I don’t remember how I died, or anything that happened before. It’s probably for the best- at least this way, I cannot long for the warm caress of a sun I have never known, or the gentle lapping of pure water to soothe my aching feet, or the thousand and one other things that we take for granted while we’re still breathing.
All I know is that there was nothing, and then suddenly there was wispy, jagged grass pressed against my cheek, and a grey, lifeless half-light filtering in through my closed eyelids, and an oppressive silence for miles around.
An eternity passed before I found the strength to laboriously sit up; another eternity after that I opened my eyes, and immediately I wished I hadn’t. I was sitting upon a hill as cold and grey as the feeble light that barely managed to break through the clouds. In front of me the land gently fell away to reveal an empty expanse of dying grass and stale air that stretched off into an infinite, bleak horizon. Somewhere in the distance I could hear a river gargling weakly, but otherwise the quiet was absolute.
“You are dead, John,” a soft voice said behind me. I was too numb to feel surprised; instead, I just slowly turned my head, feeling my neck strain with the effort.
“Is that my name?” I croaked, each word feeling like sandpaper against my throat.
“I don’t know. Is it?” the speaker answered pleasantly. He was a young man, clad in a colourless, expensive-looking suit, arms folded pointedly across his chest and a thin, ironic smile cocked on his face.
I sat in silence for a long time. I had barely even moved, but somehow I was too exhausted to contemplate, let alone care, who the man in the suit was or how he got to be here.
“So I’m dead,” I said eventually. In a way I had already known it, but it felt strange to hear it in a voice that was so bold, so real. “What do I do now?”
My new companion shrugged. “There’s nothing really for it except to get moving and try to find other people. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe there’s no-one else here and you’ll just collapse and wither away into nothing,” he said cheerfully.
I shook my head and tried to stand, but my legs gave way beneath me; I felt the man in the suit grab me with strong arms as I stumbled, and prop me precariously back onto my feet.
“Lead the way,” he said.
I didn’t know where he expected me to go; nor did I really care. With no direction and a heavy heart, I set off at a trudging pace down the hill and into the grey wasteland below.
* * * * *
We walked for I don’t know how long; the scenery changed in subtle little ways, as we passed a field of scorched grass here, or a broken tree sprang up there, but otherwise we were always passing through the same endless, colourless, featureless land we had just come from. The man in the suit kept pace a step behind me, but I could swear the longer we walked and the more tired I felt, the bolder and brisker he became. He hadn’t changed his suit, but I was sure it was a shade darker than it had been earlier.
Eventually I glanced up, and saw a small puddle of stagnant water collecting in the middle of the path. Without thinking, I ran to it on aching legs and collapsed beside it, cupping it in desperate hands and lifting it to my mouth.
“I wouldn’t do that John,” the man in the suit warned suddenly, and I paused, my hands hovering inches in front of my face. Now I was up close, I saw what he meant; what had looked stagnant from far away now seemed utterly putrid right before my eyes, with dirt and mud and other sediment I could not name floating listlessly in the filthy water.
“I guess you’re right,” I said, reluctantly allowing it to splash back into the puddle. He raised an eyebrow.
“Are you sure? You sound thirsty. You’ll need water at some point.”
I looked at up him, to see if this was some kind of joke, but for once the stiff little smile was gone from his face.
“I don’t even know who you are,” I said, only the realisation only properly dawning on me for the first time.
“You never asked.”
“I’m asking now.”
“Very well,” he said, taking a step back and spreading his arms out. “I am Doubt.”
“Doubt. Right.”
He smiled thinly again, before twisting around and studying the way we just came.
“I’m sure we’ve been here before,” he said slowly, apparently finding some kind of landmark in the barren wilderness. “I think we’re going in circles, John.”
I ignored him, struggling to my feet and marching forwards as purposefully as I could manage.
“Perhaps we should turn back and see if there’s another path we missed?” he called after me. I stopped and turned to face him. It may have been my imagination, but it looked like his suit had somehow darkened again.
“Or perhaps we should just keep walking,” I said. “Come on.”
He simply shrugged, and followed.
* * * * *
“We should have turned back, John.”
“Shut up.”
“We’re going the wrong way. We’ve been here before.”
“I said, shut up!”
I broke off and tried to run a little further, in the hope I might see something, anything, new, but my legs wouldn’t carry me. I fell to my knees and scrabbled desperately to the top of another identical grey verge, but was greeted only by another identical grey landscape.
My muscles gave out. My head hit the ground, the sky above me span, and all the while Doubt stood over me, having bounded effortlessly up the ridge I had struggled so hard to climb. Somewhere in the back of my mind I noticed that his suit was now almost completely jet black.
“You should have turned back, John.”
“Shut up…” I cried weakly, feeling sick to the pit of my stomach.
“You should have turned back, and now you’re going to die out here. Again.”
The world began to darken; somewhere in the distance, I could hear a voice call my name.
“It’s your fault. You should have turned back.”
Lights began to flicker in front of my eyes. The voice was steadily getting stronger, repeating my name like a chant.
“What do you think happens when a dead man dies, John?”
More voices had joined in now. The lights became brighter and brighter, dancing across my vision like fireflies.
“Do you think it will be painful?”
The world dimmed a little bit more, even as the lights grew stronger. The voices were even louder now, and beneath them I could hear the tramp of footsteps.
“It doesn’t matter any more, John. Goodbye.”
I laid my head back on the earth and closed my eyes, but suddenly I was grasped from behind by half a dozen firm, clammy hands. Out of nowhere a group of people had appeared, each one holding a flaming torch and calling my name.
“John! John!” one of them, a woman, cried, bending over me, “come back to me, John!”
I tried to say something, but I couldn’t manage it. Everything swam in and out of focus, the clamouring voices all merging into one.
“John!” the woman kept calling over the top of them, “you want to come with us, John, don’t you? We can save you!”
“But if you do,” another one, a stony-faced man said gruffly, “he’ll have to stay here.”
He was holding a stick, and he pointed it towards Doubt as he spoke. I no longer cared what happened to him; I nodded feebly, and then my head sank back into a pillow of outstretched hands.
“Do as you wish,” I heard Doubt say. “I’ll not be gone for long.”
That was the last I remember before the greyness of the world gave way to black.
