Elijah
Darkness wasn’t what I expected death to feel like.
There was no cold.
No fear.
No agony clawing at my bones.
Just… lightness.
The unbearable fire that had ripped through my veins moments before slowly dulled into warmth. My body didn’t ache anymore. My lungs didn’t struggle. I felt untethered, as if the earth itself had released its grip on me.
Floating.
Weightless.
For a few stolen seconds, it was bliss.
Then I heard his voice.
Strong. Steady. Familiar in a way that reached into the marrow of my soul.
“Elijah, you don’t have much time, son.”
My heart—or whatever part of me was still capable of feeling—lurched.
“Dad?” My voice came out small, almost a whisper lost in the endless white. “Am I dead?”
He stood a few yards away, just out of reach. Exactly as I remembered
