Chapter 2 ~ Light in Shadow

He was dead.

That was an undeniable fact.

The splintering of bone, tearing flesh, and breath being forced from his lungs as his body smashed through glass was something he could still feel viscerally. Even as time passed by, unknowable and yet somehow sensed all the same, the sensory memory refused to depart. He guessed that’s what he got for buying used. It was a shame too because he’d gotten the car for a damn good price considering the mileage. Of course, the seatbelts had been too many years too old; the locking mechanisms were worn down. He’d been meaning to get them replaced but life kept happening and he’d never gotten around to it. So it was inevitable then that they would break when the little four-door got rear ended at the intersection near the grocery store. Clear though the memory was now, he had barely registered it at the time; the asphalt grating flesh from his face like so much parmesan cheese when they collided. He could keenly recall his left eye vacating its socket as his body rolled end over end, fracturing in the process. The weight of thousands of pounds of metal running over his legs had been an afterthought.

And still, all he could think of was her.

Her and those stupid eggs. One dozen f*****g goddamned eggs. Like a lot of things, he had forgotten to pick them up on the way home from work that day even though he’d promised. Forced by his absentmindedness and necessity, dinner had been changed to spaghetti; not exactly his most favorite dish but she loved the stuff. Yet they were completely out of eggs and she needed them for breakfast the following morning. She loved eggs too, from omelets to boiled and especially deviled eggs, and he wasn’t going to be the reason she missed out.

So off he went.

And off he died.

The pain was excruciating. It was the only thing that prevented him from blacking out. Would have been a small mercy if he had, but lucky for him, he had a surprisingly high tolerance for pain and a good constitution from years practicing martial arts and working in construction. So he remained terribly conscious. The feel of his life slipping away, blood leaking from numerous cuts, scrapes, and the spot where his ribs were poking out of his sides, was surreal. His head was spinning and his ears were ringing. Focus was almost impossible, but the pain helped. So much pain. His remaining eye zeroed in on a tiny little black box that had spilled out of his shirt pocket. The momentum of his ejection left it mere inches from his fingertips. He could clearly recall the silver band inside, the gleam of the diamond flecked with his blood somehow shining brightly in the night. The jeweler had done a wonderful job on the engraving.

‘Aster, my light in darkness.’

He reached for it. Then the world turned black.

And now he was here.

Where here was he wasn’t sure in the slightest. Everything was black. It was a dark deeper than any moonless night he’d ever known. As far out as he could see, if sight was what this could be called, was a limitless expanse of shadow. He was blind and yet he had a strange awareness of things. He knew he was somewhere, he was aware of his own presence and the absolute absence of anyone and anything besides himself. He was aware of the passage of time though it was hard to have any sense of how much time was actually passing.

He was aware that he was cold.

It wasn’t freezing, thankfully, but it was the uncomfortable cold of a night in the woods without a blanket. Frankly, he was amazed he could feel anything at all.

To him death could only end up being one of three things; a place of burning hellfire, the soothing warmth of paradise, or nonexistence. This strange cold was something he didn’t expect, although, he supposed he should have. By most accounts death was supposed to be cold, but he’d always chocked that up to the biological process of the body shutting down. Even so, as afterlives went, he supposed this wasn’t all that bad. It was preferable to burning in agony or being tortured by demons and devils, or the ironic punishments of the other varied underworld mythologies. A happy, peaceful, paradise would have been great, but if he couldn’t have that…well.

Seth Morgan wasn’t a believer by any stretch of the word. A conservatively religious family and the constant bombardment of atrocities covered by the ever worsening daily news and net relieved him of such ridiculous notions in his adolescence. No, his interest in religion and theology was purely academic. And he’d studied a lot, both in college and out. Seth was by no means an expert, but he was well aware of how annoying he could be when he got going. Many of the people he used to work with called him the “annoying atheist guy”, something that he was quietly proud of. His Aster was the believer between the two of them. She would have known right away what was going on.

But none of that mattered anymore apparently. And it wasn’t like it would have prepared him for this endless nothingness.

So he wandered.

Again, if it could be called that. Besides being dead and blind, Seth didn’t have a body anymore. It was something he had become aware of almost immediately after everything had gone dark. The transition from pain and agony to cold, nearly numb, darkness had happened so quickly it was jarring. Once the pain was gone, his mind was free to begin taking stock of injuries only to almost immediately seize up when it found him divorced from anything resembling physicality. Hands and feet were nonexistent; there was no chest, no heart, lungs, or head. There was no need to breathe or blink. He suddenly lacked all capability. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t scream, as he had no mouth.

Seth was just a consciousness alone in the dark and cold.

Even so, he felt like he was moving. Forward, backward, up, and down; he wandered in any and all directions, exploring the vast illimitable emptiness of his death.

And she was his constant companion.

He thought about her most of all. Aster. His girlfriend of three years. They lived together, shared the warmth of each other’s bodies, their thoughts and laughter, hopes and dreams. Aster had grown up an orphan, abandoned at a fire station by her mother, and quickly taken into the system. Foster home to foster home had seen her grow up to become guarded but full of compassion for the kids who had been through what she had. After the two of them started dating, Seth had quickly introduced her to his mom and dad, his big brothers Chris and Caleb, and his little sister Sandra. His family had become Aster’s.

Seth found it both a blessing and a curse that she wasn’t here with him.

But there was a deep and abiding fear in him; fear that his death had done her too much harm. She would have mourned him greatly. He had never once doubted Aster’s love for him, and she had told him often that if he died, she would meet him in the afterlife, or hunt him down in their next life if such a thing existed. Because of that, Seth worried that Aster wouldn’t be able to move on, wouldn’t be able to find happiness without him. He supposed such a fear was only his own narcissism talking, but there was still that nagging voice of ‘what if?’

It wouldn’t shut up.

That same voice seemed to repeat all of his regrets, over and over again on an endless loop. If only he hadn’t procrastinated. Seth regretted that he’d waited so long to buy the ring. He regretted not taking that trip with Aster or getting her the cat she’d wanted. That job he’d passed up for his desire to keep teaching fencing could have gotten them a better life. The voice of his fear examined every bit of his life leading up to the crash. It told him all of the things he could have done differently.

Such scenarios occupied him for what felt like forever to the point Seth was beginning to think he was going insane.

And then something changed.

In the distance, at the furthest edges of what he could perceive, a light appeared. A pinprick of something other than darkness. It cut through the shadow like a blade of burning white and though there was nothing to illuminate, it shone brightly enough to make him wish he still possessed eyelids to close. What was more, Seth heard something. Sound broke the silence that had suffocated him for so long he wasn’t sure he even remembered what it was. For a moment, his mind couldn’t process what it was that he was hearing. But then it did. It was a voice, strong, yet quavering, speaking words he could not understand. It was feminine and for a moment he fooled himself into believing it was her; Aster, calling out to him.

The flame of hope sparked to life in what he imagined was his chest.

It drew him.

Before long, he had arrived. There in front of him was the light; a pinhole in the blanket of night that was his world. It was bright and burning and warm. And for the first time in he knew not how long, he felt want.

The words repeated again and again, and there was a power in them. A force beyond the brightness called to him. He felt sensation slither over his nonexistent body, tickling senses long absent.

For a brief moment, indecision plagued him.

What was waiting on the other side? Was it the world left behind? Would he be the same? Would she be waiting for him there? If she was, would she even recognize him? Would he know it was her?

The words echoed again, and he thought for a moment that he could feel her warm and familiar embrace beyond the blinding shine.

“Well what the hell,” he muttered in his mind.

Seth plunged into the light.

Reviews

[Dewella~Vintella]

Very interesting...at first I was a but confused given the last chapter but then I quickly formed some ideas as to where this but was going and I think I guessed accurately, we will find out. Either way this was done very well, I felt trapped in that vast nothingness with him, contemplating fate and the life left behind. Very well done and I can't to find out what happens. On to the next!

[Caradoc]

Thanks a lot for checking this out. I’m glad I was able to convey the sense of isolation and imprisonment he feels. The next few chapters are gonna pick up where we left off with her.