NOVEL NEXT Chapter 65
Episode 65: What Lies Beyond Death?
What’s beyond death?
For ages, a thorn-like question has been stuck in my heart as the loyal servant of the Goddess of Life, and it’s been driving me absolutely bonkers.
What’s life born for, what’s it living for, and what’s it dying for?
The Mother of Life told me that I have to figure out the answers to those questions myself, so I’ve been rummaging through them like a kid in a candy store.
What is life, really? What about death?
What on Earth should I be living for?
After living for quite some time, my hands have turned into wrinkled old man hands, and my eyesight? Yeah, it’s starting to fade like a poorly made movie.
Everything about my body has been screaming at me that my time is running out.
The answer I finally arrived at after pondering for eons might be different from what others think, so I won’t spill the beans here.
Instead, I’m picking up the pen to jot down my thoughts on the afterlife as told by the Mother of Life.
I sincerely hope what I ramble on about might help someone out there.
…
Where there’s light, there’s darkness, and where there’s birth, there’s death.
Every living being goes through the cycle of being born, living, and then, yep, dying.
And when a living being reaches the finish line, its soul sheds the armor of the body. Too bad it doesn’t mean they’re free as a bird.
What’s waiting beyond that is a cold judgment that takes stock of one’s life.
The grim reapers, those soul collectors, are everywhere. They strut around in the dimness like the world’s most secretive harvesters, swinging their gigantic scythes while gathering the souls of the departed.
No soul can dodge their touch. Just like death, they’re as unavoidable as your annoying acquaintance who shows up uninvited.
There’s no spot on this planet without darkness, and those reapers? They can creep around anywhere there’s dark.
There’s no corner they can’t get to.
But they’re not exactly ice-cold. Apparently, they let folks drop a last word to their loved ones before making the big exit to the afterlife.
If they’ve got family around, they give them the strength to utter their final farewell. If no family? They let them cast their parting words through a dream.
They might even be nice.
But hey, don’t get your hopes up and rely on their kindness to extend your life a tad longer.
All they can manage is a word or two. If you’re wishing for more, that icy scythe is just going to get started on its harvesting.
Once the soul is caught in the grim reaper’s grip, it crosses an eternally chilly realm and eventually reaches the entrance to the afterlife.
Beyond that black rock door? Another world opens up.
After crawling through a cave made of dark stone and dodging the glaring eyes of the afterlife’s guardian statues, you come to a place so massive it makes you question whether any of that cave even existed: a gigantic river.
This river is so vast you can’t even catch a glimpse of the other side. It’s filled with inky black water, and the riverbank? Oh, it’s cozy with little pebbles.
This river, known by many names, is the magical divide between the land of the living and the land of the dead.
You can call it Samdocheon or the Styx River; both hit the nail on the head for a clear line separating the world of the living from the dead.
It prevents the living from accidentally crossing over and keeps the dead who have crossed from re-entering the land of the living.
That broad river? It’s the ultimate barrier.
As you stroll along this river, you might spot some small children hanging out on the bank.
These kiddos in the afterlife are the unfortunate souls who kicked the bucket before their parents got a chance to say goodbye.
Kids who died before their parents. Kids who never got to be adults. Kids who left a huge, emotional dent in their parents’ hearts.
These poor little ones can’t even venture down to the lower layers of the afterlife; they just hang out by the riverbank, staring into the abyss of the black river.
And you know what? In that river, they can catch a glimpse of their living parents’ faces.
Imagine that—these kids in silence, spellbound by the reflections of their parents in the water. It’s a heart-wrenching sight, even from the sidelines.
The kids can’t help but keep looking.
Their parents’ faces, still living in the mortal realm.
Their parents who are all sad and overwhelmed, grieving their lost child.
These children, teary-eyed while gazing at their parents’ reflections, unconsciously reach out to the river, only to find out their parents are just illusions, and their ripples just muddle the images even more.
While they mourn, they’re also silently cheering for their parents, wishing them well to overcome the pain and rise again.
And in those reflections, they eventually realize just how deeply their parents loved them.
The pure sorrow of the children—washed away by the river.
As time ticks on, these children, who’ve been staring at the river from the bank, suddenly rise from their spots.
The moment these kids finally leave the riverbank is when their parents show up in the afterlife.
When that time hits, the kids rush to their parents and grab their hands.
And then, off they go together to the lower layers of the afterlife.
Talk about a cruel setup! But for those little souls, who can’t even grasp life and death, it’s a necessary condition.
These poor kiddos who never got to live fully and become adults needed to know they were loved beings.
But… if those parents they’ve been waiting for end up being some callous beasts who don’t even shed a tear for their child’s death, or if they were horrible, abusive parents—if they ultimately led to the child’s demise…
Then…
If such parents try to push away the fragile little hand of their now-dead child upon arriving in the afterlife…
Well, brace yourself for a loud wail.
If the cries of the sorrowful child resonate across the riverbank, someone’s going to hear them and show up.
Enter the Ghost Mother, a woman originally from the East. She’s the tragic figure who lost her husband and only child at a young age and couldn’t stop mourning for her lost kid. In the end, she took in orphans but was consumed by rage after witnessing parents mistreat their children, leading her to tear those despicable parents apart.
Thanks to that little incident, she ended up executed for murder. But her vengeful spirit couldn’t leave this world. The Mother of Life, feeling sorry for her, took her soul and assigned her the task of watching over the children in the afterlife.
With a bamboo hat atop her head and her face hidden beneath a dark cloth, the Ghost Mother shuffles over, dragging a hefty blade along the ground, carefully wiping away the tears of the grieving child.
Then she grabs a hold of the neck of the parent that made the child cry and heads off somewhere.
It’s said that she slices that parent’s flesh until they genuinely regret their actions, reflecting on everything they’ve done wrong.
Even if their body is cold and only their spirit lingers, that parent suffers as if they’re still alive, squirming in agony while their flesh gets shredded. After all their flesh is stripped away, a part of it is forcibly stuffed into their mouth as they’re led down into the deeper sections of the afterlife.
But don’t get too worried; such parents are few and far between.
As for the kids who got to the afterlife before their parents? They’re still staring at their parents’ reflections in the river, hoping to see them soon—but wishing they would take their time and cherish the moment.
This first layer of the afterlife is there for these children and their parents.
The path leading down from this first layer? It lies just across the immense river; that’s why the grim reaper takes souls across by ferry.
At the old dock on the riverbank, you’ll find the only boat available for crossing, parked there, looking like it might sink any minute.
The boatman steering that rickety vessel? He’s a guy whose tongue has been cut out, so speaking isn’t exactly his forte.
Once a smooth talker, clever as a whip, he managed to trick the grim reaper who came to collect him, snagging an extra three years of life. Even after those years were up, he tried to fool the grim reaper again with his silver tongue.
But karma hit hard: his tongue got sliced away by the grim reaper’s black scythe, leaving him destined to be the afterlife’s boatman for eternity as punishment for his trickery.
While it’s a classic case of self-inflicted woes, following that event, the grim reaper’s time for offering to the dead shrank from “one more night” to “just enough time to say a word or two.” So it’s easy to imagine that many of the dead hold that boatman in contempt.
This boatman insists on collecting fares from the departed, but how can dead folks pay up when they’re broke? Strangely enough, they somehow pull out a tiny pouch from their clothes to cough up the fare.
What’s in that pouch? Oh, just the appreciation and thanks for any assistance they’ve given while alive!
So basically, every good deed done in life comes in handy for the afterlife.
If anyone’s been selfish, refusing to help others or proudly oppressing them? Well, they’d be left high and dry with no fare for the boatman. However, such cases are rare, so no need to sweat it.
But, if someone does pop up in that category… what kind of fate awaits them?
The Mother of Life has said nothing about this, so I’ve got no clue to share.
All I can do is wish that nobody out there has been a total slacker when it comes to lending a helping hand.