This is far more painful than I thought it would be. I expected to feel at least a little numb from dying. But this might be the most intimate I have ever been with pain. Can you imagine it? Feeling your spine slowly rip through the skin on your back? From top to bottom it feels like someone is sliding scissors through thick cloth across me. And every time I suffer for a breath the scissors pull away on the inhale. Then once more it goes ripping through my spine again on the exhale.

I had this misconception that a broken spine numb and paralyzed your lower half. But this was only half right of course. Seeing as I’m no doctor. But the other half of the knowledge seems to have eluded me until this very moment.

I feel everything.

Every crack of my ribs as the burning lumber above my stomach croaks deeper into my chest. I can't move my legs, but I do feel them burning. And the fire feels so cold it hurts. Oh man, this has got to be one of the worst ways to go. 

The smoke from my burning apartment is entering my lungs so fast. That every labored breath stings more, and more. The scissors keep creeping down my spine. I can feel my heart beat through the gushing blood pumping its way out to freedom. 

My hair just caught fire from the wood lamp on the mahogany floor. Two seconds and the fire is out. Three seconds until I feel the heat on my scalp. I can't even scream. It’s just that bad. 

What’s strange though is that I am standing in front of myself. I am watching my own suffering before me. But I guess I am really putting up a fight huh? Not too bad for me. Not bad at all.

I’m no longer breathing. And my skin is drying up. Crusting over as if I were a chunk of coal. But through some ominous power. I lift my head up once more. The final hoorah. My last fight. 

And as my neck cracks open, and my head falls off. I am transported. Far from the morbid view of myself fighting a battle I can't win. And into a lush green pasture. 

Rocks stand tall above. Huge, and standing up right. Other similar stones are placed neatly atop of the others. Forming a wide circle of stacked white stone. 

But I've seen this before…

“Is this? Stonehenge?” 

“Yes. Indeed it is. At least, such as your kind call it. Though it has had many names. Everyone but yours. lost to time, ” spoke a voice, soothing yet authoritative. Not a man, but also not like a woman, “ Your people once knew it well.”

My people?

“Hey… um, not to be rude or anything. Mister ominous voice sir, eh, ma’am. But, am I dead? Or, is this a dream?” 

The voice smacked its lips at me, “Um, you're dead.”

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“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, okay.”

“...”

“So what now?”

“... Is that really all you have to say?”

“No, I have other questions, but I feel like you won’t answer them if I do ask.” I shrugged, “You know?”

“No, I do not know!”

“Well, don't yell at me now. It Isn’t my fault that you don’t.”

“Uh! You dare speak to your god this way!”

“...”

“Oh! So now you show respect…”

“Wait.” I said, scanning the endless green field before me, “So… you are god?”

“That is what I said. Yes.”

“... Eh?”

“Eh… What do you mean, Eh!? I am your god!”

“Not my god. My god wouldn't burn me to death.”

“That was not of my design…”

“So if we are at the stonehenge. Does that mean you are some kind of druid god? Something, or other?”

“Don’t change the subject now!”

“Are you?”

“... no.”

“Hmm,” I said, taking a seat on a stone closer to a chair than a boulder, “Are you the christian god?”

“That is not what I would call myself.”

“Then what would you call yourself? I mean, out of all of the religions humanity has. Someone had to be right. Right?”

“I have no name to reveal to you. It is a mystery.”

“Yep, you’re christian for sure.”

“I am not!”

“Am too.”

“No, I am not! I tell no lies! Now be silent!”

“Fine.” I said.

“Now then, are you listening?”

“...”

“You may answer that question…”

“No.”

“No you are not listening, or no, you won't answer?”

“I don't like you.”

  “Fine then! Have it your way!” The voice shouted. 

Then a sudden clap of thunder rang through the sky, And the ground trembled as lightning struck the stone around me. It lit the stone aflame in a hugh of ocean blue, “I have had enough of you. And I can stand you no longer!”

“Look!” the voice shouted, “Deep within the portal of worlds you shall live a new life! This is your prize, young one!”

Before I knew it the green grass below my feet had become water. It swirled around, governed by forces beyond natural physics. 

And, I could see myself within it. But it wasn't me. I looked so different there. Yet, it copied every movement I used to distinguish myself from it. It was undeniably me.

But it was me in another world!

“This is me?!” I shouted.

“Indeed my child! You have only to step into the center of the water.”

Wading slowly step by step forward. Each step dragging me deeper into the portal. I was neck deep in the center when the voice spoke up again. 

“Prepare yourself, my child. For when you are reborn. You will have a new god!  Be they sinister or kind, you are no longer within my power to protect. I bid you farewell, and good luck!”

And no sooner than the final word fell from the sky. I was plunged deep within the abyss. 

Black water surrounded me. My skin fell from my body. Next my muscle, and finally my bones. Soon I was nothing but a mind. Just a ball of energy in a void. And far at the bottom of this void was a light. Light emitting a sound. 

The sound of crying. The sound of a baby.