1 AFTERLIFE.

I opened my eyes slowly and saw something very strange, I was surrounded by a white space and there was nothing else in sight. Where am I? What is this place? Who am I? Many questions bombarded my mind but I had no answers so I wondered endlessly trying to find anything but my efforts were meaningless, even so, I walked and walked and walked but found nothing.

Just then like a stroke of lightning I was struck by a memory. I was in a car accident and the last thing I remember is my consciousness steadily fading away as I watched the doctors chatter in the hospital and then the memory suddenly finished there as if the time itself stopped. After all of this, it's obvious that I died.

As I figured out my situation suddenly a white man-like figure appeared in front of me, it had no face nor skin… like a white faceless statue with a grin.

"Are you a God?" I asked.

"I suppose you humans could define me as a God, but I am what you would call the consciousness of this world"

"so you're saying I'm speaking to the world?" I asked.

"yes indeed"

"so what now? Are you going to reincarnate me or something?"

"aren't you curious? Don't you wanna know what happened after your death? Aren't you fascinated by the turn of events you have experienced?" God said.

"what does it matter now? I'm dead, aren't I? All of this is meaningless" I said.

"oh? Why is it meaningless?"

"You are supposed to be a God… so you must know that I lived a boring life accomplishing nothing and died pathetically, just get it over with already"

"so you think your life had no meaning, do you? Well then, I will show you something interesting…"

As he said that I felt a dazzling sensation as if I'm getting sucked into a single point, my whole being was sucked into that single point, and then before my eyes, I saw some colorful weird patterns but this time I'm falling, when I look down beneath me I see a black opening as if I'm falling into a tunnel.

'What in the world is happening' I thought, and yet for some reason, I feel no fear. Is it because I'm dead?

Before I knew it I had fallen deep into the tunnel and entered throw the dark opening, but to my surprise what is in front of my eyes is something truly astonishing.

There it is, in front of me the universe. But there is something strange about it... There are no stars or planets but just two HUGE black holes getting closer and closer to each other at a tremendous speed. As they are getting closer, the space fabric around them is getting torn apart like paper. Amazing and frightening.

Wait, how is it that I can see BLACK HOLES!! Even light cannot escape from them so I shouldn't be able to see anything… huh? Why am I even thinking about this? This whole situation is ridiculous!

"It's my doing, I have done so that you would be able to perceive what a human usually cannot"

As I heard those words I started looking around and behind me there he is standing while staring at me with a grin… the so-called 'Consciousness of the world' I guess calling him that or GOD is a little weird so let's just call him 'X'

"So what is this? What's happening?" I asked.

"aah, yes…. This is the end of the universe"

I looked at the black holes as they collided, an Incredible amount of energy is being thrown out and the space fabric is now getting destroyed… soon the black holes merged and became one.

"why are you showing me this?" I said

"Don't be impatient now… just keep watching" X said.

So I looked at the newly merged black hole again and now for some reason, it's getting smaller.

"Can you at least explain what's going on?" I asked

"This is the death of the universe which existed before the universe you lived in was born… I'm showing you my memory of the death-birth cycle of one of the trillions of the universe that existed"

"you're saying that trillions of universes existed before the current one? Are you serious?"

"Indeed, you're quite smart for a human… anyway, over time all galaxies in the universe collided with each other thus creating those two black holes you saw earlier, and finally, even those two black holes have become one… as you can see now the very final Body of this universe is dying because it's overwhelming gravity and mass… It will compress itself in its singularity and then explode with a big bang ending this universe and creating anew.

"If I were to know this when I was alive then I would have gotten a Nobel Prize or something," I said

"Hahahaha. Typical of a human… being selfish even after death, eh?"

"Tch, what would you know….." I murmured.

Just as X said, the black hole got compressed in its core and a fraction of a second before I realized the whole universe exploded with a bang. The very hot matter began flying in all directions at the speed of light. I'm not able to feel the heat obviously but somehow I can understand that it's hot, The universe as it is now is empty yet full.

"so is this the birth of the universe I lived in?" I asked,

"yes, let's fast forward a bit shall we?" X said.

Suddenly something happened and the universe seemed to be cooled down a bit but there was still nothing to be seen as far as the eye can see.

"Now what? I asked.

"hehe, I thought you had no interest but you seem to be enjoying this" X said with an annoying grin on his face.

"only an idiot would deny their curiosity in such a situation," I said.

"hmm, is that so? Anyway, the universe is now expanding because dark matter and 'protons' and 'neutrons' will create 'hydrogen' and 'helium' Filling the universe with lots of gas. Oh and btw, you may not realize but I skipped like 1 or 2 billion years just now… you wouldn't wanna wait for billions of years to see the progress, would you?"

"Ohh, so what happens next? I asked with a curious face."

"now because of gravity the gas is going to get closer and closer and form the first 'star' of this universe."

As he said that I could feel the change happening in the universe just like he said. The universe filled with hot gas and in some time the gas began to gather together and form a star… normally this process must have taken lots of years but X is fast-forwarding it for me I guess. In time more stars started to appear, but then the first star died and exploded creating new elements soon after some other stars started dying as well, as they exploded one by one rock, ice, clouds, space dust, and other elements started forming around the newborn stars thus creating what we call a 'Solar system' as such many solar systems formed around the universe creating countless 'Galaxies' which consisted of countless stars, solar system, burning hot rocks flying around, and such. Each galaxy has a black hole at the center and everything revolves around it… this sight is truly marvelous!

X who is standing beside me looked in my direction and said "now then" and suddenly I teleported into some other part of the universe in an unknown solar system, as I looked around a giant rock of fire is heading towards another giant rock of fire… soon they collided, some part of the giant rock merged into another giant rock and some part of it simply scattered around, it's an utter mess. In time the scattered rocks came closer due to gravity and formed a new huge rock together.

"C-could it be?" I thought

"so you finally realized, eh? Yes, this Giant rock is in fact earth and the other smaller rock is the moon!" X said

"Amazing!!" I murmured

X Fast forwarded again and now a bunch of fire rocks is raining down upon earth… I think one second there must be thousands of years or something because I can see that hot steam is rising in the earth's atmosphere, so there must have been water in those rocks, I thought.

Earth's temperature cooled down considerably and now the surface is no longer lava… soon the earth experienced one of the most important events of its life, it started raining and the entire planet soon became a huge ocean, then volcanic eruptions happened and land appeared, in the oceans, microscopic organisms emerged and life started on earth. For a long time these organisms stayed in the water but soon evolved and learned to get energy from the sun and as a side effect oxygen increased in the atmosphere and the sky turned blue. After that Earth's temperature fluctuated a lot for many years, as a result, Earth turned into a snowball and then turned into the ocean again and this happened repeatedly for many years but then finally in the ocean fish and plants appeared, soon after crocodile-like creatures left the ocean and started living in the land, this went smooth for quite a while but then the extinction event happened and most the life went extinct…however some survived and evolved into huge creatures we can dinosaurs but then yet again huge meteor hit the earth and dinosaurs went extinct as well, but even so mammals survived and evolved into homo-sapiens. Soon they learned to make weapons to hunt, build fire, and language and thus became organized. Some of them monopolized crops and organized other humans under them… together near water sources they built houses and colonies.

"I never would have imagined I'd see this kind of thing," I said

"Hehe, there's much more," X said.

And then X showed me Everything, wars, empires, great people in history, human conflict, human growth, and human creation. He showed me all that happened until I died… From world war to the moon landing and even my life.

"You know… humanity will evolve even further if they managed to understand the meaning of all of life, they will be a galactic civilization with many stars as their fuel and they will even have managed to extend their life span, they can colonize many plants and use them as mere small areas of a big city perhaps.…there are countless possibilities but still, humans are nothing in comparison to the vast ever-growing universe! They are nothing but ants"

"So, do you understand now how precious life is? This world is like a machine with many gears and even if one of those gears was out of place then YOU wouldn't have existed! If only humans realize this and stop their petty conflicts and squabbles and live in the moment" X said

"Yes, you are right... Thanks for showing me all this. Say? I will be reborn right?"

"oh? I just told you how rare life is… and you want a second chance? Unfortunately, you won't get a second chance! Your consciousness will simply fade into nothingness."

"What? So what was the point of showing me all that?" I asked desperately.

"nothing, just a protocol you see… besides it's amusing how you are filled with regret. Well then, goodbye now" X said with a grin.

Again, I feel my consciousness fading away... I feel di-dizzy.

I opened my eyes, there was a completely white space around me and nothing else in sight. I looked around and walked for quite a while but there was nothing.

Suddenly I'm struck with a memory like a flash of lightning, ah I see, I died of old age. So… is this heaven? What is this place?

Just then a completely white Man-like figure appeared in front of me, it has no face,e no skin. Like a faceless statue! He's looking at me with a grin.

"Are you a God?" I asked

"I suppose you humans could define me as a God, but I am what you would call the consciousness of this world,d," He said.

THE END