Afterlife. Various religions have various beliefs on what would come after death.

Some said, there would be another world waiting, some said there was heaven and hell, or an endless yellow river. But no one returned back to verify the truth.

In the boundless darkness, there were countless small dark spots the size of grains flowing. If one could see, then it would be like a river of sand flowing, like the desert was moving. But those dark spots could not be seen, not by anybody. It was like wind, which can only be felt. They were souls of the dead without consciousness, without emotion, without feeling but only memories,memories which were fading away to form empty spots, to become empty containers as fresh as new.

Most of the dark spots were quiet as the dead, but some had sounds coming out of them, gibberish noise, like a broken radio which couldn’t get proper signal. In time, those sounds would also stop. But there was a peculiar one among them which kept repeating the same two words over and over without fading.

“can’t.. die.... can’t.. die.... can’t .....” same two words without any change. In fact, if there was someone checking for a long time then they would notice the sound of these two words becoming more and more clear. It sounded like someone was chanting a magic spell. It was the soul of the same boy who died in an unfortunate accident on earth, the soul of Patrick.

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This was the soul plane, a plane which acts as a bridge for souls, and the dark spots were souls. The souls in soul plane were infinite, it would never change no matter if the souls were removed or added.

Living beings cannot sustain themselves, even if a perfect human body was formed, it would need soul to be alive. At birth, the soul would be empty but slowly, over time, it would learn, grow, store memories, create a persona and such. Everything a person is becomes their soul. After death, the souls go to soul plane and merge with the endless ocean of souls where they recycle to become empty vessel. When a life-form is conceived, it would attract an empty soul from the soul plane and gain sentience.

Countless souls were flowing in the soul plane, never ending river of souls. Like Patrick’s soul, there were few other souls which were abnormal, some were smaller, some were larger, some were quiet, some were speaking, but each of these were uniquely abnormal. Nobody knew what would become of the person who were born with these abnormal soul.

More and more souls were coming to soul plane, being recycled and leaving the soul plane again. There was no concept of time in soul plane, so everything was happening in the moment. It could be million years or one second outside but it was the same moment in soul plane.

At a certain moment, there was a pull, Patrick’s soul which was flowing in soul plane reciting the same two words was pulled. A gentle tug, the soul started going to the side instead of flowing with the current. It was at that time, there was a sudden change in the soul.

“can’t.. die.... can’t.. die... ..............”

“FWOOOSH!!”

“I......... can’t ... die”

“PUAAK”

The soul which was Patrick in its previous life was gone, vanished from the soul plane, to who knows where, to be born as new.