I sighed, checking my watch one last time. Accepting she wouldn't show up, I stood up to leave. As I stepped toward the door, black-clad figures burst into the restaurant. A dark muzzle pointed at me while someone yelled to get down, to kneel, but my legs wouldn't bend.

  My hand jerked to disarm the one in front of me, pulling my head out of the barrel's path. Then came the explosive clap of a gunshot, sharp pain spreading through my head from one side, and the incredulity that flooded my senses. It wasn't the one in front of me that fired—it came from the side. I lost to... numbers.

  A brief muffled sound of shrieks and panicked shouts as my mind faded. Gone. Shattered into smithereens as darkness took over and coldness swallowed me.

  I found myself floating, or I think I was floating. Perhaps I was falling. My mind struggled to understand what was happening to me. Bits and pieces of my consciousness slowly condensed back together.

  I tried breathing in, but nothing happened. No ribcage expanding, no... nothing. And it was quiet—absolute, undisturbed silence. Could I still hear? Or were the surroundings silent?

  Evan. Evan Cole. The name flashed in my consciousness. As more memories surfaced, I finally let my mind wander to the surroundings for a bit. Lights, clouds, colors moved by... Flashes, stars, glittering dust... swirls of color colliding, changing, transforming. All passing by me, parading in an unending spectacle.

  Or perhaps I was moving past them. No way to tell with nothing stable to use as reference, but that wasn't as important as the next discovery. Am I even seeing? I couldn't tell. I just perceived things all around me. I tried to blink, but there were no eyelids to close. So it wasn't as if I had eyes.

  I could see through every part of my body, my mind stitching together the scattered and overlapping images much like how normal vision worked. I tried to shut it off, but instead my focus—or rather, my perspective—shifted to below my chin.

  I was seeing in an upward arc. Saw my own bare chest, translucent yet radiant and solid, and the unending color-filled void beneath my feet. I relaxed and the initial perspective returned.

  So much for playing hero back then. Trying to outmaneuver those terrorists—maybe it helped. Maybe no one else tried to get smart and got killed as a result. At least there's that consolation.

  Or rather, since I'm conscious, can I really be called dead? I can't, can I? So what am I? A ghost? A soul?

  By any logic I should have been afraid. Terrified, even. Instead, only calm and relief filled me. There was no body, no pressure acting on me, no heartbeat, no need to breathe. Probably due to the absence of a physical body, the panic couldn't settle.

  Overwhelming freedom caressed my senses. As my mind gained speed and clarity, the absence of an ever-present burden became stark. There was no body to coordinate, no organs to control. My thoughts became light. Perhaps the environment, or perhaps the current carrying me, but something was empowering me. Fueling me. Growing me.

  A feeling of omnipotence surged through me. Everything felt sharper than reality as I remembered it from Earth, yet retained an ethereal quality. Structures had an unmistakable depth to them, yet their geometry shifted in time, certain contours slowly fading as new ones appeared.

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  The solidity of my current body was palpable, yet my shape wasn't bound as human. It naturally settled in this shape. I could pull at those stars, alter my surroundings, exert my will and shape the scenery.

  All the while the feeling grew, my awareness increasing. Perhaps my body? Soul? Whatever it was, something from this space was absorbed as I was pulled toward some unknown destination. This constant growth was exhilarating, but the vague idea that this space should have torn me apart or scrubbed my mind from my soul never left me.

  As my vision reached further, I became more convinced of this. I soon put this in the back of my mind. So what if I was supposed to be wiped? Since I'm not, and I'm even growing, then let's ignore it.

  With this problem dismissed, my mind was free to absorb the marvelous sights around me.

  Nebulas colliding, mixing and swirling. Stars glittering from within, creating a multicolored spectacle. It looked surreal, as though the trajectories were not under the restrictions of gravity. Everything was just chaotically floating, moving in its own path, lost in what seemed like infinity.

  It was chaos in harmony. Never thought I'd couple those two words. Too bad I can't hear anything... but who knows, perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. Just because it looks good doesn't mean it sounds good. Same with smell—inhaling multicolored glittery dust isn't exactly appealing.

  More time passed and my destination came into view. A golden swirl growing larger and larger. From within, a purplish glow rose in intensity. What looked like countless actual stars, nebulas, and galaxies forming a tapestry reminiscent of a net all became clear as I drew closer.

  I was unimportant compared to the vastness before me. Why, when looking at the rest of the space, didn't I feel as overwhelmed? Why is it that only now am I feeling like an ant, when the entire journey happened in a space clearly much bigger?

  But my thoughts soon vanished. The speed of my flight increased. Like a chain weighing on me, I tried to change course, turn back, slow down, but it was all for naught as the force increased. Just like when slipping down on a very steep cliff—no matter how hard you clawed at it, you were still falling with increasing speed.

  The ethereal translucent swirls got bigger, like a giant maw opening, ready to swallow me whole. Awe filled my heart as a chill grew from the depths of my being witnessing this spectacle. My legs grew longer in my vision while my head got longer and distanced from my shoulders. Soon I was turned into a long noodle, spaghettified just like matter falling into a black hole, and shortly my new vision went dark.

  I lost consciousness thinking: I don't want this to end. I don't want to lose this. The sensations, the freedom—everything this space gave me.

  This is what it means to truly exist. No weight, no limits, no fear. Just... being.

  If I could just stay here—

  But the pull was too strong, and everything went black.

  I regained my awareness, bound anew. Contained. Wrapped in fluid, tightly pressed and curled, I felt in resonance with my surroundings, every heartbeat being answered at the same time. But the walls were squeezing me, constricting and pushing me away.

  I seemed to be moving, pushed to some other place. I couldn't tell where, couldn't resist. Soon I felt myself even more horribly squeezed. What felt like my head was being pushed through a tight orifice.

  This went on for a while. Then light overcame my senses. The blindness from the sudden flash was gone, replaced by a blur of things. Nothing made sense and I couldn't make out any details.

  Someone or something was holding my head and pulling gently. It felt rough but soft, perhaps a worked female hand. Soon I was free. But the suffering didn't stop there. I was placed lying on my front and something, someone hit my back.

  I coughed up the liquid in my lungs, or rather it just spurted out of me, from my nose and mouth. The hit came again and again, only stopping after a proper cough. It started pressing me rhythmically, trying to make me breathe. The cold air scraped against my feeble nose and throat into my unused small lungs.

  I held on, in pain, and didn't make a sound, breathing hungrily as the sensations of life settled in my mind again. Then I felt it. Or rather, I stopped feeling it.

  The previous connection was gone. Despite having another living being beside me, gently holding and cradling me, I couldn't help but cry. I mourned the now-missing connection, the freedom I'd just lost.

  This body felt like a cage compared to what I'd had.