It was raining when I died.

  A singular detail, the sole survivor of myriad others washed away by circumstance. Whatever the cause, my death was a certainty. Beyond denial, beyond reproach; it was cold, it was uncaring, but it was Truth.

  I denied it anyway. Phantom limbs thrashed. A silent voice roared. Nothing. An obvious development, in hindsight, obscured from cognizance until I sought it out.

  The dead had no limbs. The dead had no voice. Death was non-existence. It was nothing.

  Nothing. Conceptually, to discuss that which cannot be was largely an exercise in futility. It was neither beginning nor end nor space nor time. There was no stretch of endless blackness, for even that would have been something, and nothing was not something. It was nothing.

  And I was an intruder, the something that should not be.

  What was I? There was no mind, no body, and yet, I was. I thought without a brain. I felt without a heart. I knew of lions and ruby slippers yet such things should have been beyond me.

  The soul, I suppose, I told myself. It was a new kind of thought, an inner voice; another something birthed into the void. It pushed against boundaries that did not exist, and as it faded away the something that was me grew to fill its place.

  I remembered the rain.

  Then, I remembered more.

  I almost wished I hadn’t.

  The specific circumstances surrounding my death remained lost to me. Instead, I remembered the life that came before it. In remembering, I found context. In context, I found pain.

  I had a life. It was not the most glamorous life, but it was mine. I wore socks the day I died, novelty socks featuring dinosaurs and hotdogs. A splash of whimsy I claimed for myself and I felt that was somehow important.

  Memories brought feelings, and each new something pushed against the Nothing. There was a wrongness to it, yet even that was a new something and only served to further shake that which could not be shaken.

  I paid it no mind. I was swept away by recollections and an ever growing dread.

  Flashes of family. Thoughts of friends. The life I led flooded through me. It took an instant. It took an eternity. Time was a something that still refused to intrude.

  I was home with my dog before I died. She was a German Shepherd who loved walks and knew how to make me feel guilty with nothing but a look whenever she was left home alone.

  The Nothing strained and stretched as the nebulous something that was me continued to struggle against it.

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  And I was leaving. It was raining, but I didn’t bring an umbrella. I wouldn’t be gone long because-

  Every new memory, thought, and emotion did not belong in the Nothing yet I refused to let them go. They were heavy. They hurt. Yet I knew if I let them go I might lose them forever. I finally remembered why I could not let that happen.

  My fiancé.

  A shudder rippled through the Nothing as a new wave, the largest yet, tore through my being. I had possessed a love I once thought impossible.

  And now I am dead… The shudder turned into a quake as I was forced to experience some of my happiest memories through a lens of dread, but I dared not deny them.

  They were all I had left.

  I remembered our first date. I was so nervous that my palms were practically dripping with sweat. She was so beautiful. We lost track of time talking about wordplay and dice. We held hands at one point, and I was mortified for surely she’d be dissuaded.

  Her hands were sweaty too. Baffling. She was so amazing, so I couldn’t help but wonder what she had to be nervous about. We shared a bashful moment of embarrassment and acceptance. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I'd already fallen in love with her that day.

  I remembered all the little moments of our life together while we dated. She would nuzzle into my side while I read a book and watch one of her reality shows with headphones in. We didn’t always have to be doing the same thing, we just enjoyed doing them together. Sometimes our dog would rest her head on one of our legs so as to not feel left out.

  All relationships require effort, but it never really felt like that with us. We had our disagreements and our days overshadowed by financial burdens or grief, but we faced them together. That was enough for us.

  I remembered proposing. It was the strangest thing, I felt less nervous proposing than I did on that first date. It wasn’t scary to me, not even a little bit. I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. We were walking on the beach, she loved-

  No, not loved. Loves, I thought sadly, my recollections briefly interrupted. I was the one who was dead, not her. I fled back into memory, even as The Nothing started to warp around the edges, edges which it should not have had to begin with.

  We walked barefoot in the sand. I fished the ring box from my pocket, fell a step behind her, and took a knee. When she turned to investigate, it was with a bemused expression. I had a tendency to get distracted by the scenery and lose pace with her, a tendency I shamelessly twisted to my advantage. As she realized what was actually happening, pure happiness blossomed on her face. Then she cried, but a good cry. A happy cry.

  I was rocked by a final surge of emotion as the pain of loss threatened to overwhelm me. It was too much for The Nothing.

  Where once it strained and buckled, now it tore. A small rip. A pinprick of light. I was pulled towards the light, or perhaps it was pulled towards me. It was impossible to tell.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Feeling returned to me suddenly and all at once in all the worst ways. Pressure. Disorientation. Discomfort. The light was gone. The pressure built, and built, and built until finally blissful relief graced me.

  Air grazed my skin. Sensation had returned. It was hot and cold and much too everything. I felt so overwhelmed that I could not help myself. I started to cry.

  I cried like a baby.

  I cried much too much like a baby.

  A single moment of adrenaline fueled clarity allowed me to pierce my disorientation. I couldn’t see. I tried to move, but my body’s stubby limbs refused to cooperate.

  Realisation set in first. Panic joined it shortly after, and still I cried uncontrollably. It was to be expected; I was a newborn, after all.

  What in the actual f-

  Update February 4th 2025

  What Will Be came about of years of wanting to write but never quite taking the plunge. Finally, I decided to follow some sage advice and just write, insecurities be damned. Of course, the anxieties are always going to be there, but a written something is almost always better than nothing. I am excited to follow this process through to the end, confident that I will come out the other side a better author than before. I hope many of you can find enjoyment in it. Thank you for your time.