Thoughts in the Night

*Nainika’s Note* Ok, guys. I apologize beforehand if anything I say from this point offends you. I legit couldn’t sleep because this was boinging around my head, so this was one of those 2 am writing-in-a-chocolate-milk-induced-fog. Eh, anyway, read it and lemme know what you think! (not with the prompt, well *barely* with the prompt, if even)

I have been stuck in this room for my entire life. 

My entire life I have been alone. 

Alone with my thoughts. 

In a bunker. 

Just alone. 

Maybe I am not even alive. 

Am I alive?

Or am I dead?

How can I tell for sure?

They say the gods are real.

They say heaven is a thing.

They say when you die your bodies will become the grass.

They say a lot of things about death, do they not?

But what is the truth?

What is the real truth of death?

Is Hell really hell?

Is Heaven above the clouds?

Does God exist?

What is my role in all of it?

They are not easy questions.

And there are no easy answers. 

People around the world believe what they want to, and I have no problem with that.

I am not trying to say my views are the views. 

Or that my views are the only views. 

Because they are not. 

They are only what I think.

They are how I view the world.

But let me ask you something.

If I gave you the tools to see what happens when you die, while you were still living, would you take them?

Or would you live your life how you want to and never be scared of how you would die? 

I wish I could say that I chose the good option. 

But is there ever a good option in a situation like that?

How can you measure someone's opinion based on how they act, how they speak, how they think, how they view the world, how they live or, even how they die?

Can you even measure something like that?

And if so, does that mean I...am the ruler?

I have been in this bunker.

For my entire life. 

I do not have a way to track time.

Time is meaningless.

Life is meaningless. 

Life is only possible because of death.

It is a balance.

It is a circle.

It is a never-ending loop that only exists because something is either born or something dies. 

There are no corners to a circle.

No ending to a circle. 

But, there are points.

And if life and death are a circle or a loop, that means there are points from which you can enter, or leave. 

So, in theory, you can exit or enter the circle at any given point.

And that's what I'm here for.

Say you wake up one morning and you decide that instead of going straight to work, you are going to take a detour to the donut shop.

Say, on the other side of town, the same morning, a drunk driver turns sharply down the street on which the donut shop lies. 

Say, you glance down at your phone when your mom texts, and in the split second it takes for you to do so, you swerve across the lane and collide head-on with that drunk driver.

In choosing to take the path to the donut shop, you have created a separate timeline on which your life now revolves. 

So that means, you have exited the original loop and...maybe you die. 

Maybe you have cut your thread. 

But maybe, you are now hovering. 

Hovering between life and death. 

Between your two loops. 

And that means you have the potential to view your own demise. 

Whether it be the crash or the death that you were supposed to die before you made a decision that changed your timeline. 

And it does not even have to be one. 

There could be millions of different loops all in the space of your life. 

Because every day, every new decision you make, generates a whole different timeline for you to go on. 

So say, instead of looking down at your phone when your mother texted, you wisely ignored the text, and did not even notice the drunk driver in the opposite lane. 

Say you arrived at the donut shop and got your donuts. 

Say you headed to work, with no idea that your building was having its windows cleaned. 

Say you stopped at a red light just as a bucket of water fell off the ledge. 

And hit your car at sixty-five miles an hour. 

Again, you hover. 

Between the millions of loops that you have created. 

So you see, there is no way to tell if you should or should not be able to view your death. 

But many people try. 

They try to ask how and why they will die because they feel it gives them power. 

Power over their lives. 

I wish I had power over my life. 

But I am stuck. 

Stuck within four walls. 

Many people chose to ask fortune-tellers how they will die.

Say they tell you that you will die later that day, a gunshot outside a flower stand. 

Say you get scared.

Like most would. 

Faced with their death. 

Say you decide not to go to the flower stand. 

But say it was you and your partner’s anniversary. 

Say they got so mad at you for forgetting to get them flowers. 

Say to avoid a fight, you go out and get them chocolates. 

Say the sweet shop was the target of a gang. 

And you die. 

Shot. 

Just like how the fortune-teller told you. 

In creating a different timeline, you have, in theory, created a whole different way for you to die. 

I understand why some are afraid of Death. 

Why most will ask how they die because they want to find a way to avoid it.

Want to find a way to cheat Death. 

Be immortal. 

But let me ask you this. 

Let me ask you this while I am stuck in my bunker. 

Stuck...or maybe hovering. 

Hovering because I am too afraid to reach out and take a chance.

Because although this bunker and this...life is all I have known, it is familiar. 

And is it not our nature to stick with things that are familiar?

But let me ask you this. 

Are you afraid of death because it is the end?

Or are you afraid because it is the beginning?