It is dark and I do not know where I am. I try to move, but my efforts are fruitless. I don’t feel my heart beating and I am not breathing; how can I not be breathing? Am I even alive?

A small sphere of light floats towards me, emerging out of the darkness. It does not cast light, so I still do not see where my location is. It approaches me, filling my sight until that ball of light is the only thing I see. I reach my arms out and the light envelopes me, filling my unbeating heart with a warmth I have never felt before. Its embrace races through my veins until it is not me and the light, two separate beings coexisting; we are one. We light up the entire world; the entire universe is made up of me and the light, of us. Of warmth, of happiness, of the wonderful feeling of not existing, of not feeling, of not thinking, but just being.

And I collapse into myself. It is not us, not we, but me once again. I do not feel dejected or needy of the light that holds me, but comforted. It is not just a sphere, but a person. Its arms wrap around my waist and I wrap my arms around its waist and we stand there in our comfortable embrace. I am smiling without realizing and I try to look at the person’s face, to see why I am so happy. I envision such startling beauty, such angelic features of the person who holds me in this dark place, but there is nothing. I know there is a person in front of me, but its features do not register in my brain. Yet, I don’t care. I just continue to smile.

When the person pulls me away, it just takes my hand and stands beside me. We look off into the distance and I realize we are no longer in a dark tunnel-like place, but rather a field. The field is filled with wheat and it reaches our waists. In the distance I hear child’s laughter. The person holding my hand pulls me further into the field, towards the bubbling chimes of the child’s voice. We see her then, dancing along the fine stalks of wheat. She has a stick in her hand and she brushes it along the grains and she swirls in a circle, her red hair blowing into her face. I turn towards the person and then back at the child, but she is no longer a child, and the field is no longer a field.

It is the front yard of a house. The red headed child is a teenager and she is sitting on the blue-painted porch. She reads a book, her expression focused and intense as her eyes glide along the pages. A blond haired boy comes out from the house and he sits beside her. She looks up at him and smiles, holding her hand out. He takes it and they just sit like that.

The scene changes in a blink of my eyes. Wedding bells chime and a little girl drifts down the aisle in a pink dress. She carefully drops white petals on the church floor and smiles when she reaches the end. A woman comes after her. She is wearing a white dress, simple yet she is startling. Her beauty radiates, not in her looks or the way her red hair shines, but through her eyes and smile. A blond haired man waits for her at the end of the aisle, his beauty matching hers. I do not realize I am crying until the person holding my hand wipes the tears away.

I smile up at it and when I look back at the scene before me, I find I am in a room. There is an old woman, gray and wrinkled, rocking in a chair with a group of children around her, hanging on to her every word. When she smiles, her face wrinkles even more. She touches one child’s face--the girl has red hair and clear skin like she used to have--and speaks to her and the rest of her grandchildren in a sweet, soft tone.

When the vision fades, I am back in the tunnel with the shining, warm person beside me. The images have faded and I am left feeling empty and regretful. The person lets go of my hand and walks forward, towards the way it came from. It gestures, beckoning me to follow it. I take a step in its direction, but stop. Shaking my head, I start to cry. Tears stream down my face and I grab my chest as it starts to hurt.

I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go with this warm person that makes me feel so happy and thoughtless and peaceful. If I leave, I can never return. If I leave…I can’t leave. Please, God, don’t let me leave. Don’t force me to leave. I want to live. Let me live!

The person approaches me slowly and it speaks for the first time. “Clear,” it says. My eyes widen and I drop to my knees, clutching my chest. It feels like it is going to explode, like fragments of my bones will be splattered all about this dark tunnel and I will never get to live. The person touches me again and another shock goes through my body. “Clear,” it says. I cry out this time, sobs wracking through me. I take a breath in and the pain lessons a little. “Clear!” I scream as my chest rips open. A small heartbeat is the last thing I hear before I black out.

***

I am floating in a room, brightened by fluorescent lights. People mill around, all covered in blue scrubs. A young woman is on a gurney, blood plastered to her body, redness covering her battered face. Her chest is exposed and there are lacerations running all along her abdomen. “Clear!” One of the doctors shout and he places something against her chest and left side. A jolt goes through her and in that instance, I am sucked like a vacuum towards her discombobulated figure. I am no longer in the corner of the room, floating like a specter. Instead, the world goes black.

***

I awaken once more and find that I am in another fluorescent lit room. My eyelids are heavy and I turn away from the brightness. Something squeezes my hand and I turn my head slowly. Beside me is a blond haired man. He looks nervous and relieved at the same time, and I find myself returning the smile he gives me. “Hi,” I say weakly.

He chuckles and looks down at our joined hands. When he looks back at me there are tears in his eyes. He brushes my red hair away from my face and says, “Hi.”