The Terror Of Unfamiliarity

Hours had turned into days and days turned into months, I had already lost count of time ever since I was locked up in this damn place.

Wait, scratch that. In here, there is no day or night. The only thing I have is darkness.

But even so, I still managed to find out several things about my current situation.

Well, first, although hard to believe, I seem to have apparently died. This was a mere speculation but... What other logic can I use to describe my situation?

Second, I have not passed away yet. Although dying and passing away have similar meanings, they are still two different words.

The reason why I reached to this conclusion was because no one had escorted me to the next life, realm, etc...

Moreover, if this really was the afterlife, then there should be plenty of other people like me as well. Unfortunately, I seem to be alone.

So in summary, if my predictions are correct, then I should be a lost soul trapped in the middle of nowhere.

Ain't my luck great? Of all things I had to go through, I became a lost soul after I died.

My luck isn't great, but human adaptation is really resourceful. And by that I mean that I'm more used to this place now.

Well, back when I was still "alive", I used to have a phobia of the dark.

Well... at least, used to.

Being stuck in the dark made me, surprisingly, more comfortable. How ironic is that?

Well anyway, that was all in the past.

Or perhaps, neither the past nor the present exists in this place.

And even though I stayed here for a while, the one thing I can never get used to is always going to be the eerie silence.

In it, I always felt alarmed. As if this wasn't the end yet.

Somehow, a deeper part of myself was hoping that something… no, anything, would appear and save me from this isolation by just existing.

And somehow, because of that hope, I had began to feel more expectant. But in the same time, I also felt anxious.

What if something even worse happens? What will I do then?

At the end of the day, I was no fighter, I was but a mere broke businesswoman for all my career could tell.

And this place, it's definitely strange…

It is as if the world had stopped.

In the place I am in currently, no sounds could be heard, nothing could be seen. The only thing that accommodated me all this time was the silence, but at the same time, it was what drove my sanity over the edge the most.

I sighed inwardly to myself and changed the course of my thoughts.

I wonder how everyone is doing?

Thinking about my subordinates that are probably jobless by now because of my death, I felt regretful.

Why did I have to die? I still haven't lived my life right yet. I can't deserve this. That day was supposed to change the course of my whole entire life.

I wish if there was a way I could go back.

All this time, I only thought about what I can and can't do, I didn't really focus on my emotions because I knew that it would only overwhelm me.

There was also my "it's all in the past now" philosophy.

What if I was just kidnapped instead of dying? Human-trafficking seemed to appear a lot on social media these days…

No, if that was the case then there should've been some murmurs around that I could hear. And why would they keep me in here for months instead of just handing me over?

Overall, although I didn't know where I was, what I did know was that there was no going back now.

And suddenly, a light flashed passed through my eyes.

It was the first time ever since I had entered in this world of who-knows-what that I had felt something.

a fleeting warm sensation tingling at me, I almost couldn't believe it happened.

My eyes finally opened and I broke out in cold sweat.

What's happening?