“I died.” I don’t need the woman to say anything. I know it’s the truth.
She gives another tight smile and blinks carefully. “It’s easier to let people remember on their own. It makes them feel like they’re more in control.”
There are too many faces flashing through my mind—my parents, Mei, Finn, Lucy, the man in the black mask—but it’s impossible to focus on any of them for more than a sliver of a moment. “Is death supposed to hurt this much?” And I point to my head, in case she misunderstands my meaning. I haven’t had time to let my heart ache yet. “I feel like my brain is trying to break out of my skull.”
She opens her palm back up to reveal the white pill. “This will help.”
I lift my eyebrows. “They have Tylenol in the afterlife?”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “We find it’s less overwhelming if we present new concepts in familiar ways.” She holds the pill closer to me. “This will allow you to finish your transition from death into the afterlife. Your pain will vanish. Your consciousness will find peace. And you can proceed to the paradise that awaits you outside these walls.”
My mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. My brain feels that way too. “So is this, like, heaven or something?”
“We call it Infinity. It was created from human consciousness.” Her blue eyes shine. “When a human’s physical body dies, their consciousness needs somewhere to go. This is that place—a world where you can live forever after.”
I glance at the pill in her hand and then toward another window on the other side of the room. I force myself to stand—to move—and as I push the glass open, the scenery floods my senses like I’m experiencing life for the first time.
Trees cover the landscape for miles, a thousand shades of speckled green stretched across the earth. The sky is painted in swirls of milky lavender and rosy pink. And far off in the distance, a mountain curves into a crescent, a powerful burst of water flowing over the edge and into a gleaming lake below.
Every color is vibrant and rich. The scent of honeysuckles and fresh fruit lingers in my nostrils. I can hear a birdsong that calls like a gentle lullaby, but it fills my ears with such beauty and emotion that I feel my eyes start to water.
Paradise. It really exists.
And I’m…
Clearing my throat, I pull away from the window. “I’m sorry.” I run a knuckle against a few stray tears. “Could I maybe have a minute alone? It’s a lot to take in.”
The woman stands, and the pill disappears back into her fist. “Of course, Nami. When you’re ready, I’ll be in the sitting room down the hall.”
I nod. “Okay. Thanks.”
When she’s gone, I look back out the window. There’s a balcony below, with white marble floors and elegant stone pillars. An intricate mix of leaves and feathers are carved into the rock face, and archways dripping with lush ivy and snow-white hydrangeas connect each column.
There are people scattered near the railing, breathing in the fresh air and smiling in the sunlight. They look ridiculously happy—euphoric even. They’re dressed like me, but most of them have gray hair and worn faces. The youngest is a man barely older than my dad.
Nobody is close to my age. None of them died when they were only eighteen years old.
I swallow the generous lump in my throat and shut my eyes to the unfairness of it all. It surprises me, to feel such a horrible bitterness inside of me. Isn’t the afterlife supposed to be pleasant? Isn’t that what everyone says—that when you die, you go somewhere better, if you go anywhere at all?
But the emotions coursing through me are nothing like joy. They’re irritation that I can hardly hear myself think over the pounding in my head. They’re sorrow that I’ll never see my sister again. They’re regret that I didn’t tell my parents I loved them before I ran out the door in such a hurry. They’re heartache that Finn never got to be my first kiss. They’re resentment that Lucy guilted me into stopping at that gas station. And they’re anger that a stranger with a gun ended my life before it ever really began.
This isn’t peace—this is a whirlwind of rage and torment building up inside me with nowhere to go.
I need somewhere to go. I need somewhere to think.
The door slides open when I approach it, and I step into the hallway half expecting to be scolded for wandering, but there’s nobody there. On my left is a brightly lit room, the low murmur of voices muffled by the distance.
The desperation to be alone takes over my impulses. My body shifts to the right, and my feet are moving before I’ve even formulated a plan of where I’m going.
Maybe I don’t need a plan. Maybe I just need to find a space where things can make some amount of sense.
The hallway curves and stretches over and over again until I find myself at a wide set of stairs that leads down to a beautiful, circular water fountain. It’s nearly as wide as the room and more ornate than the pillars on the balcony. Hundreds of white lights seem to erupt from the marbled edge, casting peculiar shapes across the smooth surface.
Inching closer, I focus on the sculpture in the center of the pool. The rock has been left uncut in some places and chiseled in others. A collection of grooves and twisting shapes explodes from a pedestal, veiled by a steady trickle of water.
I don’t hear the stranger approaching until it’s too late.
“What do you see?” he asks, his voice like velvet.
I spin around, startled, and see a young man with golden hair and warm brown eyes watching me carefully. Dressed in a white uniform that looks more lawyer than doctor, his complexion has the same iridescent sheen as the woman from the other room.
He motions toward the statue as if to clarify his question. “Everyone sees something different. They say it reveals what was in your heart the moment you arrived in Infinity.” He lets his hand drift back to his side. “So, what do you see?”
“A bunch of rocks,” I reply uneasily.
His smile is mechanical, like the woman’s. “Hearts are known to tell a lie or two. Maybe you need to look a bit closer, but this time with an open mind.” He senses my doubt and tilts his head. “Humor me?”
I turn back to the statue and focus on the pale gray arches. I’m about to insist I can’t see anything—about to insist this is as silly as looking for meaning in an astrology horoscope—when I see something behind the uneven curves.
The face of a woman with no hair erupting from a cloud of darkness and light and reaching up for something just beyond her grasp.
The face of someone escaping into another world.
Something flickers in the corner of my eye—a light maybe? But when I look toward the sudden movement, it seems to have vanished. All I can see is another empty hallway.
“Well?” the man asks gently. Methodically.
I don’t know why my instinct is to lie, but it is. “I can’t see anything.” I pause, grasping at the first distraction I can think of. “Why does the water shimmer like this?”
“Because it’s not water.” He holds his hand out toward the fountain like he’s commanding it to move. When it does, I feel as if the room has tilted sideways, and I struggle to maintain my balance.
“How did you…?” I start, my mouth hanging open in disbelief. The liquid rises in delicate spirals, spinning around the statue and weaving through the arches like it’s merely part of a dance. Like it’s…