Land of Light

A Short Story on the Afterlife

The rapid thumping of rain splashing against my car followed me as I drove home. Staying late at work wasn’t planned, but a necessity, yet I knew I’d be hearing about it later. Maybe that was why I chose a longer route home, letting the rain drown out my car’s radio that was set to a low volume. I always found the rain peaceful, even if it did make it difficult to see, especially at night.

Streetlights lit up the area, though the intensity of the rain made it difficult to see too far in front of me. I kept my speed ten over the limit, with plenty of cars going slower, some even faster. Safety wasn’t always the concern for everyone, though perhaps it should be. Everyone thought they wouldn’t be the ones to die for not being safe, even though they read about it in the news daily.

I, too, was one of those that felt untouchable. I never actively announced it or had thoughts of it, but I just couldn’t see myself being a victim of something like a car accident. It just seemed improbable to imagine.

That kind of thought process was why I didn’t see the car in front of me. The taillights were out or at least turned off, and I had approached the vehicle too fast. I was trying to veer away, but it proved useless as my tires skidded, momentum still moving me forward until I rammed into the back of the car.

Streetlights faded, allowing for eternal darkness to remain.

“Welcome,” a voice from seemingly nowhere resounded. It sounded male.

Realizing my eyes were closed, I opened them to the soft white light floating around me in the empty purplish void that surrounded us. I couldn’t tell where I was nor what produced the voice, so I spoke. “Who are you?”

“I am a Keeper,” the voice responded in a slow and neutral tone. Its low voice echoed around me. However, the voice had morphed into a female one, or perhaps there was more than one person here.

“What’s a Keeper?” I asked, confused.

A warmth washed over me as the voice spoke again, male this time but with a different accent. “I am a Keeper. We are the Holders of Souls. And it is time for your Soul to be held with us.”

I felt like I should panic over what I heard, but all I felt was a warming comfort. It didn’t feel real. It wasn’t me. “What do you mean, Holders of Souls?”

A woman’s voice responded as a cloaked figure with boney hands emerged from the void. “You are dead. A fatal car accident was the cause. We collected your Soul to bring back to our land, that of the Keepers. The Land of Light.”

“I’m dead?” I questioned, “Is this Heaven then?”

A man spoke, the voice of the first person I heard, coming from the same cloaked figure, “There is only the Land of Light.”

Nothing made sense. It all felt like a dream, or rather, a nightmare. All I had to do was wake up, but any amount of pain did nothing to save me.

“I’m too young to die,” I told him. I felt the panic rising in me, but my voice remained neutral. I sounded emotionless, but it was against my will. I didn’t sound how I truly felt.

“Everyone’s time is due,” the Keeper told me, “Through natural causes or not, everyone’s time is due. In the Land of Light, you can live out your existence for as long as you wish.”

“What do you mean?”

“The physical world, that of which you came from, is unstable. Weak. Leaving humanity and the other species in the physical world for too long proved hazardous. Our creation of the Land of Light corrected that mistake.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Humanity, among other species, could live indefinitely in the physical world,” the Keeper explained, “That proved problematic. The Keepers created the Land of Light to allow for your continued immortality as a Soul in a place that was built with species in mind.”

I remained silent, not believing what I was hearing, but not knowing what to say.

I didn’t know what more to ask, but my mind swirled with many thoughts to the Keeper’s words. It felt like a fantasy, like some sort of fiction writing, but here I was. And I already tried pinching myself.

“Come,” the Keeper said. “Let us guide you to the Land of Light.”

The boney hand outstretched towards me… and I took it without a choice. Light blinded me as I stepped into another reality I didn’t know was possible. A reality where I was left to my own devices, left to be free.

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