Eli POV

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Pain.

For a moment that seemed to stretch out to the end of time itself, that one word was my very being and existence. But as the merciful void moved towards my mind there came a moment of peace. I had no regrets and if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't change a damn thing. Well, maybe the whole getting caught part. I would probably like a do over on that.

As I prepared for the coming end, I wondered what waited for my soul, and it wasn't a philosophical question either. I knew it was a scientifically proven fact that I had one. It was a simple matter of math and physics discovered in ages past

"Well, here I come afterlife" I thought as the coldness took me. Then came an wave of warmness and a sensation of bubbles running along my...back? I looked about and found myself in the air. But when I looked down I saw nothing of my body. I had no feet, back, hand, or any kind of human anatomy.

I was flowing out along a stream of bright shining golden liquid a good mile above the ground.

This liquid criss-crossed all over the atmosphere and the planet,dotted about this stream of gold were white balls of light. Seeing some of these white balls coming out of a passenger shuttle getting crushed like a tin can by a cargo hauler 10 times its size in the major junction of a air traffic section, I guessed that these were souls.

"Wait, why is it so hard to turn?" I wondered. I had an odd sense of turning by pushing to the left without being able to turn sharply like my neck would typically allow, like having to move your shoulders to turn your head without any head movement . In fact my 'back' was just a general sense of being behind my head.

As I sped up and out to the stars of space along this gold trail, I came to see some distortions in my sense of distance. The planet was now a far distant dot while far away galaxies seemed to almost be within arms reach. In these galaxies I saw other balls of light in yellow streams.

"So its true, we are not alone" I said, with an excitement befitting a child tasting candy for the first time. Humanity had never found other life in the Milky Way or Andromeda galaxies and lacked the means to get to any others. As I looked on in wonder I saw a figure nestled in between the kaleidoscope of star systems.

It had a hard smooth surface, like that of a beetle, where its head should be. This shell was in between the shoulders of two large, muscular arms that ended in the claws of a bird. The chest had a long row of ribs that kept going until it ended in a series of tentacles. Under the beetle shell an eye was jutting out, with multiple irises of alternating colors of black, white, and red. These colors pulsed and shifted in the eye and some of the color faded into the surrounding body, which was mostly a dark green with bits of fur.

As I was distracted by the creature, a beam of red light enveloped me. Despite pushing as hard as I could the disorienting circumstances and the decrease in my motor skills left me wanting for an escape as the source of the beam was well out of my field of vision. I then had the misfortune of catching the attention of the odd-dimensional creature.

At this moment I couldn't help but wonder at the universal similarities of all living things. Its arms and claws started to flex and squeeze, the tentacles writhed in a hectic motion, the laid back hairs on its body coming to a stand and it's eye gained intensity with bloodlines running through it. These unspoken promises of imminent and extreme cruelty were understood by all beings. The growing mass of dark energy on its body quickly condensed into a ball in front of the eye seemed to be the fulfillment of these promises.

With no means of defense, I still struggled aimlessly. At the moment of firing the monster's dark bullet, a set of wings and bright light sent the ball of energy veering off course. I didn't see who or what it was because as soon as the bullet was near me it dipped to the left of my vision into the beam. After which the beam began pulling me in with greater effort. I saw a brief blinding flash as I approached the beam's point of origin.