When a man's body falls to the ground in an unremarkable manner, whether by accident, murder, or illness, his thoughts fly from the present. Unconsciously, he seems to have accepted that his existence no longer has any value as a person. Once his body finds itself beyond the point of no return, what point is there in thinking among the living? The final moments of brain activity are spent thinking only of himself, not his friends, family, or job; none of that matters anymore. Who he was will stay that way for as long as people can remember his name.
"What happens next? The thought of a man on the verge of death comes as the final strength he can gather before his body falls into an eternal sleep on a bloody mat. He felt more relaxed than he’d ever been in his entire life.
It was like falling asleep in a lounge chair after a good movie. Throughout the film, he felt agony, embarrassment, happiness, and sadness, but as the screen blackened, he was left with only a fleeting sense of comfort.
His body froze to the ground as he let go of the final organ still in operation—his mind. Cradled by the earth below his head, his fleeting memories acted as a nice recollection of life. The people he met and the goals he set for over thirty years, problems and all, he realized at the end of all times that none of it mattered more than this moment: the ending.
The light within him faded like a candle on its last wax. The brief dream, set with a slideshow of his fading recollection, moved into darkness.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
"Wake up!!" The intense voice of an older woman pierced his ears.
The screams resounding all around him came to a shuttering stop. Like putting a muzzle on a growling dog, the crowd of thousands and their thundering cheers seemed to have vanished.
— !
For an instant, he felt like time had paused within him.
Lying on the ground like the man waiting for death, he found something contradictory. The slow walk towards darkness he felt, even during unconsciousness, disappeared as fast as it became his unchangeable reality. He felt, rather than decomposing, as fresh as before he stepped into the ring.
"You’ve healed all his wounds, right? Why won’t he wake up?"
The woman with the raspy voice spoke again, even more worried than before.
— Healed?
His body still lay dispersed on the ground, mimicking the way they dumped themselves flat on the mat after snapping earlier. Had she told him three minutes earlier he could stand perfectly, he'd have thought ill of her mental state, but it was definitely true something was off about his "dying" body. Rather than intense agony and slow torment, he felt silly, not to mention that he was perfectly conscious and aware of his surroundings.
He felt rather unsure of himself. Laying on what felt like hard rocks or concrete, he could only ask himself, "Who am I? It was true that some kind of miracle happened and landed him here in a completely healed body—and even in another place, based on the drastic differences in the ground’s rocky feeling. Yet he felt unemotional about the idea of returning to the world of the living once more.
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If he were truly somewhere else, possibly millions of miles away from the people who were a part of his life and witnessed his ending, he wouldn’t be able to accept this life. He was someone who enjoyed the calm limbo of thoughts after finishing a good movie. After the cruel, unending strife and hardship of his own movie, why wouldn’t he be allowed to rest? The human definition of death is the peaceful thought of not having to care anymore about the sentiments of life. Death gave meaning to what happened in life. They were opposites of each other for a reason.
In reality, if the meaning of dying was a cruel joke and mockery of itself, every man and woman who walked the earth respecting the life given to them on whim would be walking through a paradoxical lie. Every life, no matter how treasured or trashy it was, would be considered nothing in the grand scheme of things. Every achievement, struggle, or family would be erased as you started another somewhere; morals would have no value; technological advancement would have no value; soldiers’ deaths would have little meaning. Taking life seriously would be like acting in a movie over and over again.
If he opened his eyes now and saw another person after dying, it’d be an insult to everything he believed as a human being. Everything—even the consciousness he feels now—he accepted as some sort of delusional nonsense his brain jammed together on his deathbed.
"—! Goddammit!" He screamed out suddenly.
A sharp pain in the gut. He’s taken hits by many men, in training and in fights, but that was truly painful.
A trained man could take a punch anywhere on his body; even a right hook from a man with an unparalleled punch was at least manageable for the first two or three times after training your muscles like hell. Thankfully, there were limits put on the strength of a single man. So, even superhuman-like opponents couldn’t destroy a trained fighter’s brain or mess with the structural integrity of a man’s guts with ease. It was why fighting was even considered a sport in the first place. If you could destroy someone’s skull with a single punch, as if you had an actual hammer strapped to your fists, a lot fewer people would even consider stepping into the ring.
Clutching the indented spot on his belly where a footprint left its mark, he bawled his eyes out. He hadn’t felt pain like this since he was a child training with his father. His guts screeched at him like he’d just tried to digest glass shards. If there had been anything inside his belly, it would
have been regurgitated with a swift motion, but instead he was left gagging on air, trying to use breathing exercises to calm down.
But most importantly, he’d opened his eyes.
A tall man covered in tattoos from his face to his hands stood in front of him, wiping his boots down with a rag from his pockets—he was definitely the one who curb stomped him. The woman next to him was more or less the same: covered in tattoos, wearing a filthy black jacket and old, ripped black jeans. The only difference lay in their race and hair color. The tall man had dyed pink hair and a Mexican-looking appearance and hair type. The woman had green dreads and seemed to be African-American. They were definitely going for a punk aesthetic.
They seemed to scorn him as he assessed them with his tear-filled eyes. He wasn’t sure what to think of the two; their clothes told him they were troublesome, and their unenthusiastic eyes told him they might try to hurt him once more.
Vehemently, he stood on his own two feet in case he needed to defend himself.
He gazed down at his own wound and felt the shock of its throbbing pain course through his new body once more. The same question seems to break his paused thoughts.
Who am I?
He couldn’t be the same person twice. He couldn’t live twice, either. These memories floating through his skull felt real, but everything he knows about life denies the suggestion that death is a hypocrisy in itself. One of the two lives must be a fantasy.
"Welcome to insanity, buddy.