"Death is the terrible and secret fate of all life, you are trapped in a nightmare in which you keep waking up."

POV Kévin

When my organs began to stop working and explode it reminded me of the pain of when my bones were shattered in an instant. The rocking, horrible, instantaneous sound accompanied by a sharp pain running through my limbs my body collapsing heavily to the ground. As the pain made me scream like a beast in agony, pinned to the hot, burning ground and unable to move. As my eyes met those around me who, upon seeing me, felt pity or fear, making me a beast in a Zoo. Except that instead of a comedy show, this one was tragic.

While I wanted to ask them for help, only my cries of pain were able to come out. A moment that I never hoped to live again in my life, but after a long moment of calm it was my organs' turn to torment me.

The first organ to explode being my genital organ, I remember a sound like when ice breaks. And after a few seconds of incomprehension my brain understood what had just happened, my pants filling with blood. I then screamed even louder than when my bones broke holding my crotch that burned like I was literally being burned with real flames. I gathered all my strength to be able to call someone this time.

"Mom!" I then shouted.

She ran over and saw the blood and knew that something was happening to me again. She called an ambulance without wasting a second, and I was hospitalized. My organs then failed one by one over several months causing pain that I had never imagined before. Extremely painful? No, it went far beyond that, it was torture in a great torment, an agony that had no end. As if thousands of stab wounds were inflicted on me every second, causing a sensation of intense burning. Irradiating all my limbs, causing involuntary muscle contractions for hours and days. However, I tried to keep smiling for my loved ones to tell them that I was fine, that I was going to make it. But above all, I tried to avoid seeing them cry and to see them suffer even more when they saw my own suffering.

This ordeal for me and my loved ones lasted 3 long years, at the end of which the pain and noises finally stopped, feeling myself falling into a void, my eyes plunged into the dark, feeling at peace. But even in this peace my mind kept questioning, where was I falling? Where was I? Why had the pain and noises stopped?

Unable to see even my own body, unable to move it. Then I remembered, snatches of memories, voices, images. I was lying in the hospital bed in pain despite all the drugs they were putting into my body to make it hurt less. The hunters and the machines trying to keep me alive while my organs were failing me one by one causing intense pain each time. But despite all the pain breaking my body and my mind fighting the pain. There was something I could hold on to I could feel the presence of my mother and sister.

The warmth of their bodies, I could feel them from time to time on me, kisses on my forehead, laying on my chest, the warmth of their hands on mine. The sound of their voices came to me in bits and pieces, telling me different things: hang on, fight, if you survive, we can go out, play, eat ice cream together.

"Ah, how I would love to go for ice cream with you." I thought.

But everything suddenly stopped and I tried to call my mother, but no sound came out. The only thing within my reach was blackness and the feeling of floating, falling with no end in sight. I was trapped in a place where there was no light, no sound, a dark abyss whose contours and bottom were not visible.

"So this is death."

That was the conclusion I had come to, as my body continued to fall into this infinite dark abyss. I lost myself in my thoughts about what I had experienced and what I had done to my family. Maybe if I hadn't been born, they wouldn't have suffered so much. The bruised look and the tears of my mother and sister, but at the same time I remembered their warm and joyful smiles when I was healthy. The cinema, with its popcorn and movies that worked my imagination, the outings, especially the one to the aquarium where we could walk underwater while watching the fish. Sports, with my sister and my classmates, where I could run until exhaustion the joys of victory and defeat. All those short moments of happiness that will never come back, me never being able to grow up with my family. And my father who had not been there for my last moments preoccupied by work more than by the health of his sick son.

Perhaps I was too much of a burden for him, one of the few memories I have with him being a walk in a beautiful park. Where we saw all kinds of animals and ate cotton candy sitting on the fresh grass. At the end of the day, as the sun was setting, he held my hand. While this rare moment, spent with my dad had been a blessing, I suddenly told him I loved him.

"I love you dad."

He then stopped as the crowd was also moving toward the exit, then turned around before kneeling down. My eyes opened wide as facing me, my father was in tears, then hugged me tightly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Said my father with his voice weak and filled with a palpable sadness.

And that's how that day, ended and my father, became even more distant from the family and from me.

While continuing to sink in all my questioning, all my doubts, all my experiences, one after another surfaced in my head. Everything linked and followed by memories, emotions, sensations, going on and on. Then with time, it became more and more difficult for me to concentrate on my thoughts and even the notion of time escaped me. Without the slightest reference, the slightest sound, without anything, my mind started to drift little by little.

Time was running out, a time of which I had no more notion, I did not even know how much time had passed here. 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year I had no idea and the more it went on the more my mind sank and the more I sank the more my mind became disordered. In a survival reflex I started to count and make simple additions like :

 - One plus one equals two.

 - Two plus two equals four.

- Three plus three equals six.

- Four plus Four equals eight.

- Five plus Five equals ten.

Then, as I repeated the operation, it started to become more and more difficult. Each calculation, no matter how easy, required an inhuman concentration and after a long time it seemed like an eternity. I made my first mistake, a mistake that became multiple mistakes. My mind was now unable to do what used to be so easy, and the more I tried the more the drift turned into madness very slowly.  A fog was gradually forming in my head, stress was increasing, while my concentration and vigilance were decreasing. All this added up, a deep anger manifested itself against myself unable to solve such simple calculations. I then shouted with all my strength in rage but no sound came out, I then shouted even louder with the same result.

And this, repeated again and again, from rage I went to sadness, but none of my sobs could come out. So I started to lament my fate. Why was I here? Did I deserve this? Isn't death supposed to be a rest and not a torment?

And so, I finally also started to feel the urge to sleep as if my mind was trying to protect itself from the madness that was slowly creeping in. But that's when the worst happened, when I realized that I was unable to do so. Despite being in complete darkness, sleep was running away from me like the plague. And the more I tried to sleep in vain, the more I felt that my poor 10 year old mind was now reaching its limit.

"Please help me!"

But here the only person who could hear my cries for help was myself. Sleep, anger, stress, distress, loneliness, and fear mixing together to form what we call despair.

And I started screaming, shouting, calling for help again, again, again, again, again and again.

"Help me! "Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me! "Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me! "Help me! Help me! Help me!"

My mind, starting to go to pieces, the cries for help mixing with nervous, chilling, psychotic laughter.

"Please! Please help me! Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! What the... Ahh! Save... I... What a hell ! Somebody help me, please."

My mind plunging into the meanders of despair beginning to embrace madness. And then black smoke, so black and thick that it could suffocate me began to gather in front of me. After a while, it completely took shape, forming a humanoid being that made my blood run cold. Looking into her, I lost myself in the darkness that made her being the tangible manifestation of an unearthly decay. Evoking the unknown, the mystery, the anguish, the search, the ignorance, the anguish, the terror, the loneliness, and a chaos of infinite darkness. My broken mind was terrified, but madness having established abode and this thing being the only thing cutting me off from loneliness. 

I quickly welcomed its heavy presence with open arms and mentally visualized myself being able to touch it. Raising my arm and then my index finger and as if it could know what I was thinking, this thing did the same. Our index fingers touching then the dark darkness of this thing poured into me. I could feel at that moment an extreme heat and cold of opposite things and as it poured my body until then not visible began to materialize. It was as if she was creating a whole new body for me to exist in this dark, bottomless void.

Before my body was fully restored, I thought I heard a voice, it was dark and chilling and powerful so much that my body began to shake.

"And so by this first decent into the abyss, the black work continues its course." (???)

The blackness then slowly disappeared as my eyelids opened I saw my mother and sister looking at me in amazement as their eyes moistened. Hugging me in a soft, warm embrace.

13 days was the time I had entered death and when I had come out.

"The LORD kills and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol and raises up." 1 Samuel 2:6