walls and open windows. There was no broken stained glass or anything of the sort, but it felt fancy and somewhat religious.
After checking my surroundings for traps, I walked through the entrance.
"Woah." I whispered
The inside, that betrayed all of my expectations, appeared to be an abandoned bar. There were wooden cups lying around and signs of brutal swordsmanship all over the place. Tables were cut up and strewn about while the shelves lining the back of the bar were completely decimated.
"What in the world" I muttered. 'There must have been some sort of skirmish here. I wonder if there are any corpses lying around?' I thought to myself, sincerely hoping there weren't.
I meandered around, admiring the strangely designed bar, and as I entered into the back, I noticed a bed and a kitchen.
'Perfect!' I thought.
'Shelter, Check. Comfy bed, Check.' Obviously both of those were survival necessities so I was really happy to see them.
The bed was covered in silk bedsheets and a cozy looking gray wool blanket.
Then turning to the kitchen, I saw a long countertop equipped with tools I had never seen before, and what appeared to be an antique, wood-fired stove and chest freezer.
'If it weren't for half of the right wall crumbling down, this place would be an absolute cheat code.'
'But I guess the clear indication of a fight and crumbling wall are most likely the reason it was abandoned.' I thought, as I admired the thick coat of un-disturbed dust covering everything.
I opened the chest freezer to see if anything was in it. Unfortunately, only a mound of dirt and an unpleasant smell greeted me. I then made my way over to a very strange looking light switch by the side of the bed. The purpose of this switch-like thing intrigued me. This tavern was definitely not made with modern technology, but it had a very similar look to a light switch.
I attempted to flick the switch up but it wouldn't budge. That's when I noticed it wasn't actually a switch, but a button. I then pressed the back of it down and sure enough it activated.
fwoo
"Woah."
"That startled me."
The moment I pressed the button, a rainbow hue surrounded the contraption and a very weird feeling hit my stomach.
"What the hell? Was that magic?!"
From what had just happened I had a pretty solid guess as to what it was, but even just thinking about it made my heart pump.
This wasn't just any old shimmering magic button. It had a function. A very convenient function may I add.
'A magic toilet huh?'
"..."
I stared at it completely flabbergasted. It had removed the waste from my digestive system in a single moment, giving me a sensation I never knew possible.
'Is this actually magic?' I couldn't believe it. I needed to know.
I pressed the button again. This time it did the same thing but there was nothing to remove. 'How in the world does this thing work if not magic.?'
'This confirms my suspicion' I realized.
The giant trees that definitely shouldn't be able to exist tipped me off that I wasn't on earth, but I thought 'Maybe I'm in some celestial realm connected to some religion.'
But magic?
I might be in my own type of hell but I doubted it. Magic has always been a dream of mine. I envied the protagonists of the stories I read, and always fantasized about how I would abuse the magic systems I read about.
And that's what brought me to this conclusion.
'Even if this is what we know as heaven, my definition of heaven is a fantasy world with magic. Thus, I must have been reincarnated in another world.'
Of course I still had my doubts, but those could be addressed later.
For now, Sleep is calling.