Beyond the Realm of Fear: Adam's Surreal Journey

The fog was so thick, I couldn't even see my own hands. The surface I was resting on seemed like a bed, but the cold and rough feel of it told me otherwise. The room was completely silent, and I listened as hard as I could to try and hear something inside of the silence.

Nothing.

That's when it hit me - this is what death feels like. I should be dead right now. The accident was bad, but not that bad. And yet here I am, alone in a foggy void.

I tried to move to the side of the bed, and found my way blocked by an invisible wall. I tapped it with my hand, and it seemed solid enough - not a wall at all. It felt roughly the same temperature as the 'bed' below me, so maybe it was just another part of the room?

That thought made me realize that whatever this place is, it's big. The ground wasn't warm or cool or anything - it didn't radiate heat or cold - and yet I could feel how big the floor was from how long it took me to walk around the bed to reach its side without hitting the wall. But how big is big?

I sat back down again and waited for something to happen. There wasn't even a clock in this room, so there was no way for me to tell how much time had passed since I woke up here - if that's what you call this state of being half-dead.

But what else could you call it? This was nothing like a dream. Dreams have some kind of logic behind them. They don't make sense at first because they're jumbled up from your subconscious brain working on problems you've set aside during the day - but once you wake up and start thinking about them rationally again, you can put together a narrative that makes sense out of them all by itself. Dreams also usually don't stick around after you wake up -- they fade into thoughts about breakfast or lunch or whatever you plan on doing next in your waking life instead of dreams about ghosts or monsters or other things that exist only in dreams themselves. And dreams are never this vivid either - never this real-feeling in every sense of the word.

No, this must be death then. Which means... what? Am I supposed to stay here forever? That doesn't seem right - where would everyone else go when they died? Isn't there supposed to be some kind of afterlife where we each get our own little slice of paradise or hell according to our beliefs? That seems more right somehow than just sitting here in this empty void forever until my body rots away and there's nothing left except a pile of dust and bones and scraps of cloth somewhere on Earth... but that doesn't make any sense either! If there were an afterlife, why would anyone ever choose to die before then instead of waiting for their reward? It doesn't make any sense! Nobody knows for sure about death! There are too many theories about it for anyone ever to know for sure! So why am I here?! Why did my life end now?! How can death just pick one random person out of billions just because their time is up?!

What if that's not true though? What if death doesn't choose randomly? What if it has reasons for choosing certain people over others?! What if there's some kind of test in life that people pass or fail based on whatever hidden criteria decides who gets chosen next?! That would explain why some people die early while others live well past 100 years old! It would explain why some people are wealthier than others while still other people are homeless despite trying their hardest to help others! But why hasn't anyone figured out these secret criteria yet so we can stop getting picked randomly at random times by an unknowable force?! If we knew what these rules were, wouldn't we all try our best to follow them to avoid being picked next?! Wouldn't that allow us to shape our lives any way we wanted without having to worry about whether our choices will lead us closer or further away from death?!