I’m in what looks like a hospital. Everything white, everything sterile. Or at least it was. Waiting room off to my left, signs clearly stating where to go in English and Spanish. Far off I can hear a steady beeping noise. Very far away, everything so quiet. It’s almost peaceful, yet horribly eerie.

Then I notice there’s more than blood.

There are bodies.

The more I look around, the more I see. Dozens upon dozens of mutilated corpses. Men, women, but few children. I’m standing in a pile of cold blood and meat.

My shocked senses can barely keep up. The smell is worse than anything I’ve ever smelled. I almost gag, the putrid odor of death is invading my head.

I begin to walk, stepping over the dead. Only two sounds, beeping and thumping. Beeping growing louder, thumping getting faster. I’m walking uncontrollably down a blood splattered hallway, people lay about with limbs missing, heads split open, all dead. I step on a finger and whimper in fear when I see it has no body to claim it’s own. I’m walking toward the beeping sound, not knowing why.

Beep, thump. Beep, thump. Beep, thump.

Now I know what the thump is. My heart, deep in my chest, and it almost seems to be synchronized with the beeping. I don’t want to know what the beeping sound is, yet I do. It’s close now, coming from one of the rooms.

I enter a room with rows of beds, each with intravenous hookups and little tables. All the beds are empty. All the desks are barren. None of the machines are on, except one. It’s next to a bed that is hidden by a curtain that goes all around it.

I approach it. The computer display shows the heartbeat to be steady. Beep, thump. It’s time to open the curtain and see what’s inside. The thumping is louder than ever, and is drowning out the beeping.

I open the curtain. It’s a man and he’s asleep. He is a fairly peaceful looking man with a familiar face. His personal tray has a few items on it. A fairly large book, reading glasses, a cup once filled with water, a mirror.

It’s then that I try to call up an image of my face, but I draw a blank. So I pick up the mirror and look at it.

This face is very familiar as well. I look hard into the mirror, and make a startling conclusion. Mine is the face of the sleeping man. We are the same.

He begins to wake up.

“Hello.” He says, not surprised at my appearance.

“Hello,” I say. “Why are we here?”

“Because it is time.”

“Time for what?”

His eyes close.

“Time for what?” I repeat in a panic.

My body begins to tingle as a tremendous light begins to shine from the door behind me. I turn to it and see what many have claimed to see.

The computer monitor now begins to beep faster along with my heart. Then, a solid beep. I look back at the sleeping man, and he exhales his final breath. He fades away until the bed is empty.

It is now that I realize that this is what happens when you die. Just like that, I’m okay with it.

I walk to the light.