Pending Death

The voices were blurred. I could hear them… but their words never reached me. Each sound struck my ears like faint echoes from a world already slipping away. My breaths came in ragged gasps, my chest heavy, my body drenched in sweat. I was suffocating. Fever coursed through me like wildfire. My leg trembled violently. And reality… reality cracked apart until it dissolved into nothingness.

Each heartbeat felt like a step closer to the end. Each second stretched into eternity. Life itself seemed poised to flicker out at any moment.

Around me, my friends were breaking apart. John gripped my hand, his pulse racing like a rocket about to break orbit. His face was contorted, his bloodshot eyes fighting to hold back tears. He was completely devastated.

Jovany, in contrast, remained outwardly calm—silent, almost frozen. But his trembling betrayed him. You could read his stress from miles away. Every step he took dragged behind it the weight of all the fear in the world.

In this chaos, every word felt heavy. Each sentence was unbearable. Each mention of my likely fate dug deeper into their already shattered psyches. Their pain rivaled my own wounds.

John: “Does he have any chance of surviving?”

Doctor: “I’d rather not say at this point. As you can see, his condition is critical.”

Jovany: “He’ll make it.”

But he said it with a tremor in his voice. Not to comfort John… but to convince himself. The truth was driving him mad.

As for me, I was no longer there. My mind was plunging into a twisted, shadowy dream—a nightmare threatening to consume me whole. The scenery shifted endlessly, morphing into things that felt too real yet completely senseless. Every sensation was vivid, too vivid. Madness was closing in fast.

Voices drifted to me. At first faint, then sharper with every second. Their words were fragmented, devoid of logic. Yet somehow, I understood them all.

Dark voices. High-pitched, low, joyous, sorrowful. All real, yet unbearable. Screams. Sobs. Darkness dripping from every word, echoing with every step I took.

And then—time stopped.

I was walking down a dark, cold corridor that smelled like an abandoned cemetery. Then, within those few frozen seconds, a chilling voice sliced through the silence:

“Die for me… Go on, die for me. Die to atone for your sins… Die… Die… Die…”

There was no way to tell who—or what—spoke. It was neither male nor female. But its words left behind an indescribable chaos, tearing at my mind and body alike.

I was afraid. Desperate. And it showed—even my body screamed my panic.

Jovany: “Doctor! What’s happening to him?”

Doctor: “I think he’s having a heart attack. Step back! Let me do my job!”

Jovany: “He’s going to die, isn’t he?”

John: “Shit, shit… SHIT! He’s not going to die. He CAN’T die!”

Then, as suddenly as it began, my nightmare ended. And my heart stopped beating with it.

John, shattered, let his tears fall freely. His brow furrowed in rage, his teeth clenched hard enough to crack, his fists trembling as if he could fight death itself for stealing his friend.

Jovany screamed—one long, raw cry of despair—until his lungs burned and the sound choked off into silence.

In that devastating atmosphere, in a cold, lifeless room, my end arrived. The doctor, powerless, left without a word, abandoning my body on a bug-infested cot.

But it wasn’t the end.

The silence was only the calm before the storm.

In that pitch-black void, where even light dared not enter, a voice came to me. It wasn’t God. It wasn’t an angel. It was…

“Hello, Myck.”

“Who… who are you?”

“What a silly question. Death, of course. Who else but me could free you from this hell you’re living in?”

“Why free me? I don’t need saving.”

“Oh, Myck… you know as well as I do: this world is suffocating you. Death would be mercy.”

“Even if I wanted it, I could never escape. The world isn’t the problem—I am. Wherever I go, I’ll always be a burden… to myself and everyone around me.”

“All the more reason to let go, don’t you think?”

“No. I can’t. Not yet. I don’t deserve that gift—not yet. I’m not done here.”

And then… nothing.

My heart suddenly jolted back to life.

I don’t know if I was hallucinating, but deep down, I was relieved not to know if that being had been real. Minutes later, after that encounter—or illusion—I finally awoke.

A dream. A vision. A mirage. Call it what you will.

But it symbolized something: the vast darkness of my soul.

And yet… maybe it wasn’t entirely false.

You could say I met Death.

Me: “A dream? So it was all just a dream?”

Jovany: “Myck… you’re alive.”

I didn’t need more words to understand.

I was lying on a cot, drenched in sweat and stripped bare.

To my left was one of the only people left in this world who mattered. Tears streaked down his face—a man meant to be strong, now breaking at the return of his friend. John.

To my right, the other person who meant everything: Jovany.

More than a brother—a perfect reflection of my soul.

The same pain. The same losses. The same life.

Together, we were mirrors of shared despair.

I won’t tell you yet why our lives were so ruined.

But in time… you’ll understand.

John: “Me and Jovany… we thought we’d lost you for good this time…”

His voice carried a raw, disarming sincerity.

Yet I have to admit—I hadn’t really worried about him.

Maybe I still didn’t understand the weight of his words.

I know. I’m a frustrating narrator.

It might sound strange, since this is my story.

But I can’t bring myself to be funny right now.

It’s hard to sound enthusiastic… when you already know how it ends.

Especially when the ending isn’t happy.

When it’s the result of endless sacrifices.

Maybe I’m dreaming.

But who knows?

Perhaps you’re listening—

From another universe… another time…

Welcome to the hell of the Third World War of 2050.

Welcome to a world where death has become a terrifying luxury.

I write this for one reason:

Don’t make the same mistakes we did.

I wouldn’t wish war on anyone.

Let me tell you the story of a man caught in the blood and ashes of war.

My story—through death, despair, and rivers of blood.

This is 2050.

The age of continental war.

Conflicts are no longer between nations but entire territories.

It’s a battle for absolute control.

The more the world “evolves,” the more humanity loses itself.

Unity has no place here.

Earth has become nothing more than an object of greed.

And that delusion of possession… has become a truth, enforced by guns.

This is the real cause of the war:

Human selfishness.

They are willing to erase millions of lives for an absurd fantasy.

Humanity has fallen lower than ever.

Two years since this war began.

And yet… it was only the beginning.

The consequences? Obvious.

Those unable to fight now hide underground, in shelters, in skyscrapers protected by anti-missile systems.

Every day they live with one thought:

This could be their last.

Famine? Omnipresent.

Death toll? Catastrophic.

From 8.5 billion, the population has dropped to 5 billion.

A massacre unlike anything in history.

And for those who survived?

It wasn’t much better.

But war did erase one thing:

Discrimination.

Today, all lives are equal—equal in their nothingness.

No one judges you for wanting to end it.

They understand.

They let you go.

Technology?

It hasn’t evolved much.

Apart from weapons and transport, nothing revolutionary.

No time travel here.

No escape routes.

In this shattered world, there was a man.

Not a hero. Not a leader. Just… a man.

No great ambitions. But with one conviction:

Peace is an illusion.

For him, joy and suffering were two sides of the same coin.

And the coin always seemed to land on suffering.

He didn’t seek war.

But he was at home in it.

Peace felt too far out of reach.

He had only two friends left.

Three musketeers.

Once, there were four…

But that’s another story.

A story for later.

I knew the risks. I’d enlisted.

Or rather… I’d been dragged into this war.

I knew what it meant:

Kill or be killed.

But I was too naive to truly believe it.

And that naivety nearly cost me my life.

Yet I still don’t understand…

Why did Death spare me?

I had just emerged from a deep sleep—a sleep terrifyingly close to the end.

Makes sense.

I’d just escaped death itself.

But to understand…

We need to go back two days.

To be continued…