I keep thinking. This time, out loud. I get the sense he already knows what’s coming anyway.
“I felt… pain.”
He doesn’t react, but I keep going.
“Everything was distorted. Like the whole environment reflected back my thoughts, my emotions. Almost like it was breathing with me. The air would shift with every mood swing. Each time I panicked, the room pulsed. Each time I tried to ground myself, something responded. Every interaction made the world feel different. Like I wasn’t just in it— I was part of it.”
I pause. The words hang. “Heavy” doesn’t begin to describe it.
“But the whole time… it was like—like…”
He finishes it for me.
Smooth. Quiet.
“Your life flashed before your eyes?”
“Yeah.” I nod. That’s exactly what it felt like. He reaches to the center of the table. Picks up a pen I didn’t notice before. He drags it slowly across the table’s surface— not writing, just drawing a single line. Long. Intentional. Then he speaks:
“Some people see their life flash before their eyes, and then they land here. Some people land here— and only then do they see their life flash before their eyes.”
The pen stops. He sets it down gently.
“The order matters.”
He watches the line he drew across the table, like it’s still in motion.
“There are two versions of reality. The first—everyone knows. It’s the world you wake up in, go to bed in. The one that assigns value to your actions, teaches you right from wrong, shows you how to smile in pictures and say ‘I’m fine’ when you’re not. It has rules. It has gravity. It has Mondays.”
His voice is dry at the last word, like the hint of sarcasm came uninvited.
“This world—the one you’re in now— is the second. Built from your experiences. Your beliefs, dreams, fears. The concentrated aftermath of everything you didn’t say out loud. It defies physics because it doesn’t need. It runs on emotional combustion.”
He finally looks up. Not directly at me—just enough to feel it.
“Everyone knows—at least in theory—that both worlds exist. But the first is louder. Cleaner. Easier to explain. We live in an era where the second world can be completely ignored. Reflection? Growth? Introspection? Why bother, when there’s a screen in every pocket that can hand you someone else’s life to wear for the day?”
He talks like he’s thinking out loud, but the target is obvious.
“Now imagine—just for a second— you erase the sensations that bind you to the first world. No smell. No sight. No sound. Nothing to tether you back to the ‘known.’”
His finger pauses. The pen stills.
“Remove those anchors, and the brain begins to lose track of where the borders are. No verification. No reminders. Just thought, spinning inside thought, until the whole structure starts to drift. And slowly—inevitably— this
His voice lowers. Not a whisper, but something quieter than sound.
“Now, of course… that’s just theory. Usually, you’d just go crazy. “
There’s a flicker of something—amusement? Pity? It’s hard to tell under the hood.
“But you’ve seen it. Felt it. You’ve walked through its dust and silence. So now comes the real question.”
He lifts his gaze. Finally meets mine.
“You’re still in both. One foot in each. Why?”
The hum from the book grows again. Soft, but urgent. As if it’s waiting to hear what I think, and not just what he says. And for the first time, I wonder if I have an answer.
“Am I dead?” What a weird question to ask. I thought it the second the words left my mouth. Just the rarity of that sentence. Like saying it out loud made it real. He doesn’t even flinch.
“I don’t know yet,” he says.
“I guess it all depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“If you want to live or if you want to die.”
The words fall flat—no echo, no judgment. Just truth. Stated like a fact in a forgotten book.
“The fact that your brain brought you here already confirms that it comes down to this. One question. Simple as that.
“So tell me—how much of it was joy? How much of it wasn’t pain, or shame, or survival masked as personality?”
My chest tightens.
“Even your most ‘memorable’ moments… were they clean? Or did they wear the fingerprints of grief, self-sabotage, disappointment disguised as resilience?” “And yet—”
He gestures lightly, to the room, to me.
“Here you are.Still sitting. Still breathing. Still trying to find something to hold on to.”
He shifts forward slightly.
“So let me say what I see. You tell me if I’m wrong.”
The silence dares me to interrupt. I don’t.
“You know now where you came from. You remember the last thought you had before you landed here. The thing you wished for. The pain to stop.”
That lands hard. Not like a slap. Like a hand pressed to the chest—firm.
“But in here,” he says, “you could think. You started to see the pain, not as a fog, but as a thread you could follow. You don’t understand anything yet. But you started.And that—”
he leans back slightly—
“Is why you’re here.The feeling of dying took over. But the moment it did, you realized something you didn’t expect— you didn’t want to die. “But the life you built? The body you neglected? The self-destruction you nurtured like it was the only thing you could call your own? That was a choice. Conscious or not— it was yours. And now, your life’s reached a place where that choice might be taken from you forever.”
He studies me for a moment. Then asks, almost gently:
“Tell me… how accurate am I?”
I don’t answer. My face does it for me. I cry. Not because I’m weak. Not because I’m hurt. Not even because of how directly he spoke. I cry because every single word— every ugly, impossible, undeniable word— was true. More true than I’d ever let myself admit. Even to me. That’s what hit the hardest. Not just being seen— but being understood. And now… I understand too. I understand why I’m here. Not yet what I’m supposed to do, but at least the first shape of the truth is forming.
The Hood doesn’t move. He just nods once.
“Now you have to decide.”
He picks up the book—my book— and starts flipping through the pages. Blank. But not empty.
“If you decide to live,” he says, then listen to the book. Write carefully. Never lie.”
“If not…”
he shrugs,
“…then it doesn’t matter.”
The line he drew on the table earlier begins to glow. Just faintly. It pulls at my vision— magnetic, quiet, steady. A decision dressed up like a light. He presses the book into my hands.
Not a gift. Not a threat. Just a mirror.
“So?” he says.
“Which side is it gonna be?
Blue or red.
No or Yes.
Death… or life?”
