Exposition

reincarnation... rebirth...

I had never really believed in that.

Well... not really.

I was mostly just being realistic about death.

Nobody knows what exactly happens after death. There is no scientifically based evidence that can really prove anything credibly.

So most of the time I assumed that after death nothing came.

Just ceasing to exist.

Still, I kept catching myself thinking and speculating about it.

Of course you could believe in something and hold on to it. But whether it is actually the way you had imagined it was a completely different matter.

But... I could understand why most believed in something after death - no... that they wanted to believe in something.

Because to be honest, the thought that nothing should come after death was pretty scary.

It was just difficult to accept.

At least for me.

I guess I just didn't want it to be nothing after my death. Just an incomprehensible emptiness in which I no longer existed.

That thought was unbearable.

This great, existential fear that was triggered in me was almost unbearable.

Was our existence here so meaningless?

Somehow I didn't want that.

So I just pushed that thought aside. I felt that I shouldn't waste my precious lifetime thinking about death and the afterlife.

What good did it do me?

Just that I was driving myself crazy with it.

...

Like I said... actually I didn't believe in things like reincarnation or rebirth...

But now I was sitting here with my supposed "comrades" in this stuffy barracks. In this strange body. In this strange time.

And I no longer understood the world.

How could all this happen? What happened?

I was completely disoriented.

Everything felt so strange.

Am I dreaming?