As I drove home from work in the middle of the night, a crying
woman covered in blood came running out of the forest. I saw her only
milliseconds before she left the thick grove of trees on my right. Her eyes
were wide and uncomprehending, her mouth open in a perpetual shriek. Her clothes
taunted rags, but otherwise she was beautiful and young. I only saw the
merest glimpse of her slender white leg before I instinctively turn the steering wheel all
the way to the left, trying not to hit her. At the speed
I was going, and with a constant rain falling down from the sky,
I quickly lost control of the car. I missed her by mere inches as
I swerved into the oncoming lane, where thankfully no cars were coming. In
slow motion, I saw the road pass by and then start to rise up
to meet me. As the car began to flip, I felt like I
was in the air for minutes, but in reality it was likely only fractions
of a second. Then the car landed the black pavement, rushing up to
meet me, and my vision turned to blackness. I woke up suddenly in
a white room. The walls seeming to be made of high intensity led lights.
It was so bright and white that it almost heard to look at them.
I squinted my eyes slightly, and they slowly began to adjust to the
overwhelming white light surrounding me. I stood up and looked around, rising off
a bed made of the same kind of light. Where am I? I
asked? No one answered. I began to walk forward, and a building
began to materialize around me. Suddenly, the white light all draining out of
the room, like water running down a drain. I was in a castle,
in the entryway, looking out massive black gated doors. I looked behind
me and saw the bed was just a bench with flat pillows inscribed with roses
and cherubs. The castle seemed to stretch forever in a straight line, hallways
with endless mahogany doors, disappearing to a point in the horizon. No one
moved in the rooms or hallways Outside. Birds chirped pleasantly, and a tropical,
sweet smelling breeze blew past me. I turned my attention back to the
front gate, deciding to go outside. As soon as I stepped outside the
shade of the castle, a blazing sun warmed me. I instinctively put my
arm above my eyes the dim the summer light. As my pupils constricted and
I was able to see better, I realized that the light of her head
was not coming from the sun, but many eyes looking down at me from
the sky. They all sent out some light of their own, brighter than
a full moon, but far dimmer than the actual sun. I could look
up at them and see them moving, their pupils, dilating and constricting as
each eye focused on something new. They stayed in constant motion, and there
were thousands of them, covering the sky with white sclare, gray, purple
and green irises, and constantly flicking pupils. As far as my eye could
see, those are the eyes of God. A voice behind me said,
I turned and saw a beautiful woman there, holding out her hands towards me,
green eyes that shone like emeralds, and a sweet, melodic voice that
instantly calmed me, you are in heaven. You did it, you beautiful
child. She came over and put a hand on my cheek. It burned
with a touch, sending waves of happiness through my body. As I looked
closer, I realized she had on platinum armor and a scabbard with an obsidian
sword handle sticking out of the top. Tiny diamonds and emeralds decorated both the
scabbard and the handle. This isn't like I imagined heaven to be, I
said, looking at the trees all around us. They were covered in silver
and gold, rising up hundreds of feet in the sky. They stood like
skyscrapers, swaying slightly to and fro as the tropical breeze blew the smell of
fruit and oce through the air. At the top, I saw what looked
like people moving around, flying, even but they were so high up I
could barely make them out even when I squinted. Well, the truth is,
she said, her smile widening from ear to ear, showing dozens of
sharpened, blood soaked teeth, her voice deepening and turning into a hissing gurgle.
God killed himself to make this world, in your world and everything in
between. She brought her other hand up, and now the waves of pleasure
I had felt were replaced with burning pain as she scratched me with huge talons
that had suddenly exploded out of her fingers. Her skin began to blacken,
with the eyes stayed green, expanding into circles of luminescent, very dissent light
between folds of black rotted skin. Massive black wings unfolded behind her, squirming
with millions of maggots that constantly fell to the ground, writhing as they tried
to return home. The smell of the wings made me gag, reminding me
of a combination of burning rubber and rotting roadkill. I screamed, clutching my
cheek and feeling blood running down it in rivlets. I turned, running away
from this monster as fast as I could. The eyes above me seemed to
move faster, as if they had been agitated. At that moment, four
people rushed down from the forest, waving swords and crossbows. They barely seemed
to notice me, focusing entirely on the female shape shifter behind me. She
hissed at them like a snake, sending her long forked tongue flicking out of
her mouth and pulling her glowing sword from its scabbard with a battle cry that
made my ears ring. She rushed forward, slicing off the head of the
man in front of me. I saw it fly across the air in slow
motion. The man's body falling to its knees. He still had a look
of surprise in his eyes when his head landed a few feet to the left
of his body and the tropical white sands of the ground. The others wasted
no time, using the distraction with the front sword wilding man to attack a
ferociously. One shot her in the neck with a crossbow, the bolt piercing
through and reminding me ludicrously of the bolts on the neck of Frankenstein's monster.
She screamed with rage and pain as another rushed her from the left, swinging
a massive broadsword at a jaw. Time seemed to slow down as the sword
connected, cutting through the skin of the monster easily. As it penetrated deeper,
sickly green light began to shoot out of the wound, and by the
time he had fully decapitated her, the light was so blinding. I could
no longer look. We have to go, a woman screamed, pointing up
to the tops of the massive trees. Looking up, I saw dozens of
flying specks, looking like an agitated hornet's nest. As they regrouped and began
to approach, I squinted my eyes. I realized they were more of the
black skinned monstrosities coming to the aid of the one this group of humans had
just killed. I doubted whether they would be able to help her, as
one glance at her body showed me her head hung on only by the spine
and the associated ligaments and flesh in the back of the neck. She didn't
move any more, and the sickening green light had all evaporated. The maggots
still swarmed, however, and voraciously began to move from the wings to the
rest of the body. The woman grabbed my arm, forcing me to run
it into the forest with her. The rest of the group was ahead of
us. I heard the shrill battle cry of the flying monsters landing behind us,
where the woods were growing thicker, and the constant sharp turns of the
leading members of our group would make it harder to find us. After a
couple of minutes of running, the shrieking and screaming, falling further and further
behind us, the man in front stopped. Suddenly, he opened up a
camouflage tunnel, pushing aside some with the silver leaves that covered the top of
it. The rest of the group jumped down. Then the man gestured for
me to jump down. The fall was only a few feet, and I
realized there were torches burning in a cramped tunnel. I walked forward, hearing
the man close the door and land just behind me, pushing me forward.
We quickly came to a round room with a massive, long table down the
middle of it. Dozens of swords, crossbows, daggers, and tridents covered
it. All seemed to glow with their own soft silver light. At the
nearest end, the table was cleared and chairs were set up around a steaming
pot. A chubby man ladled out bowls of delicious smelling stew, smelling of
mint, rosemary, potatoes and beef. He motioned for us to come sit
down and eat. I hadn't realized it until then, but I was absolutely
ravenous. They introduced themselves and we sat down to eat. They poured delicious
smelling wines from crystal pictures, and I ate the beef stew and drank red
wine as they told me everything. This is heaven, the chubby man said,
sitting down on the bench across from me and pouring himself a glass of
the wine. Or at least it used to be. This isn't heaven like
most people think of it any more. Remember, I don't know all of
this absolutely, but have heard most of it from the angels and the others
who have been here a long time, so at least most of it is
true. You mean that shape shifting monster, I began. He nodded.
Those are the angels. They have become rabid and evil over the last few
billion years. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Nearly fourteen billion years ago,
God killed himself to create the universe. He cut himself open and let
eternal amounts of mass, energy and consciousness pour out of his body, an
action which became known to us as the Big Bang. All of this matter
had nowhere to go within God's body, so it created our universe instead.
Now God dying isn't like you or me dying. You understand. God dies
very very slowly. It is like has been bleeding out this entire time.
But now he is truly close to death in our universe's time line, maybe
another thousand years at most, and he will be gone. Once he goes,
the entire universe as we know it will go too. It'll instantly turn
into blackness once the light of his consciousness no longer lights the stars and worlds
of our universe. These angels here. They got an idea that if they
fed the human souls in heaven to God's mouth, he would live slightly longer.
And it seems to be working. Every time they feed him a few
thousand souls, the heel slightly, but he is still dying. At most,
they might delay the end by a few centuries, but even that seems
doubtful. The man shook his face, his jaws shaking slightly. You can't
really die in heaven. Even if you get your head cut off, it'll
go back after a couple hours. But if they feed you to God's mouth,
then you do, in essence die. Your consciousness is digested by God,
and had is fed throughout his body, dissipating into the eternity within him.
So where is God's mouth? I asked, And all the people in
the room looked at each other, a sour expression on their faces. It
is at the end of heaven, the chubby man said, his eyes downcast.
It is a horrible thing to behold, trillions of gnashing teeth, endless
insects infesting it and screaming in unison. Since his body began to fall apart,
the insects of heaven have really begun to consume his flesh. I think
it is driving God insane. A lot of the terrible things in our world
might be arising from his insanity and dying, the wars, the mass killings,
but that is just speculation. I don't know that for sure. At
that moment, I heard a loud crash outside. Shouts and running from above
us made everyone deathly silent. Then the hidden trap door leading down here was
flung open, and angels began pouring down the opening, carrying glowing swords and
crossbows. They instantly attacked dozens more coming from behind them. They slashed that
the chef. He absurdly raised his wineglass in front of him, as if
that would stop the sword flying down towards his skull, but instead he cleaved
his face in two and he fell backwards. Within seconds, everyone except me
was moaning, dead or dying on the ground. I instinctively picked up my
wooden bowl, spilling stew all over myself on the floor. The angels began
to pull the hagged up bodies of the others they had murdered out, then
approached me. They're dead, black eyes, staring daggers at me as I
backed against the dirt wall on the hidden shelter, just as they had surrounded
me and one was raising his sword to cut me open. I began hearing
sounds that didn't fit clear again, he's waking up. As the sword came
down to my face, they suddenly opened my eyes my other eyes. Feeling
the cold, damp pavement beneath my body. I looked around and saw myself
surrounded by paramedics, a life style helicopter loudly descending one hundred feet further down
the road, I saw the woman who had run out in front of my
car in the back of an ambulance. I looked down and saw the wooden
bowl in my hands, still cleaved into by a sword, remnants of herbs
and source still clinging to the inside of it. Then I closed my eyes
and fell back asleep. The doctors at the hospital told me I had been
clinically dead for five minutes. Apparently the woman I had almost hit was the
latest victim of a serial killer. She had escaped from him and ran blindly
into the road out of mortal terror. I didn't blame her in the least
and was simply glad I hadn't hit her. I still have the wooden bowl
I brought back with me, and the slices of my cheek from that thing
I encountered. Once I get out of here, I want to send the
remnants of the bowl to a scientific institute to see what it is truly made
out of. I have a feeling it is not a kind of wood anyone
on earth has ever seen before the vision of heaven I had received was the
most disturbing thing of the entire experience. It truly changed my life, and
not for the better. I wasn't afraid of dying before, but I certainly
am now.