Emptiness. Void. A pitch black nothingness greeted me, when I recovered consciousness.

Suspended in this void I knew I was not alone, as I felt other presences near me. But before I could figure out anything else, I felt something huge looking at me.

It's gaze laid me bare, as if it could see through everything. All my secrets, my lies, my truths and untruths. As though, all my thoughts were an open book to it. It's mere presence suffocated me, made me feel small and insignificant.

But just before I was going to pass out again, it withdrew it's gaze. As I panted heavily, trying to regain my breath, a sudden flash of dazzling light hit me, nearly blinding me in the process.

After the light faded away, I saw that there was a magnificent white tree floating at the centre of the pitch black void. It rose so high that, I could neither see it's beginning not it's end. Its branches held innumerable shiny leaves and crystalline flowers. Among this ethereal foliage dangled four perfectly shaped silver apples.

I saw mesmerized, as the silver apples dropped from the tree one by one. One of them started to roll towards me, across the void.

As soon as the silver apples fell, the white tree had started withering, as if aging thousands of years, in but a brief moment.

By the time the apple came to a rest before me, the tree had become a withered husk of its former self. A twisted caricature of its earlier beauty, with its shrunken limbs and rotten leaves.

And as the apple touched me, I felt a warmth spread throughout my body. My vision was blurring, and enveloped in the warmth as I lost consciousness, the last thing I saw was the tree crumbling into motes of golden dust.

— — — — — — — — — —

When I came to again, there was no white tree or dark void before me, instead I seemed to be in a luxurious chamber.

I was lying on a huge four–poster bed, grey morning light filtering in through the ornate bed hangings which had dancing golden lions and prancing silver bucks embroidered on them.

As disoriented as I felt with the bizarre nature of events that had befallen me I was even more anxious about the present situation. Had I somehow survived being shot in the chest? If so, where was I? In some weird luxury hospital suite? Then where was my family? Or nurses and doctors? Or medical equipment of some sort? Or had I actually died and this was the afterlife? Heaven or Hell or what ever else that comes after death. I had no idea what was happening to me and that frightened me more than anything ever had.

As I tried to extract my right arm from under the covers, I noticed that it felt extremely bony. How long was I out, for my physique to deteriorate so much, I wondered. But as I saw my arm in the pale light of dawn, I was rendered speechless.

For what I saw was, a fleshless, bloodless, skeleton arm of pearly white bone.