To Know Death

A man awoke in a vast, infinite darkness, so complete, it felt as if he had been struck blind. To refer to this place as darkness didn’t feel right. It would have been like comparing a candle to the Sun. The void felt like it was trembling as a sense of panic overwhelmed his mind. Only the choking sound of air escaping his lungs came out as he opened his mouth to scream, filled the void.

He tried to remember his name, how he got here, anything that would give him back a sense of self. Yet, no matter how far into his memories he reached, all he could think about was the inky blackness that had consumed him. Finally, he surrendered to it and began to silently weep.

It was in that moment of giving in to the emptiness. He felt a warmth in the cold abyss. It filled his soul with hope and a newfound purpose as he tried to scan the void for its source. His eyes locked onto a small bright light in the distance, and, for the first time since awakening, the man no longer felt alone.

As if some unknown force was driving him, he scrambled toward the light that miraculously lived within this darkness. As he grew closer, he could feel his heart pound in his chest, harder and harder with every step. A strange sensation began to emanate from his core.

The light grew brighter and brighter with his approach. He reached out to it in desperation. As its warmth filled his veins, and yet a new sense of hesitation hit him. He pushed through it, he was so close now, the light was within his reach, but as he extended his hand to grasp it the feeling that had been expanding throughout his body exploded as the gravity of what it was overwhelmed him. It felt as if a thousand spikes were being driven into his body at once as he fell to the ground just below the light. Pain. For the first time in this man’s entire existence, he was feeling pain in its purest form.

The feeling caused his consciousness to fade rapidly. Agony coursed through him as he held his hand out desperately, trying to cling to the waking world. He fell to the ground just below to the light, looking up at it with tear filled eyes. It was in that agonizing moment that a female voice whispered in the man’s ear. “Are you Death?”

The man woke to a distant sound of a steady beeping. His vision was blurry as he looked around the room; he could hardly make out the objects that surrounded him. His head felt foggy as he regained his senses. It felt like he had been sleeping for days. After several minutes, his vision started to focus. The first thing he saw were strands of red, green, and blue that attached him to a strange machine.

It displayed lines that seemed to go up and down with the rhythm of his heart. The machine looked eerily familiar to the man, as if he had seen it countless times before, and yet now it felt completely new at the same time.

He reached his right hand to try to pull them off but heard a metallic clang instead. Around his wrists were handcuffs attaching him to his bed. He looked down to see a strange tube attached to his skin, a cool liquid flowing into him from it from a clear sack held by a post behind him. The man looked around the room to see if there was any way of breaking these cuffs.

To his left was a table with a note on it. “Use the mirror.” The man quickly grabbed the mirror that rested beside the note and inspected himself. He instinctively reached up and touched the thick white bandage that was around his head. It was stained with blood. The bandage pushed back his shaggy black hair. Upon further inspection of his body, he noticed similar bandages covering him. “What happened to me?” The man muttered to himself.

The man continued to inspect the room. He could see curtains surrounding the space around his bed. “Where am I?” The man grew more and more confused as he heard movement from behind the curtains. He tried to get up, but the wires and handcuffs restricted his movement.

A blonde woman in a doctor’s coat quickly moved the curtains back and entered the room. A police officer followed close behind her, carrying a stack of folders. Panic flooded through the man’s mind. He could only assume that these were the people that bound him to this bed. He jerked and pulled at the restraint on his arm, desperately trying to be free. “Sir, you’re injured, please remain still.” The doctor tried to calm down the man.

“Why am I bound to this bed? Where am I? And who are you people?” His voice was increasingly full of anxiety. His breathing became labored as the pain returned, and the machine beside him beeped rapidly. The influx of sensations made the man begin to hyperventilate.

“Sir, you need to calm down, I am a doctor.” The woman spoke slowly, trying to reassure him. “I am just here to help. Do you know where you are?” She asked.

The man just shook his head. The panic now gone, an obvious fear seemed to radiate from him. “You are in the ICU at Saint Luke’s Hospital.” The doctor slowly reached out and rested her hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m Dr. Alexander. I’m here to help you.”

He merely stared at her, his gaze filled with fear and distrust. “If you mean to help, then why am I bound?” he said, pulling at the cuffs yet again.

The doctor nodded slightly as if she had just realized part of a puzzle. “Do you remember why you are here?” She asked cautiously.

The man tried to remember what had happened before he woke up. A flash went through his mind. He was falling through a brilliant light, and then there was nothing, only darkness. “I remember falling…” Then he remembered the sound of crunching metal beneath him and the screams of people, and then pain as he faded into darkness. “Then pain. A lot of pain.” The man shuddered at the memory. He touched one of his bloodied bandages.

“Show him.” Dr. Alexander said, looking at the officer. The officer quickly reached into the folder he was holding and pulled a paper out. He handed it to the man. It was a picture of a crushed car, with an oddly human shaped indentation in the roof. Glass and blood covered the surface of the car. “You are lucky to be alive.” She said calmly.

The man just stared at the picture in shock. There was no way anyone could survive something like that. There was so much blood.

“I believe luck may be an understatement….” he said, wincing as he suddenly became all too aware of the injuries that covered his body. “Though I’m not entirely sure how I ended up there. The only thing I remember was the fall itself.”

The fall. For some unknown reason, those two words sparked a different pain altogether. It was as if his heart was hurting, longing for something he couldn’t name. He reached up with his left hand and gripped the cloth above his chest. He felt a single tear fall down his cheek.

“Sir?” Dr. Alexander spoke calmly to get the man’s attention. “Do you at least remember your name?” Her voice sounded like she was trying to be sympathetic, but the man couldn’t imagine anyone being able to understand this feeling.

He opened his mouth, and only a slight sound came out “De-”, but something made him cut himself off. What was he about to say? It was a simple question; he felt like he knew the answer, but it wouldn’t come out. The harder he reached the farther away, the more it became. Finally, he looked the doctor in her eyes, defeated. “No…”

Dr. Alexander looked at the man sympathetically. “We will call someone that can get you the help you need. You try to get some rest, okay?” The man merely nodded and laid back down. The doctor got up and pressed a button on the machine before turning and walking past the curtain once more.

A sense of panic crept back into the man’s mind as he lay there. It scared him to be alone. His mind was bursting with questions. Who was he? Why did he fall? These and a plethora of thoughts raced through his mind.

A warm feeling flowed into him from his arm. A powerful numbing sensation took over his body, causing the panic to fade. A certain sense of peace washed over him as his consciousness ebbed.

The man opened his eyes to a familiar darkness. The light was far away once again, but this time, he moved toward it with more confidence. He knew that this was nothing more than a dream.

Finally, the man reached the light and took it in his hands. Suddenly, the darkness faded, and he was standing in a hospital room, where a being dressed in black with feathered wings that were as dark as night stood over a ball of white light.

The ball shifted and changed into the form of a young woman. “Are you Death?” the light asked again.

The man recoiled at the name “Death”. That name filled him with contempt. Almost like he had heard that exact question many times before. It had an ugly familiarity with it.

“That is what some would believe.” The being responded coldly.

The vision faded as quickly as it had come on; the man tried to hold on to it, but it was futile. He begged for it to return; he needed answers.