Death isn't what people make it sound like, the dramatic end of your old life where, in the last moments, before you even close your eyes and succumb to your death, is where you relive the memories, regrets, and desires that one had.
If I didn't know any better, I would have believed that too, but here am I.
Dead.
And I don't think I had all those things that I have counted, and that's coming from a person like me, someone who lived his whole life as what one may say a Grimm Reaper, because I used to kill people for a living, and I was the best at it.
But those days are gone, since I find myself in this situation where I wonder for who knows how long, waiting to be met halfway by the people who will guide me to the place I'm supposed to be going to. But if I'm honest with myself, I really know better than to expect a beautiful harmonic song sang by people dressed in white, and see the golden gate open for me, and a beautiful lady that seems out of this world welcome me in.
With all the things that I did while I was alive, I'm beyond repentance, so I expected the other place.
I don't even remember what happened to me when I took my last breath, and the memories of what caused me to leave my world at an early age of thirty-two, but I'm guessing it has to do with something like me wanting to retire because I've finally found happiness. And though I didn't have an ideal model family life while I was growing up, for my family I was determined to give them the best life they deserved.
Funny enough, I don't even remember my last job, but one thing I know and remember very well is that in this job of mine, once you are in, you're in it forever, and the only way out is none other than death itself.
So I'm guessing it's either after tormenting poor families for so long, I finally met my match, but now that I think about it, there is no way in the whole world there is a single person that can kill me. I once killed an entire Yakuza clan on my own, even their overfed big babies.
So my death must have been done by my own organisation, but who will have the courage of trying to take my life, because not even my handler had that kind of courage to do so, or at least try, not after I killed my old handler because that guy was starting to get on my nerves.
Yes, I've accepted my fate, and I know I deserve it, but I still can't help but feel like I need to know the truth, because from what I know in this game, once an assassin chooses a normal life, they strip him or her of everything, and by that I mean they kill every single person who made them want to be a better person.
And if I'm correct, since I'm also dead, there is a possibility that since I'm no longer a threat, they will kill my fiance and my unborn child.
Since I didn't want any of that to happen, I had told myself that when I get to the fiery pits of hell, I'll find a way to make the people living down there, the maintenance staff, to show me my family. And after they show me the bastard who not only took my life but is also bound to take the life of my family, it's honorable that way.
By now, I'm sure I should have arrived at my destination, but I've been floating for hours and hours in this dark tunnel, and it doesn't seem to shorten. It stretches wider than it was just a second ago.
"Is this really the end for me? Am I really that unwanted that they are going to leave me floating in this never-ending torture of screams?" I thought to myself.
The dark tunnel didn't seem like the normal dark tunnel that one would have to go through in order for them to see the light in the end. I myself didn't expect to see the light. I was expecting to see a hot, fiery explosion consume me the second I got even closer.
The tunnel was full of screams, screams of which I believe belonged to my victims. I may have killed maybe close to a couple of thousand people, but I still remember each and every one of their screams, and I don't have to remember their faces, because even this milky-way-looking tunnel didn't reveal their faces, just only their shadows.
It felt like I was in there for hours or possibly days, so I listened and listened to the torturing screams, though if I'm being honest, to me it didn't really do the thing that it aimed to do. It was music to my ears, and I know me saying that makes me sound like a monster. Well, I know I am one, and that's something I've known for a very long time.
As I was going through the never-ending tunnel of screams, as I went to the next part, the screams were getting quieter by the second, and I was now hearing a different scream, a scream that I know very well doesn't even belong to one of my victims. This scream was definitely from a woman, and by the sound of it, she was in pain.
Unlike the first screams, hers was quite different. She would stop and pause in mid-screams, then maybe after a second later she would scream again, and this time around it sounded more painful than the last one.
"I really hope that's not my fiance. Have they gotten to her already?" I asked myself, now feeling a little bit worried.
She screamed again, and just like the other screams, this one was even more painful.
"No!" I tried to run towards that scream.
Honestly, I don't even know what I was trying to do, because I was already helpless, so I wasn't going to do much to help her.
As I "ran," I was starting to see something at the end of the tunnel flickering like a light going on and off, a shimmering bright white light that seemed to be welcoming.
"What is that?" I tried to calm myself and slowed down.
But as I stopped, it seemed like I was already a little bit too late, because I was now being pulled towards that light that each second became brighter and dimmed at the same time.
"Okay, we are almost there. You have to do it one more time!" An unseen voice said, but from the sound of it, it was definitely a woman.
The woman who screamed and the woman who spoke were completely different people, and that was easy to tell. So now I understood that the person doing whatever I thought and had made myself believe was a woman.
"Damn it! It's my apprentice." I gritted my teeth.
The woman kept pushing, and maybe pulling, I guess, because somehow every time she pushed, I would get closer to the light, and every time she stopped, I would get a little further away from the light.
"What the hell is happening?" Now I was completely confused.
"One more time, I can completely see its head. Push!" The woman said again.
Though I had no idea what the hell what was all that I can see its head thing, but it must have given the woman who was screaming in pain the push she needed, because she screamed, pushed, and gave her all.
As for me, I got pulled into the light forcefully and got sucked in.
The light was blinding, and for a second I wasn't able to see anything, but I did hear voices talking. They were different voices from different people, and they all sounded near, a bit distant at the same time.
My sight was now getting back to me, thank the heavens for that, and since it was a little bit blurry, I couldn't see anything clearly yet, but I did see people changing, and I could feel myself being handed to the next person.
"Oh wow, he's beautiful," another woman's voice said in an admiring tone.
"And he looks exactly like both of them," a different woman said.
"You're right. He has his father's good looks and his mother's beautiful mischievous smile, hair, and those eyes," the first woman complimented.
The woman who was screaming was not part of these two, and I could tell right away, because I felt so disconnected with them. Like when they were touching me, I wanted to cry.
Which I did, and I let out one loud cry that sounded more like a siren.
"Ooh, okay, go to mommy!" The women were now trying to calm me down.
They handed me to a completely different person, and the second my body touched her arms, I felt this warm feeling, like this was where I belonged and this is where I should feel safe, so I stopped crying.
And by the time my vision cleared, that's when I got a glimpse to see who that person was, and right away, because of her smile, I knew who she was.
"Hey there, little fellow, welcome to the world." Her eyes were getting watery.
As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew exactly where I was, and I knew exactly what it meant.
"I've been reincarnated." So I let out a blaring cry.