NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 001: Limbo
I was floating, suspended in an endless void, unsure where one thought begins and another ends (“Begin with the end”)
Being dead was a weird experience. I expected to feel some loss, but I felt a bizarre sense of liberation. I was finally free from my weak, ailing body (“Mhm, continue”), as if finally able to explore the world. Were the ghost stories correct? Would I haunt the hospice for as long as it stands?
Soon after my passing, I noticed I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. Nor could I sense anything. Not like a living person, anyway (“Insignificant. Proceed”). I still had an idea what was happening and I could – in a way – observe my surroundings. And I remembered.
I remembered being surrounded by wilful darkness, coiling around me and throughout me (“Interesting”), as if mixing with me (“Truly fascinating, but go back in time”).
I remember being chased around by beings of pure malice (“Further back”).
I remember being surrounded by cold darkness (“Go further. You are close”).
I remember hearing my doctor and my newest nurse, talking, in agitated voice. I didn’t like (“Stop. Talk about them now”).
He was quite old. I heard him talk about his grandson quite often. I envied him for many things (“Elaborate”). His long life; I never had a sliver of a chance to live even half as long as him. His family as well. I envied his happy marriage. I could never be a bride, like my previous nurse (“Stick to the doctor”) He worked with his son. I saw them merrily laugh together. I wanted that, too. My own parents were not bad people (“Focus on them for now”), they didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable, but I could feel (“Describe those feelings”).
Since I was a kid, I wanted closeness. Physical closeness. But my illness made me fragile and my parents afraid of touching me. Understandable, I was severely immunodeficient (“Noted”), but still… I wanted a hug. Even in the hospice… I just wanted a hug (“Describe what was the worst part about it.”). The worst was that I knew I was going to break their hearts when I die. I didn’t want them to suffer from loneliness, but it was inevitable. I could sense their pain, growing bigger and bigger, as time was slipping through my fingers. It turns out that knowledge of your demise does not prepare you for it. It does not prepare your close ones. It does not quell your yearnings(“Elaborate on that.”).
I wanted to touch. I wanted closeness. I wanted… intimacy (“Leave that line of thought for now and continue with other yearnings you have.”). I desired to run, to feel the wind in my hair. To feel the Sun on my skin. I wanted to go to the real forest. See the Aurora Borealis, with my own eyes. Swim in the ocean. Visit the desert. Climb the mountain, not even neceserally a very tall one. Having friends. Lovers. Family. Maybe growing old? But to grow old, one need to be young to begin with and I always felt as if I went straight from childhood into senility, with no time for reaching my prime (“Interesting observation. One that could only be reached by someone horrendously ill. Focus on the disease for now”).
I… I felt overwhelming sense of wrongness. I could remember bits and pieces, but… I weirdly couldn’t remember much about my sickness. It seems I forgot its name, most of the symptoms, the procedures I undergone… but not wholly. It’s confusing. Are there other parts of my life I lost?! Like… my parents… their names… what are their names?! How do they look?! Why I can’t remember (“Calm down. Hmm… It seems those are the parts of her memories that were severed… Typical, emotions are bound to souls more closely than facts after all. However, those specific memories seem to be removed, at least partially, consciously. That’s atypical. Remember your physical and mental pain and what caused it. At least try doing it.”)
It was a bizarre feeling. I was able to fully experience my pain and anguish, but had only vague memories, fragmented and shattered, about what caused it. I REMEMBER MY HUMILIATION. I REMEMBER MY SUFFERING. I REMEMBER LOSS OF MY OWN SIGNIFICANCE (“Stop. Think about procedures”). I knew I had some operations, some… procedures done to me, but lack of memories confuses me. I know I’m looking into something that does not exist anymore… And it pains me. It’s making me mentally tangled. I don’t understand, but… I feel strangely at ease, not remembering the worst parts of my human life (“Proceed towards good memories. Like hobbies”).
My greatest pleasures were always books, anime and video games. I loved stories they told me and places they showed me. I especially enjoyed fantasy, specifically – the often dreaded isekai. I could understand the distaste some could feel about the genre, as it can be pretty ridiculous, but for me? I appreciated even the most mundane, stupid or outlandish stories. I dreamt many times about being reborn myself (“What a coincidence”), even with no functioning superpowers, but with fully functioning, healthy body. I imagined myself as characters in the books or films, not even necessarily as main character, but often as a random Tavern Owner no 5: The Kind, Middle Aged Lady With a Husband And a Daughter; or Village Huntress no 3: The Young, Energetic Short Girl With Pet Owl; or Librarian no 13: The Bespectacled Ice Queen, Elder Sister Of 7 Brothers; or Background Female Knight no 7: The One Always Training With The Background Male Knight no 9: The Freckled One (“How particular for something so trival; move on”) I would play a game and live life I could not. I remember fondly especially various life/job simulators, along with visual novels, RPGs, MMORPGs and other games with good or interesting plot. Or just slice of life elements. The games with customizable main character were especially high on my list, allowing me to basically create myself and immerse in much needed for me escapism. They also would fulfill much of my social needs (“Good. Ponder on that”).
I was flooded with memories. Of countless hours spent with my online friends, both in games and on forums. Of raids, where I participated not primarily for loot, but for companionship. I remembered various fun activities with them. Like officiating a wedding in game. Or playing that weird variant of football in game. And how we played tag, after I told them about my condition and how I wanted to play it, even though I couldn’t. There were countless more of them, all coming to me, one after the other and all at once. Those were ones of the best times I had.
But not in my final months (“Explain”).
After I moved to the hospice my time spend on using most of electronics was significantly limited. Apparently, there is an odious amount of microbes living on our electronic devices. So while I could use, for example, a TV relatively easily with the help of special remote, my computer was out of the equation. And while my previous nurse had quite good taste in anime, so I never had nothing to watch, and I could still call my friends… my gaming days were over (“Further continuation of this line of thought is futile; swich to the final week”).
My final week... I cannot remember what happened, but my condition started to worsen very rapidly at that time. However, my memories from that time are hazy and fragmented (“Mhm, so they were also severed. Focus on emotions”). I felt… fear. Injustice. Pain. Regrets. And… guilt?!
Then it hit me. I did something wrong. I caused pain, at scale, for someone I loved. For… my mom? I remember her crying. Did I say something?! I said something hurtful to her… to them. To my parents. Something I cannot take back, but… I hurt them, in a way that filled me with regrets, pain and guilt. It might have been our last talk, even. Why did I do that? Hmm… There was someone else (“Elaborate.”)… a priest. A priest, who tried to talk religion to me. To convince me, that my unjust suffering was a part of some sort of ‘divine scheme’ or other bullshit. It infuriated me. Any god who brings such pain willy-nilly or – even worse – intentionally, is not a benevolent being, worthy of worship, but a sadist, worthy of scorn. But I took it out on my parents. I blamed them and said so many vile things to them… Is this my punishment? (“No. Anyway, I have what is needed. For now, immerse yourself in memories”)
I couldn’t tell for how long was I this state of flux. The flow of time is confusing when you are dead. My memories, my emotions, my feelings were flooding me, all at once and one after the other. It was such a bizarre experience… It felt as if fire spread all over my being. At the same time I felt longing to run, remembered how a wolf – my favourite animal – hunts, and knew how to stalk my prey. I felt RAGE at THEM, while not remembering who those DEMONS were. I remembered watching kung-fu films with my dad as a child, and how mom would scold him for that. I knew moves in them were quite redundant and exaggerated; in real fight one must not waste any move nor energy.
It was hilarious to me, how my mind was skipping from my childhood memories, to online talks with my friends; from vestiges of SCORN AND PAIN, to feelings of pain and hunger; from watching high school drama to differences in Northern Orezemjan dialects; from differentiating various smells on a trail, to my dream of swimming in the Ocean; from cravings of REVENGE, to cravings for chocolate ice-cream; from pain of growing tail, to my mom’s rare smile; from my online friends antics, to my dad’s voice; from plot my favourite stories, to recognizing edible berries; from being given medicine, to the feeling of being submerged in sticky liquid; all at once, all mixed up, but in sequence nonetheless.
And so, I was suspended in this state of limbo, with no way to measure time, with every second being the same but also different, for what felt simultaneously like years and seconds. Until I remembered the voice of my doctor, calling out to me.
"(“Wake up”), Kora!"
And I woke up.
