The Judgement Realm

 I started to tremble and my voice began to break. I felt the color drain from my face. "You're dying?" questioned my mother, in utter disbeleif.

        "You're dying," this time she whispered in simple acceptance. I watched as the tears welled up in her eyes, dripping down her pale face like wax off of a candle that would never shine bright again. My lips quivered at the thought, tears now dripping down my colorless cheeks as well. Not only was I leaving this world, but I was taking my dear mother's heart and soul with me.

    I looked at my now wailing mother from the corner of my eye, who only appeared as a blurry mess through my own tears, regretting every decision I had ever made. "Mother," I squeaked out, even the slightest movement hurt every muscle in the entirety of my body, now aching from blood loss, "I-I'm sorry."

    With that, my eyes drooped down, the light leaving me like it had left my mother once she was hit with the thought of my absense. In my last sight alive, I'd seen her, my loving mother, as a mess - nothing but a blubbering mess! To think, this was all because of me; my entire reality shattered in a second. 

        I desperately gasped for one last breath. I needed to say something to the one person that mattered to me, needed to think of anything to leave her with except lonliness, needed to make her feel something other than disappointment. Alas, with my desperation for that one breath I also welcomed the bittersweet embrace of death into my body.

* * *

  My eyes shot open. I felt nothing, I saw nothing; I guess death's embrace consisted of nothing but a cloak of darkness? I tried once again, closing my eyes and opening them. Again, there was no difference whether they were opened or closed similar to how there was no difference in my emotions. I should have been panicking at this point, scared to spend an eternity doing absolutely nothing, yet I felt nothing whether it be emotional or physical. Ironically, this empty feeling inside me would have also stirred panic at some point of my life, but I guess my existence wasn't in a point of my life anymore.

    Time stilled in my presence and suddenly there was a person in the darkness. His hair flicked from the white of an old man, to jet black, which would disappear with the darkness if it weren't for the white line surrounding his presence. Not only white and black, no, it was also red one second, and even blonde the next, changing from one natural hair color to the next with every passing second like a slowly dying, color changin LED light. He wore a black suit with a red tie, which made at least remained constant. His bright personna was a stark contrast to my nothingness.

        "Hello, Mia," he said in a smooth voice that cut through the darkness.

   "Hello?" I thought, wondering if I could even speak in this realm. Surprisingly, just the thought caused my voice to echo through the darkness, not sharp and clear like his, but instead it was rather ghostly.

    "What am - no, where even am I? The afterlife, I mean, is this it?" I questioned.

    "No, Mia, this is the judgement realm. Where I design your afterlife."

    "Who are you, then? How will you decide what my afterlife will be like?"

    "Why of course, I'm a mere magician! I design what your afterlife will be like and I bring this design to... life!" the self proclaimed magician chuckled at his little joke, "But as for the decision, Mia, it is all up to you."

    My Christian values finally came to use, as now I had an idea of what my decision would be. It was simple, heaven or hell? A reward for my good deeds or eternal torture? I recalled my living memories, and with each view upon my life the answer was obvious; I was hell-bound. 

    Since childhood, I was bored. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, but my plain life seemed to gain none whether it be because of the dullness of my actions or that of those around me. My blind mother was forgiving, too forgiving perhaps. She couldn't find it in her heart to be upset with me due to her visual shortcomings, which she thought deeply affected her 'beautiful' daughter. If there was no reaction from the one person that I loved then what held back my actions? Nothing. 

    I was only 12 years old, to me letting lose wasn't much but to those I affected, I was nothing but a little demon. I would take my mother out to the playground after I dressed her up, have her sit on a bench in the distance, where all the homeless would go to rest at night. I would ask the the people passing by for money to 'help my poor, blind mother'. After all, people simply couldn't resist the charms of a sad little girl.

    This was one of the many scams I ran, but the definitely one of the worst. To defame my own mother like that - the one who hated herself for not being able to provide me with the care that any child would need, yet who tried her best despite her disabilities - was a shameful task indeed. What can I say, I loved the reactions I gained from these actions. It took me out of the same monotony of taking care of my mother, out of the boredom of everyday life.

It's not like we didn't have any money, my late father's will had left us quite well-off. No, I simply thought it was quite funny how people were so willing to help someone they thought was cute or pretty as opposed to trying to help those in the deep turmoil of living on the streets. I loved this attention; each time an ignorant stranger empathized with me, I knew in my heart they would also be like my mother, let me trample all over them. It was the feeling of having absolute control over a person's reality that stuck with me. Yes, I was a despicable person, even as a child. 

    I could be nothing but grateful of my untimely death. It was in the hands of one of the homeless men that I had indirectly robbed of money, who in turn had robbed me of my life. He had given my mother all the gruesome details of how he stabbed me with his switchblade as she sat on the bench, in shock, and for once she was as helpless in reality as I had made her out to be. I was definitely grateful to him for not allowing such a despicable child to mold into adulthood as I would have been an even worse person than him.

      "I deserve eternal torture, nothing less and nothing more," I stated to the patiently awaiting magician.

    "Hm, then I've got the perfect design for you, Mia," smiling, he replied in an instant as though he had known about my upcoming decision all along. He snapped his fingers in a swift motion and all my emotions came rushing back to me in a whirlpool of misery. Panic struck my heart as I realized what I had done, how I was the one who had made the decision to destroy the rest of my eternity for myself. My physical form remained locked away; I only had darkness as the man before me had disappeared while I was consumed by the sheer depth of my human emotion.

    "Magician! Come back! Please, come back, I changed my mind! I don't deserve this, I swear I don't!" I shrieked into the abyss, lying through my teeth, but there was no response. No reaction. Nothing.

        This was the design; absolute nothingness. The best method of eternal torture was to take away every action and reaction from someone desperately craving to escape boredom. Removing my emotions had forced me to make an unbiased decision, leaving me with regret and resentment for myself for the rest of time. Fear set in my heart like never before, and my screams filled up this small fragment of reality, leaving me in a timeless peril.