Absolute absence of everything.
That was the void.
A place without everything and anything.
There was no direction, no depth, no time.
So I died, didn't I...
This must be the afterlife.
The thought drifted through her like a leaf in the water.
She waited for something to happen.
A voice, a light, judgement. Nothing came.
Only void.
She continued to float. Or maybe she didn't, she couldn't tell. It was impossible to tell.
Her awareness flickered, thin and fragile. Eventually, she became aware of herself, or well what was left. A faint, trembling, glowing orb in a vast void. Like a dying star in the night.
This is me?
This is whats left of me?
I'm a shiny ball of light now...?
She didn't know how long she drifted in the void.
Seconds. Hours. Years.
Time meant nothing here.
And still she waited. For something. For anything. For change.
With nothing around her, nothing to sense, nothing to distract her, Wren began to think about her life. Not moments she cherished, there were too few, but the long stretches of emptiness between them.
She thought of her parents, and how they abandoned her at her grandfather's house. Her parents' hands leaving hers too quickly, their voices too cheerful, too empty. About waiting for them to return, to call, to tell her they were mistaken on leaving her. She thought about the moment she realized they never would.
She thought about her grandfather, the only person in her life that ever stayed, the only one that truly loved her, about how he died years ago, leaving her alone in a world that would never notice her absence.
She thought of her diagnosis. About the envelope that caused her life to crash down all around her. About the words that told her she had one year and a few months left.
She thought of her apartment, the quiet, small, and empty room that never felt like home, and about the way she cried herself to sleep, and how she woke up every morning because she had to, not because she wanted to.
She thought about her life, and she slowly began to realize, with slow, aching clarity, that she never lived it. She had survived. Endured. Persisted.
But she had never lived.
The glow around her dimmed at the thought.
I had nothing. I was nothing. I never got to be anything..
And I never will...
The void unchanging held her gently, indifferently, like it always had.
Time passed again, although Wren herself was unaware.
Her thoughts continued to wander.
She thought of her childhood, and how hard her grandfather had tried to give her a good life. He lived on a pension too small, but it was always just enough for the bare basics. He had always made sure she had what she needed. He cooked simple meals, patched her clothes, and saved coins in jars for her birthdays. He never complained even when she knew he was tired.
Her early education years passed too quickly. She never had many friends, and none that stuck long enough to matter.
She got a part‑time job as soon as she could, wanting to help her grandfather. She worked evenings, weekends, and summers.
She didn't go to parties. She didn't join clubs. She didn't make memories.
She worked. She studied. She slept.
And then she graduated, and life became even smaller.
She saw less and less of her grandfather after entering the workforce.
Early mornings, and days that stretched far into the night became her normal.
Thinking about the many days her grandfather spent alone waiting on her return made her glow flicker dimly, shrinking inwards.
Her thoughts drifted again.
Longer this time. Thinking deeply about the life she lived, and about the life she didn't.
Long enough for her thoughts to thin, for her awareness to flicker, for her glow to fade to a faint whisper of light.
She wondered if she would dissolve completely. If she would become part of the void.
If she would stop being anything at all, just like the very void that surrounded her.
Some part of her mind welcomed the thought.
I was nothing in life...So I'll become nothing in death..
The void didn't respond.
The void just did what voids do.
Be nothing.
It began as a shimmer in the far distance, in a direction that she wasn't knowledgeable enough to give words to.
The faint flicker in the distance was barely visible against the colorless expanse.
Wren's glowing light pulsed weakly, startled at a change in the void.
Hope suddenly swelled into her mind.
Hello! Hello?! Over here!
Silence.
The shimmer slowly grew.
Slowly, but deliberately. It wasn't rushing, and certainly not drifting aimlessly. It was approaching.
"It's approaching," Wren thought to herself, she didn't know if she should be frightened at the change to the void or ecstatic that something was finally changing. "Someone, or something?" Her awareness tightened as she tried to focus whatever sense she had that let her 'see' the incoming glowing orb.
The orb was small, like her.
White, soft, and glowing faintly, as if it too were fragile.
It moved toward her with impossible patience, closing the distance inch by inch, or whatever passed for distance in a place without space.
Wren's glow flickered.
Am I imagining this?Is this real?Please… please be real…
The other orb drew closer. She wasn't aware how much time had passed since she first saw it, but she was certain from her own thought process that it was a lot.
The orb was finally close enough for her to feel its presence. A faint warming feel radiated against her 'orb of awareness' as she decided to call whatever this body was.
She wasn't alone.
Not anymore.
Before she had a chance to even attempt conversation, if that was even possible in this state, she felt something ripple throughout her 'body'.
A subtle pressure. A soft distortion. A ripple of awareness brushing against her own. The ripple spread throughout her being, it sank into her consciousness, brushed past her thoughts, and opened her memories like it was studying data. It felt like she was being read, probed, and categorized.
Wren began to panic, it felt like the rawest, most sensitive and most secretive part of herself was bare and exposed to whatever this orb was doing to her.
What are you doing to me? Who are you?What are you?
No sound left her. She had no voice. This was the void, for even if she did, sound would not carry.
But the thoughts drifted outward anyway, carried by the faint pulse of her light.
The ripple inside her paused and slowly retracted itself.
Then change happened.
The other orb pulsed once, a gentle, slow rhythm. A response. Not words. Not language.
Just acknowledgment.
Wren's glow brightened a fraction, startled by the simple fact of being seen. For the first time since she blinked out of existence, she didn't feel entirely alone. The other orb drifted a little closer.
Wren's thoughts started to spiral
What are you? Are you dead too? Is this the afterlife? Is this all there is? Is this hell?
No reply.
The orb just floated an uncertain distance away.
It did not pulse again no matter how many rapid-fire thoughts Wren conjured up.
It didn't speak.
It didn't pulse with any meaning.
It simply existed beside her, a small defiance against the endless void.
Suddenly Wren felt the orbs presence pressing gently against her awareness again.
A semi-translucent blue tinted window flickered into existence before her, not smoothly, but like a broken monitor forcing itself to turn on.
It hung in the space in front of the other orb, a stark contrast in the colorless black of the void. A crisp sharp chime rung out inside Wren's head.
[ERROR]
"..."
Wren read the word over and over again, trying to make sense of the word in front of her.
Her mind went blank. "Error? What error...? Is there some sort of hidden meaning?"
[ERROR...ERROR...ERROR] Three sharp chimes rang out inside Wrens head, as the words flashed and repeated itself on the screen. She felt like clutching her head in her hands each time it rang out, but she was nothing but a ball of awareness who had no hands nor a head to clutch.
[ERR#####] The chime that rang out felt broken and more jagged than the rest.
[Please stand-by.]
[ERROR..ER####]
[...World Gaia##### System Rebooting...]
[Ding!]