It was the strangest thing. I felt my heart stop. There was a distinct moment when time froze. My body hung in the air, a good ten feet off the ground. I was looking down on the scene from beside my body.
Some say your life flashes before your eyes as you die. I didn’t get that. What I got was this weird stasis. My soul, or consciousness, or whatever it was, hung in the air for an incalculable moment. Then I was tugged upward at a dizzying pace as time resumed. Before my corpse hit the ground, I was gone.
A white tunnel yawned out before me. The expanse seemed infinite and empty. I somehow knew I was moving, but I felt no physical sensation. I heard a familiar, joyous laugh.
Jessica?
I would never know. Before I got to wherever I was going, everything went black. It was as if someone had turned off an old-time television, the sort with a cathode ray. There was a visible dot in the center of my vision as the rest of the scene rapidly collapsed around me. Then, I was in total darkness.
A message shot across the black. A translucent square appeared, and words popped into being on it.
Welcome, hero! The orientation will start soon. Standby.