A DEAD MAN'S WISH

September 8

Year 2034 AD

Athens Mediterranean Hospital

"Inject the narcotics. We're losing him!"

"Blood pressure is plummeting—73 over 42!"

"Push harder! We can't stabilize him like this!"

The voices were sharp, frantic, like daggers piercing the haze clouding my mind. I wanted to scream, to tell them to stop. But no sound came from my throat ,just a broken rasp. My body convulsed, every nerve on fire, as though I were being ripped apart from the inside.

"Stay with us! Get another unit of plasma, now!"

The world blurred around him, a symphony of muffled voices and the sharp, sterile smell of a hospital. Bright lights flickered overhead, their glow piercing his half-closed eyes. He lay motionless, his body sinking into the stiff hospital bed as a strange coldness crept through his limbs.

"So, this is it," he thought. "The end of my story."

The voices became clearer, snippets of hurried conversations and the rhythmic beeping of machines punctuating the silence. But none of it mattered. The weight in his chest wasn't just physical; it was the crushing realization of how it had all come to this.

It had been a stupid decision,reckless, impulsive, and so utterly unnecessary. He'd been in a rush, annoyed by the slow car ahead of him. Frustration had bubbled over, and instead of waiting, he'd swerved into the opposite lane to overtake. He hadn't even checked properly. The headlights of the oncoming truck had been the last thing he saw before the deafening crash.

Now, lying there, his body broken and his breath shallow, he could feel the regret seeping into every corner of his being. It wasn't just about the accident; it was his whole life.

Regrets.

He'd lived a life of half-measures, always putting off what truly mattered. Relationships he'd let slip away, dreams he'd abandoned, words he'd left unsaid. He had thought there would always be more time. More chances. But now, as the cold spread from his fingertips to his core, he realized how wrong he'd been.

"If only I..." The thought trailed off as a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over him. The edges of the world blurred again, and the noise around him faded into a distant hum. His eyelids grew heavier, the effort to keep them open becoming too much.

As the last warmth left his body, a single tear escaped the corner of his eye. Not from pain, but from the unbearable weight of his unfulfilled potential.

"beeeppppppp"

"-------------------------------"

"Time of Death 11:46"

"Patient Ilion Chronis Deceased"

...

Darkness closed in, vast and infinite. But somewhere in the void, just as his consciousness began to fade, a faint glimmer appeared

an almost imperceptible light.

And then, silence...

But silence did not last.

A strange awareness stirred within him, faint at first, like the distant echo of a forgotten melody. He couldn't feel his body anymore, nor the weight of the hospital bed. Instead, there was an unfamiliar sensation not cold, not warmth, but something otherworldly, as if he were suspended in a sea of endless possibility.

"Am I... dead?" The thought hung in the void, unanswered. There were no sounds now, no voices or machines, only an overwhelming stillness that pressed against him from all sides. And yet, he was still there, thinking, existing.

Time became meaningless. He had no way to measure how long he remained in that liminal space. It could have been seconds or an eternity. His mind drifted, fragments of memories bubbling to the surface. The laughter of an old friend. The warmth of a lover's embrace. The disappointment in his father's eyes. The bittersweet mosaic of a life that now seemed so far away.

Regret gnawed at him again, sharper than any physical pain. He'd wasted so much. The opportunities he hadn't taken, the people he hadn't cherished. It was a burden that felt heavier in this formless void, where there was nothing to distract him from the truth of his failures.

Then, out of the darkness, something shifted.

A flicker of light. Dim at first, then brighter, until it pierced through the void like a beacon. It wasn't the harsh white of hospital fluorescents but a soft, golden glow, pulsing gently, as though alive. He felt himself drawn toward it, not by any physical force but by a deeper instinct, an unspoken promise that this light held answers.

As he approached, the glow expanded, enveloping him. 

The void melted away, replaced by... something...else. 

The sensation of weight returned, his awareness grounding itself in a body that felt both familiar and foreign. He could feel a surface beneath him, cool and smooth, and the faintest whisper of air brushing against his skin.

"Open your eyes," a voice urged. It wasn't external but inside him, gentle yet commanding.

He hesitated. Was he ready to face whatever lay beyond? Was this the afterlife? Or something else entirely? The regrets still clung to him, but so did a flicker of curiosity, a fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the end.

Slowly, he obeyed.

His eyes fluttered open, and the world came into focus. But it wasn't the world he'd left behind. Gone were the sterile walls of the hospital, the fluorescent lights, the beeping machines. Instead, he found himself in a place that defied explanation.

The sky above was an endless expanse of shifting colors, hues of gold, violet, and azure blending and swirling like a living canvas. The ground beneath him was smooth and luminous, a pale surface that seemed to emit its own soft light. In the distance, strange shapes rose from the horizon structures that seemed to ripple and change form as he looked at them, never settling into anything recognizable.

A gentle breeze carried a faint, otherworldly melody, its notes both comforting and haunting. The air itself felt alive, charged with an energy that buzzed against his skin.

He sat up slowly, his movements cautious. His body felt whole, unbroken, yet there was an unfamiliarity to it, as though it wasn't entirely his own. He flexed his fingers, testing their responsiveness, and marveled at how real it all felt.

"Where am I?" he whispered, his voice trembling.

No answer came, but the light that had drawn him here still lingered, hovering just beyond his reach. It pulsed rhythmically, as though waiting for him to act.

He rose to his feet, unsteady but determined, and took a tentative step forward. The ground beneath him felt firm yet yielded slightly, like walking on a cloud. Each step seemed to bring him closer to the light, and with every movement, a strange sense of purpose grew within him.

He didn't know where he was or what awaited him. All he knew was the light, an anchor in the strange, shifting void around him. It offered no answers, only the faintest semblance of direction and he followed,

 lost and uncertain,

 but compelled to move forward.