Synopsis: After his accidental death, Ben faces a foreign entity. The entity presents him with a dilemma between eternal life and true death.

Genre: Fantasy, sci-fi

Trigger warnings: Explicit use of language. The story revolves around topics like death and suicide.

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes (2300 words)

Note: This is an experimental story by an amateur writer. Its quality will undoubtedly be lower than any professionally written story. Feedback is welcome :)

A strong breeze blew across the Nordic coasts in perfect unison with the water that crashed against the rocks below. Ben was dancing on the cliff’s edge in a comfortable daze fuelled by the liquor he downed a few hours earlier. He felt an adrenaline rush as he neared the cliff’s edge, looking down at water splashing against the rocks a twenty-something meter below. He kicked at a few loose stones. They tumbled all the way down.

But then, the ground started shifting beneath Ben’s feet. He noticed the pile of loose stones he’d stepped on. A strong gush of wind blew relentlessly against his body, pushing him closer to the cliff’s edge. He lost his balance as he fought against the sense of vertigo. It was to no avail, as the claws of gravity snatched him from the cliff, yanking him down with a force he didn’t know existed.

At a moment of certain death, people sometimes say they gain a strange sense of clarity and see their lives flashing by. For Ben, there was no conscious experience at all. There was only a crushing surge of adrenaline and a complete takeover of primal instincts, frantically searching for a lifeline. It was in vain. All surroundings flashed by, and he hit the rocky shores with a massive blow. There was a sharp pain beyond imagining, but it only lasted a split second. Then, at once, all experience ceased to be. No sight. No smell. No sound. Nothing.

Yet, in this seeming sea of nothingness, there was still something. Something that should have blinked out with the rest of Ben’s senses: consciousness. Even though his physical body was now probably beyond recognition since it splattered against the rocks, the experience of standing on the cliff still stuck. The mind, which shouldn’t be functioning anymore, seemed intact.

Ben’s mind was racing as it rapidly tried to find a narrative that could explain his situation. Had someone been able to revive him, and was this how it felt to be in a coma? It seemed impossible, as the cliff had been too high to allow any medical intervention. But then, what was processing his thoughts? What was holding his memories?

“Ben…“

Someone said his name. Yet there was no voice or sound associated with the message. The message had just… appeared. All senses were still down, yet something was trying to interact with him.

“What the fuck?” Ben tried to say, but naturally, no words and no sound emerged.

“You’ve reached the end, only to meet a new beginning…“

Ben grew frustrated at how foreign everything seemed. There was a voice trying to make contact with him, yet it had no features at all. There wasn’t even a gender associated with the voice. There were only words floating around in his mind, if there even was a mind in the first place.

“Who the hell are you?!” Ben tried to yell into the nothingness, but there was again no mouth that spoke the words and no sound filling the omnipresent void.

“I’m merely a mental projection, meant to help you construct the next destination of your existence.”

“You are freaking me out!” Ben yelled, or thought, or whatever. His mind was starting to go into overdrive at this point. After falling off a cliff and meeting certain death, the nothingness that consumed him now was too absurd. Combined with a lack of physical experience, the whole event was terrifying. Usually, if he’d be confronted by a stranger, there was always the option to fight or flee. However, in the present moment, there was no such escape.

Ben had to collect his thoughts instead of aimlessly screaming into nothingness. He tried to recall all the events that brought him here. He’d been hiking in Norway, all by himself, to calm down after tensions between him and Emma, who was now his ex-wife. A momentary lapse of judgment was all it took for the trip to reach a sudden end.

He could hardly even recall the fall itself anymore, yet the momentary flash of pain still resounded in his being. And after that, his senses vanished, yet consciousness seemed to remain. However, he was not alone. There was a voice, yet not a voice, addressing him. He, she, or it, even knew his name.

“Am I… dead?” Ben projected the words mentally, as he’d done before to address the entity.

“In the human sense of the word, yes. Your human brain is in no state of functioning and beyond repair. However, the embodiment of knowledge and information processing you represent has been disconnected from the physical realm. All that defines the person you once were still exists.”

Ben had never been religious and had always envisioned death as an absolute end, after which there was nothing. Just like there is nothing before birth, there shouldn’t be anything after death. Yet here he was.

“So… what’s next?” asked Ben.

“You get a choice between true death and eternal life. True death means that you will cease to be, no further experience at all. Eternal life means that you will get to choose your afterlife, which you will live for eternity.”

Ben paused and thought about it for a moment. He was not prepared for this situation. The eeriness of his now bodiless existence didn’t help him adequately approach the decision ahead.

“I… I… I just want to get my body back,” Ben stammered mentally. His current inability to collect his thoughts seemed worsened by the ever-watching entity. It was scary for something of unknown intent to be intruding on the mind.

“If you choose eternal life, you can choose an afterlife of your own. Just say the word, and you will return to earth with a body that won’t ever age.”

The face of Emma flashed in Ben’s mind. Oh, how he longed to have her back. How could he have been so stupid, succumbing to addictions, losing all that he had left in his miserable life. Until his final mistake took his life away as well.

A strong urge to yell ‘return me to earth’ welled up inside Ben. Yet, he’d have to live the life he’d get eternally. There would be no way out if he’d mess up this time around.

“Is there no way to live only until my natural death?” Ben asked mentally. “Does it really have to be eternal?”

“There is no negotiating the proposition. I don’t make the rules. I only govern information streams as they arise and cease to be.”

“You said I could choose an afterlife of my own,” Ben said voicelessly. “What does that mean? Where can I go besides earth?”

“Any place you can imagine.”

“I can go to heaven?” Ben asked, getting increasingly puzzled over the decision the entity had bestowed upon him.

“You can go to heaven, but what you will find in that place is only driven by your current expectations. Right now, you exist in neither space nor time. Social constructs like ‘heaven’ have no meaning but the one you assign to them.”

Ben’s mind spun as he tried to take the new information in. Everything that was happening now completely defied all his expectations, which rendered him completely clueless.

“How do I convey the meaning of where I want to go?” Ben asked, puzzled at how he could ever construct an entire realm only by communicating with the entity.

“You don’t have to explain where you want to go in full detail. I have full access to your mind, so where you’ll go will always be in line with your intentions. We are connected right now for you to form those intentions.”

“You are reading my mind?!” Ben said, getting infuriated again. First, the entity trespassed on private property. Now, it was even accessing the information within.

“I do not judge your memories. I have only one purpose: to help you choose whether you want to continue onward. All else is irrelevant to me.”

“You probably already know, since you can read my mind and all, but I’m fed up with your cryptic shit,” said Ben. “Just tell me the game’s rules, so I can move onward.”

“Your afterlife is all up to you. However, when you spend a long time on earth, your mind gets accustomed to the earth’s limitations. Concepts that relate to humanity, like oxygen, gravity, and mass, are not universal constants in the bigger picture. Human sources of pain need not apply in the realm of your creation.”

“So instead of getting back to earth, I can create a place of my own?” asked Ben. “I could create the nicest beach, drinking cocktails until eternity?” he added jokingly.

“I can very well make that happen. Would you like me to?”

“No, no, no,” Ben said in a frenzy. “I mean, it does sound nice, but for eternity… I would still inhabit my human mind, right? How would it respond to such a scenario of endless pleasure?”

“I only see minds as they are connected to me. I don’t see the consequences of their decisions.”

Ben tried to imagine the scenario for himself, a life devoid of pain. At face value, it seemed like a good thing. Yet, if happiness was the new normal, would it have any meaning at all? If there were no challenges to overcome, then perhaps there would be no sense in doing anything.

Ben got chills at the thought of it. Even worse was the readiness at which the entity was willing to condemn him to such a reality. In fact, any afterlife Ben came up with seemed unpleasant when experienced eternally. Perhaps true death wasn’t that bad of an option after all…

Ben felt he needed to take his time over this decision. Still, the eeriness of his senseless self was slowly driving him to desperation. Sight, noise, and warmth were all relics of a distant past. But however much he longed to have those senses back, he felt sickened by the thought that there would be no escape.

“Why are you giving me this ultimatum?” Ben asked. “Why must a desire to live be eternal?”

“The answers to those questions are beyond my capabilities.”

Talking to the entity seemed useless. But Ben wasn’t willing to give up just yet. There had to be a way. Before he’d choose true death, Ben wanted to give it one final try, to figure out whether a sustainable afterlife was possible after all.

“What happens if I return to earth?” Ben asked. “Would I be the only immortal human being?”

“It will be whatever you want it to be at the time of creation. Everyone could be immortal, and everyone could be mortal. Except for you, that is.”

“Why can I judge over the mortality of everyone on earth?” asked Ben, getting increasingly anxious over the potential implications of his decision.

“Your afterlife is up for your creation. Earth can be used as a reference point but became otherwise irrelevant when you left it. The changes you make to earth are only applied in your afterlife but won’t hold any implications for the place you called ‘earth’ before.”

“So, I wouldn’t be able to die? Period?”

“The only true limitation of your afterlife is that your consciousness will be eternal. You can still leave your body after your natural lifespan, but you must define what happens afterward.”

“Can I choose to be connected to an entity like you again, getting yet another choice about the contents of my afterlife?” Ben asked with a spark of hope. “Except I wouldn’t be able to choose true death, of course.”

“That appears to fit within the mentioned limitations.”

“Then I would like to be placed back on an exact copy of earth, in Norway, where and whom I was before my fall,” said Ben. “I want to be an exact copy of my human body, and everything that applies to earth should also apply to my copy. After death, I will be connected to an exact copy of the entity you represent, allowing me to decide again over my desired situation. Except for true death, that is.”

“Then so it will be.”

As the last words were spoken by the entity, everything started to shift around Ben. At once, all his senses returned. Sounds, colors, and feelings all made their entrance at once.

Then, as his eyes adjusted to the orchestra of light in front of him, the most breathtaking sight revealed itself. The sun was setting at the horizon, slowly being swallowed by the sea. Combined with the tingling sensation of the wind, it alleviated all his senses.

However, Ben also noticed something else in the transition to his all-new world. The former lucidity of his disembodied self had faded, replaced by an alcohol-induced haziness. It felt good and bad at once. Good that his feelings had returned, but bad that he was back at being his untrustworthy self.

Ben trudged back to his cottage as the sun began to set and the shore grew dark. While he walked, he thought about what to do next. Emma came immediately to his mind, the woman whose feelings for him he had shattered over a long period of destructive behaviors. His final drunken frenzy had become fatal to their relationship. She’d made it clear that she never wanted to see him again.

Ben entered his cottage roughly an hour later. He immediately crashed down onto his bed, feeling utterly exhausted. He lay surrounded by empty liquor bottles and other artifacts of bad decisions he’d made. They sparked memories of a time that seemed long ago. He remembered how much he craved to have Emma back with him. Maybe, just maybe, he could make it happen.

All it took was a leap of faith.