The last thing I can remember is seeing these bright, beautiful flashing lights all around me…and then utter darkness. It felt as if I was drifting like a log down a river. I couldn’t feel anything yet everything seemed to be able to feel me. Time didn’t exist here. I could have been drifting for hours, days, months, even years. I had no way to tell.

Same as how I had no way to tell were I was going, yet I seemed to know the way. Like those rollercoaster I loved as a kid, I was just along for the ride. Then suddenly, I was here. Where exactly? I don’t know but I knew that I had arrived at my destination. Before me was a vast city, the buildings broken and seemingly abandoned. A heavy mist filled the streets, alleys, and corridors of the town. The only thing I could hear was the ringing of a large bell. I could see that in the center of the city was a tall tower and before it I could make out a small figure ringing it back and forth incessantly.

I began making my way through the abandoned streets, zigging and zagging my way through the mist. Then suddenly, I came before a women, she was holding a crying baby. I tried to speak to here, but my existence wasn’t acknowledged. That’s when I realized the baby she was holding, was me. The lady, my mother, was almost activated it felt by this epiphany. Her glance shot at me locking eyes, she began sobbing and screaming, “ you shouldn’t be here yet, you shouldn’t be here!”

Flustered, I turn and ran not being able to face this apparent being that seemed like my mother. My mother died when I was sixteen and I haven’t seen her since. A whole fourteen years. I ran and ran. As I did I began seeing fragments of my life all around me, talking to me, wanting to be seen again if only for a fleeting moment. Images of my first home run in baseball, my first dance with a girl, moments like this all whirling around in my head. Some moments stuck out more than others, there presence stronger like the day of my wedding to the love of my life. All this was happened and it was like my life was flashing before my eyes, in fact it was. Then a whole different sensation overcame me, shock. Am I dead?

I kept running, faster and faster if by some means my speed would keep me from my doom. Then suddenly I was upon the large bell tower I had seen outside the city. The bell still rang on and on and on. I entered the building and made my way up the stairs. I ascended a rounded staircase that seemed to go on and on. Finally after what felt like forever, I made it to the top, I came up behind a figure cloaked in black. He seemed unaware of my presence.

“Hello” I said, confused and timid, “do you know where I am?”

The figure stopped dead in his tracks, the bell being the only sound gave one final gong and then all was silent. It turned slowly to face me and that’s when to my horror, I could see that his face was that of a skeleton. Spiders moved in and out of his eye sockets, the being seemingly unbothered.

The being then said but a few words, “Death comes for all.” Suddenly, I couldn’t move. Some unknown force was holding me in place. Death floated slowly towards me and when he was right in front of me, a long skeleton hand slowly reached for my chest. Right as he was about to touch me I felt a jolt in my chest so powerful it send me flying over the edge of the tower. The last thing I remember is Death looking down on me and uttering one last phrase, “ we will meet again…”

When I hit the ground I was suddenly teleported to a different world, my world. All around me were the sound of police sirens. Someone was holding a flashlight in my eyes. I started gasping for breaths like I hadn’t breathed in years. “He’s breathing!” Someone shouted. “Sir you’ve been in a terrible car accident. We lost you there for a minute.”

I mumbled, “My wife, where is my wife.” My head fell to the side then and I could see here lying on the ground. People where huddled around her, but behind them all going unoticed, was the cloaked figure which I know now is death.