The man with the knife got on top of me. He put the point of the knife towards my chest. But I was able to put my hands under his forearms and push the knife away from me. The man using all his strength pushing the knife down and I used all of my might to push the knife away. But the man had the advantage of being able to use his body weight pushing the knife down.
I was losing the battle and felt a stinging pain in my chest. The knife penetrated my flesh half an inch. As I looked down to the knife I could see it sliding deeper and deeper into my chest. I wailed out in pain as it penetrated my flesh heart and lungs. The pain was unbearable, until the knife could not go any further into my chest. I looked at the man as he looked back into my eyes. He smiled and said, “Time to go to the next life,” he twisted the knife 90 degrees in my chest. My mouth coughed up blood and I drew my last breath. The pain started to disappear and the man went blurry, then everything became black.
I was still able to think. My feet felt like they were standing on some sort of ground. A little sandy but with smoothness too. I wiggle my toes and more smooth floor seems to appear under my feet. It seems I am standing, but I can’t see anything. It’s all just… black. Like being blind. But there was no sound or smell either. I tried to touch something around me but I was unable to feel anything.
Slowly and faintly a smell reached my senses. It smelled like something was on fire. I turned my head to find out where the smell was coming from. But the smell was evenly spread around me. I reached down to the floor with my hands and touched the ground. There were little lumpy things in between my fingers. It felt like sand that was melted together. It had that kind of texture.
I started to walk. I have no idea where I am going but it feels like I am going the right way, so I keep walking. The weird thing is, I am not breathing constantly. Only when I think about breathing I breath. I put my right hand on my face to feel if I still have everything. First my mouth. I put my index and middle finger on my lower lip. But I feels really smooth and I’m not feeling a lower lip. Even my upper lip feels like it is gone. I try to open my mouth, but I am unable to do that. It’s like I never had a mouth. I can’t move my tongue either. Maybe I don’t even have a tongue…
I tried to feel my nose. But I had no nose. It was gone. But I felt two little holes with very edgy sides. It felt like a skeletal nose, a nose without flesh. I went over to my eyes fearing the worst. And no surprise there, I had no eyes… just two empty sockets. With hesitation I put one of my fingers into my eye socket. I felt like I was unable to put my finger in there for more than an inch. The back of my eye socket was blocking it.
I was very creeped out and wondered what my body would feel like. So I put my hands on my belly. It felt not in place. My belly had shrunken a lot. I was able to count my ribs and feel my spine in my neck, not the little bumps on top, I mean the side of my spine. There was still something covering it but it was not my regular human flesh. It felt old and wrinkly. I figured my body looked like a skeletal figure and thought nothing more of it. Maybe this was the afterlife.
I started to walk again, not knowing where I was going. It felt like I was walking into an endless void. No walls, no obstacles, just a smooth floor with spread out sand on it.
But then I heard someone call my name in the far distance. It didn’t feel in place so my instincts told me to hide. I laid myself on the floor with the lumpy sand on the ground pressing into my thin skin and bones. and tried to blend in with the seeming motionless world. I laid there and heard nothing else. No one called for me again, so I thought the area must be clear to walk again.
I get up and started walking, still not knowing where I will be in a couple of steps. My mind started to get annoyed. So I thought I should run and see what would happen. My feet started to walk faster to a jogging pace. I didn’t feel any exhaustion so I decided to change my jog into a full sprint. Still I did not get tired. My stamina seemed endless. I kept on sprinting, still without being able to see. There was also no resistance while running. It is hard to imagine, but I had nothing like wind pushing me back. Maybe that is why I can run for so long.
Suddenly while running, strange orange lights started flashing by. I don’t know how I could see with no eyes but I could definitely see the orange light illuminating strokes flashing by. I slowed down my pace to walking speed. To my surprise I was not panting. I was breathing normally, but only when I thought about breathing.
The orange lights were now little orbs. They were floating around my head and bobbing up and down. They seemed to get closer to me, to as where I could touch them. But when I touched them my hand would just go trough them.
They came even closer and slowly sunk in my head, and then they were gone. My vision became blurry and I was able to slowly see things again. So my curiosity struck me and I wanted to feel my eyes. I carefully placed my hand on my cheek and slowly pointed closed to my eye with my finger. I looked down and I could see a dark blurry thing coming closer. I touched what seemed to be my eye, and a slight prickling feeling from the touch went trough my skull. My eyes seemed to have returned. I can see, but everything is still blurry.
I started walking around, and my sight was getting better until I could see normally again. The world around me was grey and filled with all kinds of things I could have run into when I was running. But for some reason I didn’t run into anything.
So I wanted to test something. I went to a big rock and put my hand on it. I was shocked by the way my hand looked, it was like I could see my muscles when my flesh would have been torn off but they were grey and some kind of grey ash was slowly rising from me. So while I had my hand on the stone, I pushed. There was no way I could go trough that. I kept my hand on the stone and closed my eyes. Then I pushed again and to my surprise I was able to walk right trough it. But I was unable to see anything. I took a few steps forward and opened my eyes. The rock before me was gone. And when I looked behind me I could see the rock without any damage, sitting there.
I thought it was very curious and I wondered why I was able to do this. With a puzzled mind I just started walking around and looking at the things I could see. Everything I saw was just black and white. Like watching an old movie. There were some brown things like sand and some tree stumps, but other than that it was pretty dull. Not colorful at all.
Suddenly the ground started to tremble for a second. And another tremble. And I heard something like a walking giant coming closer. I turned around on a trembling ground and it was not a giant. I shared eye contact with but it was a really massive creature looking dark purple with horns and red eyes. He was as big as the Eiffel tower if I had to compare him with something. I flinched and a chilling breeze went over my spine.
I think he looked at me as it stood still in front of me. He put his claw above far above my head. Then lowered his claw. It seemed as if it went down really slow. But I decided to step away anyway, just in case he was going to squish me. And good thing I did, because a big cloud of sand came from between the grey sand and claw. The claw was motionless after that. As I looked up I saw 2 big red eyes with some kind of red glowing ash coming from them looking at me. I didn’t however feel nervous or any other emotion for that matter.
I walked forward and stepped on the claw. The ends of the claws raised, so I was unable to fall off. I was being raised very high until it stopped going any higher. The big red glowing eyes were looking at me.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” It said in a deep gurgling voice. I didn’t flinch and I was trying to say something, anything. But I was unable to speak. So I tried to use body language. I pointed my finger at my mouth and crossed my hands while shaking my head, like saying I was unable to talk with my mouth.
“USE YOUR MIND TO TALK” it replied. I thought about saying, “Where am I?” and to my surprise it was like I was saying it out loud somehow, without having a mouth. It heard me and replied, “YOU ARE IN THE BETWEEN DIMENSION. YOU GO HERE IF YOU BE MURDERED. YOU CAN NEVER GET AWAY FROM HERE, BUT YOU ARE ABLE TO HAUNT YOUR KILLER FROM HERE.”
My “face” made an expression of surprise after hearing what the massive creature said. A “between dimension” I thought?
“YES, YOU ARE DEAD. BUT YOUR SPIRIT IS STILL ALIVE BECAUSE IT IS A STRONG SPIRIT. AND A STRONG SPIRIT NEVER DIES UNTIL IT LOSES IT’S WILL.”
“I AM THE GUARDIAN OF THE BETWEEN DIMENSION. HARDLY ANY SPIRITS MAKE IT TO THIS DIMENSION. BUT YOU WERE CHOSEN.” I shook my head in slight disbelief. This was such a strange place.