“NO! I can’t do this, you don’t understand. Everything will go wrong, everything already is wrong!” The woman rocked back and forth, tears running down her face. Her voice was hoarse from the wailing.
It had been three days.
It watched her quietly, a blank expression on its face. Waiting, waiting - yet not so much of a predator as a bystander with little else to do. Time did not matter so much, not anymore.
Most yielded without a struggle, passing onto whatever came next. The luckier ones, It thought. Occasionally, there were those who remained tethered by chains of love or hate. Yet this was the first time It had encountered mindless terror.
The woman had been calm, at first. Even upon Its arrival had she been sedate. The woman seemed as though she could belong to the masses that rested peacefully, until the possibility of a heaven was mentioned. From then on, the woman had all the semblance of fighting an invisible battle, fear and natural process on opposing sides. It wondered - would this soul be lucky? Or unlucky?
It approached the woman, sinking down beside her. It spoke, its voice a booming whisper that struck the woman into incoherent mumbling rather than the screaming of before. “You are right. Everything is already wrong. There is little you or anyone else can do to fix what has happened.”
It felt the pull of other souls in the distance. Yet they could wait a little longer.
“I cannot tell you what lies in the beyond, heaven-” she gave a strangled scream, “-or hell, of something altogether different. That is something I may never know. But I can tell you what lies in remaining here.”
Silence fell upon the room, and the woman buried her head in her hands, curling into herself. It began again, leadenly.
“You will watch as those you knew and loved grow old and die. They will pass peacefully on, and you will be forgotten.
"There is only emptiness, after that. Whoever you are now will fade away, and be replaced with something less than human. Is that what you want?”
She looked up as a door opened and a man and woman dressed in somber black clothing, the warmth of life radiating forth in waves. Their lips moved, but the only sound came through filtered and indistinct, as though they were underwater. The pair moved about the room, picking up photos, books, mementos of life, and placing them gently in boxes.
“And then?” The woman’s eyes followed the pair around the room. She reached out an arm towards them, towards the warmth. It watched as she hit the barrier and pulled back her arm. “What happens next?”
Long moments passed as It considered. The living left the room, boxes packed and the room bare.
Finally, the silence was broken with Its answer. “I do not know. Perhaps there is nothing more.”
“Anything is better than the alternative.” The woman’s voice was as clear and unshaken as it had been when she first awoke.
It rose slowly, considering the being before it. “Then you have made your final decision?”
She nodded, and It disappeared to do business with the next lost one.
“Unlucky. So very unlucky.”
