Dark Void

(the original author has instructed me to keep them anonymous)

The darkness.

It’s all there is. This deep, endless black that would make a moonless night seem blindingly bright. Never would I have imagined that such a darkness as this could exist. But it does, and now it’s all I know. I stopped searching for the light a long time ago. It’s kind of funny. ..

Because I actually thought I knew darkness before.

I was wrong.

The pain.

It’s all I feel. There are many types of pain in this universe. That which accompanies a desperate need to breathe met with a complete lack of oxygen. The sharp sting of a hunger and thirst that will never be satisfied. The dull, icy ache of complete isolated loneliness. Heart-wrenching regret. Mind-numbing emotions which have the power to completely overwhelm the soul. Anger, sadness, fear. I feel them all. They consume me and override my senses until my mind and body feel as if they have reached the breaking point. But the thing is, I never snap. This whole time, I have remained in tact. I want so desperately to make it stop, to end this excuse of an existence, but I don’t know how. And something deep inside me knows that this will never end. The agony will continue as I fall deeper into this icy void. Forever.

I thought I knew pain before.

I was wrong.

The memories.

These are my only foothold to sanity. And this sanity is one that is very quickly slipping from my grasp. Because every minute, I can feel them sliding away. I’ve already lost so many. I don’t know where I was born, or anything about my childhood for that matter. I can’t remember any family or friends or pets, and the only thing I know regarding my age is that I’m an adult. Or was an adult. I’m not sure how age works here, or if it’s even significant.

Seeing your memories drift away into void is a pain only few of the living have come to know. It is a horrible sense. Imagine everything that ever mattered to you just vanishing, your own view of your entire life becoming an insignificant blur right before your eyes. I’ve seen it. And it’s loss beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

I thought I knew loss before.

I was wrong.

The only thing I can remember clearly is the water. The dark, cold, emotionless, unforgiving water. The way it reached up and swallowed me into its endless iciness.

I can remember the fear. The way it squeezed my throat with phalanges stronger than those of any creature in existence. The feeling of my lungs burning for the air I would never find…the feeling that still hasn’t stopped.

None of these were the most unbearable. The truly awful thing was the sinking. I remember watching distorted the light of the sun drift further and further away from me. I remember the darkness closing in as I was consumed by the cold realization that I would never get back to the surface.

I remember the last time I reached up, extending my arm toward the almost nonexistent light. In my mind I begged, I pleaded for some almighty force to pull me out of this darkness, but my requests were met only with black, icy hopelessness. The sight of the silhouette of my outstretched hand being consumed by darkness was my last. I knew now that no help would ever come.

And then there was nothing.

That’s when I had given up, when I’d stopped fighting, allowing myself to be consumed by the blackness.

God, how I wish I’d kept fighting.

The thing is, I expected light after that. I’d always been taught that death is nothing but a door to the next life; a never-ending, peaceful, easy existence. I patiently awaited this. And waited….and waited. For so long, I searched for the legendary bright aura that beckons us out of life. But all I found was darkness. Any trace of hope I had left slipped away along with any hint that light had ever existed. My world continued to get more black and cold to a point that no living soul could ever imagine possible.

That’s how I reached this place.

We always thought we knew what’s waiting for us after death. So many have come to expect warmth and happiness when they leave the physical world. Humanity has come to think we reach some “better place” where we can rest peacefully once the toils of our lives have reached an end. We always a thought we could spend death with the ones we love, laughing and smiling into eternity.

Well, I’ve seen what really waits for us. I’m living it. It is now my existence. And, believe me. ..

We were wrong.