I died.

The bullet entered my body and punctured my heart. I instantly bled out. My body fell to the ground, my limbs splayed at unnatural angles. I was dead.

I was dead, but trapped. I was trapped in death. I was someplace else, someplace that was close by and impossibly far away. I wasn't in between life and death - as I said before, I was dead as a doornail - but I was in a place between. Just between.

It wasn't dark, it wasn't light. I couldn't see, since I had no eyes, but I felt calm. I felt serene.

And then I felt something grab me. I felt something pull and tug and twist.

And then I was in the world again, but I wasn't me. I was something else. I was a monster. I was the monster that came after death. It had killed me and taken my body. It stood over my dead body and grinned with my face. It had won.

Just like we had planned.

The man in the gray suit appeared. This was the first time he had shown up during one of my encounters with the monsters, but we had to plan it like this. This monster was too tricky, too cautious. The man in the gray suit could not confront him. He could only do one thing: he placed his hand over my face and healed my wounds.

Suddenly, I was alive and confronted with myself. I raised the gun and shot him with a bullet made from myself, a bullet carved from my own soul. I shot the monster with my soul and watched as it turned inside out, as it ate itself over and over again, until it was nothing more than a speck and then gone.

I stood up. I felt strong. Was this was it felt like, being without a soul?

The man in the gray suit stood before me. He raised one finger and I knew. I had one more monster left. One more monster to kill.


I wiped the blood from my shirt. I had died and been reborn.

I am free of loneliness and helplessness. I have no future and no past, no secrets and no sins. I am dreamless. I am soulless.

I am fearless.