Chapter 51

• I started walking aimlessly until I heard a voice calling my name. The sound was soft at first, almost like a gentle breeze brushing against my ear, but it grew louder, more insistent, echoing off the white nothingness that surrounded me. I turned around quickly, my heart pounding in my chest, or what felt like my chest, if I even had one in this strange place, but I couldn’t see anyone. Just endless white stretching out in every direction, like I had been dropped into a blank canvas, a world unpainted and untouched.
• A woman kept calling my name, her voice calm yet urgent, like she was trying to draw me to her before I drifted away forever. I spun in circles, trying to locate her, but every time I turned, there was still no one. My hands were shaking now, my breath hitching in my throat. I thought someone was playing a sick joke on me. Maybe my mind was broken, or maybe this was some final punishment, to wander lost in an endless void.
• Then, like ink slowly bleeding onto white paper, a figure started to appear in front of me. At first it was only a vague outline, shimmering and wavering as if I were looking at it through heat waves on asphalt. But then she became clearer, a woman who was practically see-through, her skin glowing faintly against the stark whiteness. She wore a dress so similar to mine, flowing and white, but hers seemed to move without wind, weightless and ethereal. She had dark skin, radiant and warm, and the most beautiful, serene smile I had ever seen while she looked on at me like she had known me my whole life.