Ethereal Pixie Rings Of Mercy (EPROM) 3/8

This is the third of the eight chapters I'll be posting this week. If you didn't read the first two chapters yet, the first chapter is available here.

Bright Darkness

David could not immediately make out the voice of the person calling out to him from the dark. It was a familiar voice, a voice that immediately filled him with a sense of comfort and security. David could not make out anything. His room was pitch dark without even a hint of light. The voice was more than just familiar. David knew this voice like he knew the voice of his own wife, but it was as if his own mind refused to recognise who this voice belonged to. Why was it so dark anyway in his room? Weren't hospitals supposed to have emergency generators? David tried to focus on these questions, but his mind seemed even more out of focus than usual. Rather than the usual chaos, however, his thoughts kept jumping to the talk he had had with Sarah. Sarah had told David she would not be present when he received the lethal injection that would end his life. Despite his efforts in the last few weeks, it was all too late. Sarah had told him that she had already lost him years ago. She had lost him to his obsessions and she could not cope with his dying bed reprioritization of his love for her. The idea of embracing this thing she longed for so much only to lose him once more, was beyond Sarah’s emotional capacity. How could he have so blind regarding the emotional needs of his wife for all those years?
But now David needed to focus on the situation at hand. The pitch-dark room and that strangely familiar voice. What was happening? Who’s voice was this?
David tried hard to remember, but somehow his mind placed barriers as if it knew who this voice belonged to but somehow rejected that knowledge.
Then, as if injected into his mind, a memory that was so vivid that it left David completely off balance: As if David had just taken a sip, the sudden sensation of the taste of lemon brandy in his mouth completely overcame him and tore down the mental barrier David’s logical mind had erected in order to reject what clearly could not be correct. No this was impossible! Lemon brandy, his grand-dad’s favorite drink that David used to sometimes drink when visiting his grandparents. Yes, this voice was the voice of his granddad, but that was not possible.
Then the voice again. “David!” Yes, there was no denying it any longer. This was the voice of his late grandfather, but it could not be. “David, calm down, there is no need to panic, you’re safe here.” David tried to focus. This must be the disease talking. I must be hallucinating or dreaming. Where am I? That damn darkness! Need to shut out Grandpa's voice, he is not real! Gramps, get the fuck out of my head, you are not real, you are dead, I need to keep my grasp on reality!
“Be careful, David, that's rude! First thing I need to teach you is how to keep some of your thoughts to yourself.”
This is not real, David thought, Grandpa has been dead for over twenty years!
“In a sense I have been,” the voice responded as if it had been reading his mind, “but in that same sense you have now been dead yourself for the last 9 days now”
A shock went through David’s mind when he tried to remember. David remembered now—he died, and his memory of his death was so vivid and that David could not dismiss it as a hallucination. David remembered getting the injections that he had requested from his doctor.
He had specifically chosen a combination of injections that the doctor had convinced them would leave no room for any deathbed hallucinations or dreams.
David had taken no chances of ‘re-finding’ his religion as the result of some oxygen deprivation induced, deathbed hallucinations. David wanted to keep his precious grip on reality till the very end. Did he dream the injections? His memory was so clear. He should be dead, but if he was dead, how could he be sentient? There could be no such thing as an afterlife.
David decided to get to the bottom of it. Something must have gone wrong with the injection, it must have.
“This, David, is what we refer to as the grid. I’ve been here for the last 24 years now, ever since my body died,” the voice spoke.

David tried to focus on where the voice was coming from.

Then David became aware of many presences. He didn’t see anyone. He could see nothing but darkness. He didn’t hear any people other than his grandpa either, but David felt many people around him, sharing a space of sorts; he was aware of them in some strange way. This place wasn't his hospital room, that much was sure, but where was he? Yes, something definitely went wrong with the injection, this isn’t real. A dream, I must have dreamt the injections too, I must have.
Than David felt a sudden jolt of emotion and an erratic thought entered his mind: “Is Mom here?” His own thought startled him, was his logic failing him already?
“No, unfortunately your mother was lost,” his granddad’s voice responded instantly. A feeling of despair entered David as he listened to the voice of his granddad. There was such a sense of pain and truth in this sentence that David instantly realized at his core that the other things the voice had told him were true as well.
While David was not really all that empathetic, he did not just hear these words—he truly felt the pain of the loss of a child that only a parent can understand. As if all the skepticism David was having about his strange, inexplicable experience was completely washed away by the deep feeling that spoke from and through these six words, David instantly knew and accepted his own death and the fact that he and Granddad were now somehow joined in this afterlife. At the same time however, these six words drove confusion and despair into David's heart.
If I was wrong about an afterlife after all, how could Mom have been lost? Mom was the most devout believer anyone could imagine, and all of her life she had always been there to help anyone in need of help. If David was to imagine a true saint, his mom was pretty damn close. If she was lost, how could he, an atheist, and in the years he was obsessed with his quests as an selfish bastard who neglected his own wife and daughter for years, be here?.
“All in due time, David,” Grandpa's voice responded. “First we need to work on control. If I don’t teach you how to control and direct your thoughts,” the voice of his grandpa said, “I and all the people in this section of the grid will hear all of your thoughts.
You don’t want that. The other people in this grid section don't want that, and given some of the rather rude thoughts you just broadcasted, I am certainly not going to stand for any of that insolence much longer. I know my daughter did not raise you that way, young man. So let’s get you straightened out first and I will introduce you to the people and beings that can help you with all your questions afterward.”

Continue with Chapter 4.