3 End of the Road

Death is the end of the road. My end of the road was actually at the side of a dangerous road. My untimely end was a freak accident. A regular monotonous routine of getting off a bus at the same old bus stop sparked the ending. Just when you least expect it, fate decides to bite you in the bum and your life is gone. Carpe f**king diem.

The bus stop is near a ravine on the mountain with 'protective' metal railings along the ridge. Useless against an out of control, yellow Lamborghini zig-zagging towards me.

Last memories were shrill screams around me, one loud crash and the fleeting moment of flight. Then everything froze. Like a computer program getting jammed. The next moment was filled with the shrill siren of the ambulance. Plenty of background static noises and suddenly silence.

The show was just beginning.

My work, teenage days, and childhood memories started flashing forward, faster than a Japanese bullet train, like an instantaneous film reel on 100x speed.

Then this part slowed down - the dream which haunted my entire life since childhood.

F**k. Did aliens kidnap me?

Did they teleport me to my dream?

There it was. The familiar scenery of the exact idyllic setting in the dreamscape.

Villages before me, with peasants dressed in an ancient fashion, plowing the fields as their children ran around playing. I could hear their thoughts.

A clear sunny day on a mountain, with the pleasant breeze gently tussling the weeping willow. Hesitantly, looking downwards, my tunic was white like that guy in this dream.

My hand slowly touched the back of my neck and grabbed the hair to check.

Out of the blue, total paralysis from something possessing the body. I am not in control.

Where there was supposed to be a flow of blood in veins and arteries, a mysterious blackish purplish light started emanating from my palm and pulsated fluidly through, accompanied by an ever-increasing generation of strange overwhelming energy.

Holy sh*t. It felt like a superpower was being released. Mind you, with power, comes great responsibility. Not to mention, I don't know sh*t about what it can do to me. Will I self combust?

Oh, who the hell am I kidding?

This must be a coma induced dream.

The constant fluxing energy generating in my palm felt like a great big bladder was about to burst.

[Destroy] The thought occurred in my head. [Destroy everything.]

With one graceful sweeping wave of the hand, beyond my control, the clouds began gathering, and the day turned dark. A roll of thunder, then a sequence of ferocious roars, like a million war drums being beaten simultaneously.

With the next wave, bright purplish flashes of lightning struck throughout the greyish thick cotton like clouds.

People were scattering like panicking ants to their homes. The ground started moving violently. Next was the unmistakable tsunami pouring in like the great deluge as people ran uphill. Trees were effortlessly uprooted and swept away in its wake, along with bodies of children, women and old folk.

Before I could scream at the horror, the whole scene fast forward with the crimson dusk, where rivers of blood flowed along with bloated corpses of both beasts and men.

Then the images vanished instantaneously, revealing a depressing foggy twilight realm.

WHERE THE HELL AM I?!!!

Yup. That was my first thought when I arrived at the border before the entry to the Netherworld.

Death is innately known.

If not, those souls wandering around will get you shitting your pants, in which there won't be shit popping out. That or the sensation of pissing.

You will feel human still while you are saying your prayers to dispel fellow 'ghosts'. Phantom feelings of the physical body happen when the detachment has been severed from your dying body.

The next, the inner feeling of 'OH F**K I am also one of them' hits like a sledgehammer falling from the heavens on the top of your head. That sinking feeling will then convince you.

Back to the reality of being very dead. At least this time trying to conform with the crowd of the other dead.

Stuck together with other souls with a heavily cloudy overcast, all of us walking towards the innately known boundaries between life and death. A deep, dark chasm laid before the crowds.

We still retained semblance of our previous forms, almost like shopping in a crowded mall. Except some have the full horror gore, like knives sticking out of them, peppered with bullet holes.

Or my personal nauseating favourite - the mashed up ghost. They resembled minced meat walking.

Suddenly a ray of light sprung through the clouds, then another. Soon, there were several.

For a second, the realm was illuminated and four rays converged on me, like spotlights on a superstar. While others only had one or two.

I feel so special. Like striking the wrong lottery.

If a ray represented the tunnel of light that many near-death experiences described, I had four tunnels to pick. In my imaginary bones, this did not feel like a dream anymore.

"Nope, don't enter any of them." Zaixing appeared in that human form - the very guy in my dreams.

His pose was in the style of a dashing white knight rescuing a damsel in distress. That did not sit well with my personality, or what's left of it.

"Call me Zaixing by the way. You are sure lucky that I spotted you."

Unfortunately, there were no physical gastrointestinal anatomy for me to initiate a gag and vomit stunt.

Spotted me?

Dude, you have been haunting me in my dreams since I was a kid.