The October Amaryllis

Prologue - August 12th, 2094 ????

"My story began on May 16th, 2020, the day my heart stopped beating after being struck by three solid feet of ball lightning. It was a day when anyone else in my place would have died. Whether what I experienced was pure luck or a blessing of some sort doesn't really matter. Some events simply happen and defy any kind of logical explanation; the more you try to explain them, the less you know. In fact, the longer I think about how I survived it, the worse I feel.

While everyone in the hospital was scrambling to restart my heart, I was in the most peaceful place possible. It stretched eternally with no color or form to it, just tranquility. For me, it was like falling asleep and waking up; it didn't feel abnormal in any way, just like any other day before then. The greatest illusion of all is a false sense of calm. I would have gladly chosen that state over what came later.

But that's not what this story is about. This is about all the things that happened next, what already happened, and what didn't happen but was supposed to. I write this now on my deathbed because I know that if I wrote it at any other point in my life, it would come off as nothing more than the ramblings of a lunatic. I swear on everything I hold dear that no words in this book are a lie, and I beg you never to replicate these experiences, no matter how tempting they might be.

This, my friends, is the story of how I nearly destroyed everything and everyone without even intending to."