Michael's body ached for an instant. He felt like his whole flesh evaporated in a blink of an eye. Excruciating pain engulfed his entrails and insides as his eyes melt out of their sockets. But all of this was just for a split second. His cognizance drifted into the blackness of the abyss.

As his awareness wavered, his thoughts contemplated the age-old question: " Was there life after death?"

Ideas he had never contemplated before this incident struck him. Was he dead? But if he was, isn't death the cessation of life? Why was there consciousness? What is the mind? How did it all start? How did it begin? Where is he going?

He never gave this a sliver of thought before this incident as he deemed these things as metaphysical and pseudoscience. This event had shaken him to his core. Had recalled that his stubborn colleagues who tried to "enlighten" the masses by insisting the absence of any deity. Which, in his opinion, had no point as the math pointed to the basic belief in a god lowered the chance of cardiovascular diseases, lead people to contentment and an overall well being.

Even if they were right, it was inconsiderate of them to take those benefits away from the believers. He himself was neither an atheist nor a creationist, both sides of the argument had flaws. The only reason the media portrayed that the atheists were winning was because they were a united front with highly educated backers. The creationists were a very disorganised mob with many religions proposing different origins, and since it was so, they never made concrete arguments, and only the Christians were taking the beating because they were the most vocal about creationism.

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These thoughts kept passing, he was in an emotional state; he felt confused and agitated, and even fearful. What if Christianity was right? The popular belief of one suffering in hell as an unbeliever was running through his mind. He had read many books including the Bible but there was no mention of anyone enduring in hell-fire for an eternity. He could not bear the thought of being tortured forever.

Amid this panicked frenzy, he did not realise the warmth and cosiness that was clothing his torso. After the turmoil of thoughts that was bombarding his mind, he felt like he was being squished out. The sudden flow of cold air startled him because it still covered him in darkness and with the tumult of emotions, the immediate change of temperature and the frigid breeze engulfed his body.

Michael wailed and sobbed but a set of warm hands touched his sensitive and fragile body, a warmth enveloped his skin. He tried to move to flail his arms and open his eyes to no avail. He kept grieving; the urge for crying was overwhelming him. He felt so helpless and desperate. This was a foreign feeling for him, this incident had made him so frenzied and experienced nothing like this before. After all this commotion, he was still, and the darkness and silence surrounded him once more.