Life after death. It's an interesting concept that I had once thought about back in my formative years on earth, back when I was around 20 or so years old. Since it was a point in my life where I was deeply immersed in the digital world and all of its massive entertainment content, I only caught glimpses of what others had on their minds about this abstract concept.
Some believed in reincarnation—the soul migrating from one vessel to another, carrying whispers of past lives like faded photographs. Others envisioned regression, the backward spiral through time to live again in different eras. The more creative minds conjured scenarios where death was merely a condition, a trigger to awaken their actual selves from some cosmic slumber. People's imaginations back then were wild and varied, intricate tapestries woven from hope, fear, and the innate human refusal to accept oblivion.
However, how I wish I could tell them how wrong they were.
Why, you ask? Simple. Because after my apparent death and spotting that clichéd "light at the end of the tunnel," it wasn't some metaphysical gateway to the beyond. No, it was the blaring sunlight, harsh and unforgiving, searing through my closed eyelids with enough intensity to jolt me awake in a chaotic maelstrom of surprise, shock, and utter confusion.
"The fuck...? Wasn't I dead?" I questioned myself, my thoughts scrambling like frightened mice. The memories flooded back in a disorienting torrent—the bus, the collapse, the crushing weight, the metal rod impaling me, the blood... so much blood. "What's this now? Where am I? How am I alive?" I asked myself, panic rising like bile in my throat, threatening to choke me with its urgency.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a prisoner desperate for escape. My breathing came in sharp, painful bursts that did little to satisfy my lungs' demand for oxygen. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead, trickling down my temples in tiny rivulets that felt like ice against my feverish skin.
But before the real panic could fully bloom into something uncontrollable, I felt a sharp pain lance through my abdomen, specifically my stomach, followed by a very, very loud growl that seemed to echo in the empty space around me. It was the unmistakable protest of a stomach that hadn't seen food in far too long—a primal demand that cut through the fog of confusion with startling clarity.
"Whaaaa?" I exclaimed as, despite my apparent weakness and my position lying flat on the ground, I somehow found the strength to sit up, my movements jerky and uncoordinated like a poorly operated marionette. I began frantically patting myself down, my trembling hands searching for wounds that should have been there but weren't, for blood that should have been flowing but wasn't.
My fingers traced over intact skin, over a body that felt simultaneously familiar and foreign. The sensation was disorienting—like wearing someone else's clothes that somehow fit perfectly. I could feel my heart beating beneath my palm, strong and steady despite the chaos in my mind.
"I'm not dead? There's no wound on my stomach from the pipes? I can actually feel my legs again!!!" I exclaimed in a bizarre mixture of joy and disbelief, my voice cracking with emotion. In protest to my jubilation, my stomach growled once more, louder this time, a demanding beast unwilling to be ignored.
"Ahh shit..." The realization dawned on me with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull, bringing with it a wave of dizziness that nearly sent me toppling back to the ground.
"I fucking reincarnated!" I howled as I clutched my head in absolute horror, fingers digging into my scalp hard enough to hurt, the pain a welcome anchor to this new, impossible reality. My voice echoed in the dilapidated space around me, bouncing off crumbling walls before dissipating into the stale, dust-laden air.
"Shit... shit... shit.... This is NOT how I'm supposed to live my afterlife for crying out loud...!" I cursed with my limited repertoire of profanities, each word spat out like venom as I wondered what kind of sick joke whoever or whichever almighty being out there was playing. The universe, it seemed, had a twisted sense of humor—one I was not particularly fond of at the moment.
"Seriously! Like, the hell... I'm supposed to be deader than dead... Not alive and hungry!" My indignation rose with each word, a tidal wave of emotion threatening to drown me. "And speaking of which... who's the person I woke up in?" I asked as I tried to feel up my body's shape, my movements clumsy and uncertain as if I were wearing a suit several sizes too small.
With what little energy I had and despite my stomach's—or this body's stomach's—vehement protests, I began to take inventory of my new vessel. What I saw was nothing short of horrifying. I could clearly see the hunger that had caused the death of the previous owner of this body. This poor soul had died from starvation—that much was evident from how skeletal the form was. I could quite literally see their—my—bones through the almost dried and cracked skin, the flesh having withered away like leaves in autumn, leaving behind only the barest covering over a framework of bone.
The skin itself was a patchwork of gray and sickly yellow, stretched taut over protruding bones like canvas over a misshapen frame. In places, it had cracked like ancient parchment, revealing raw, reddish tissue beneath. My fingers—so thin they resembled talons more than human digits—traced along my forearm, feeling each ridge and valley of exposed bone with morbid fascination.
It was bad to the point that some parts were shedding like a snake's discarded skin, revealing raw flesh underneath. My ribs stood out in stark relief against my torso, each one clearly defined, creating a macabre xylophone that I could play simply by running my fingers across them. My hip bones jutted out sharply, threatening to pierce through the paper-thin skin that covered them.
"Wait... how the hell am I not feeling the pain but only the hunger?" I asked myself, the question hanging in the stale air like a physical presence. And boy, did I get quite the shocker in front of me...
On a specific patch of skin, just below my knee cap where I could see a redder and fresher patch of skin underneath, I witnessed something that defied all logic and understanding. The tissues began to squirm and writhe like living creatures with minds of their own, a grotesque ballet of cellular regeneration playing out before my very eyes. Gradually, the cracked, dehydrated skin knit itself back together, fresh pink tissue replacing the dead, gray matter that had been there moments before.
It was such a bizarre occurrence that my wild and random train of thought screeched to a halt, all attention laser-focused on the impossible spectacle taking place on my body. The sight was equal parts fascinating and horrifying—like watching a nature documentary about something that should not exist.
And because I was so focused on that part, I felt another patch on my arm, just below my elbow, begin the same process. The sensation wasn't painful, exactly—more like the prickling feeling of a limb waking up after being asleep but intensified tenfold. It spread outward from the center of the wound like ripples in a pond, each wave bringing with it renewed vitality to dead tissue.
"A simple explanation to this, my lord, is that I'm currently and actively re-igniting your dormant core and utilizing atmospheric energy to heal your more disastrous wounds... apologies for not informing you earlier, I had decided to let you calm down first by this in order to get your attention," spoke a sudden voice inside my head—or next to my ear. Wherever it originated from, it was not from anyone physically present, as I was demonstrably alone in this dilapidated shack.
The voice itself was rich and resonant, carrying with it an authority that seemed to stem from eons of accumulated knowledge. There was a warmth to it as well—the kind of warmth one might associate with a grandparent or beloved mentor. Yet underneath it all was something alien, something that did not belong to the realm of human experience or understanding.
And it was at that moment I froze, every muscle seizing up as if I'd been doused with ice water. A new kind of fear gripped me—not the panic of finding myself alive in a strange body, but the deep, existential dread of realizing I was not alone in my own mind.
"Dear heavenly god, if you truly exist, please, please, please let this not be one of those cliché heroic AI systems in my head..." I fervently thought and prayed, wishing and hoping I had not gotten dragged into some absurd plotline straight out of a B-grade light novel. The very idea of being chosen for some grand destiny, of being the vehicle for some cosmic plan, made me want to crawl out of this skin I'd so recently acquired.
"Well, my lord... I believe that your answers did get answered..." the voice responded, and now that I was thinking less chaotic thoughts, I could identify it as male, completely elderly like a sage's voice. It carried with it the weight of centuries, perhaps millennia—a voice that had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, the birth and death of stars. The realization made me lose my train of thought again, my mind reeling at the implications.
"My lord, please don't get lost in your self-induced complicated train of thought," it said, and before I could even formulate a reply, it continued with an efficiency that bordered on the comical:
"No, I'm not a sage..."
"No, I'm not going to take over your body..."
"Yes, I'm here to help you, but with something bigger than the both of us—and no, not to save the world from the demon lord... Wait, maybe this one, but it depends if you want to or not..."
"And yes, I'm real. Everything you're feeling, hearing, and thinking is real. This is not the afterlife, my lord, more like a beginning, a reset, and a fix from a broken reality..." the voice spoke in quick succession, as if it could read my mind—a thought that sent a fresh wave of horror through me.
"I'm not exactly reading your mind, my lord. You're currently too weak to properly shield your thoughts from escaping your mind, thus I'm able to read them plain as day..." it suddenly answered my unspoken question, confirming my worst fears while simultaneously introducing an apparent concerning concept of which i could not make heads nor tails of.
The shack around me suddenly seemed smaller, its walls pressing in with claustrophobic intensity. Dust motes danced in the few shafts of sunlight that managed to penetrate the gaps in the wooden walls, creating ethereal patterns that seemed to mock my confusion. The dirt floor beneath me was hard and cold, offering no comfort to my emaciated form. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called—a reminder of a world continuing on, blissfully unaware of the world-shattering conversation taking place in this forgotten corner of existence.
It was then that I finally gathered the courage to ask amidst its absurd, confusing, and mysterious responses:
"Then who or what the fuck are you?" My voice came out weaker than I'd intended, a raspy whisper that barely disturbed the dust-laden air. Despite its frailty, the question seemed to hang in the space between us, weighty with implication.
"Finally, we got back on track..." the voice responded, a hint of amusement coloring its tone. There was something almost paternal in its patience, as if it were dealing with a child who had wandered off the path one too many times.
"Allow me to introduce myself..." it began, and the air around me seemed to thicken, to grow heavy with anticipation. "I have been whispered through the many and various and numerous planes of existence, multiverse, and dimensions—not exactly found and understood, but coveted very much."
As it spoke, the dim interior of the shack seemed to darken further, as if the very light was being absorbed by the gravity of its words. The temperature dropped subtly, raising goosebumps on my malnourished arms. There was a weight to its declaration, a sense of ancient power that transcended the physical limitations of the space we occupied.
"I am what entails and records all that exists," it continued, each word reverberating not just in my ears but in my very bones, causing a resonance that seemed to connect me to something vast and incomprehensible. The sensation was similar to standing at the edge of the ocean at night—the darkness before you hiding something immense and ancient, something that existed long before you and would continue long after you were gone.
"I am the universal, multiversal, and existential holder of all knowledge and wisdom." With each grandiose claim, the voice seemed to grow not louder but deeper, as if reaching into dimensions of sound beyond human perception. I felt a pressure building inside my skull, not painful but insistent, like the precursor to some tremendous revelation.
"I am The Codex of Existence." The declaration hung in the air like a physical presence, the words themselves seeming to shimmer with an inner light that defied explanation. In that moment, despite the absurdity of it all, I believed—truly believed—that I was in the presence of something beyond human comprehension.
"A pleasure to speak with you once more, my lord. It's been far too long..." The formal address was delivered with a warmth that suggested genuine affection, like an old friend greeting another after a prolonged separation. The implication that we had met before—that this cosmic entity and I shared some kind of history—sent my mind reeling once more.
To that, all I could say was: "Nani?????"