A bright, snowy light hurt his eyes.
Is this heaven? It took him but a moment to realize it wasn't. In heaven, there could be no pain and, even under the haze of painkillers, Ismael felt a crushing ache in his chest that threatened to split his torso open. Where am I? he wondered, trying to put his fragmented mind back together.
Little by little, a soft, monotonous beeping sound reached his ears. The artificial air coming through the tubes in his nose, as well as the plastic taste of another tube in his mouth, turned his stomach. He wanted to pull them out, but his arms would not move.
His gaze roamed around the claustrophobic room. It was hardly big enough for the bed he was in. It was a miracle there was any space left for the medical equipment to his right, and the small table with a half-empty jug of water next to him. The only things that broke the whiteness of the four walls were a wooden door, a tiny TV set, and a barred window.
A hospital.
"Ismael?"
"Mom?" It couldn't be her. Cancer had snatched her away from him when he was seven. Disoriented, he glanced sideways at his best friend's wife. Her grief-stricken face was swollen from crying. "Marta?"
"Abe, he's awake!"
The door opened, and Abraham Pérez walked in with a nervous smile on his stern features. Gray with fatigue, he didn't look like the unshakable policeman Ismael had befriended twenty-three years ago.
The couple came closer to him, but their words of encouragement failed to reach the priest. To him, it all seemed distant. He heard everything as if he were underwater. What happened? he asked himself. Something troubled him beyond the debilitating pain. Something terrible and unspeakable.
Ismael tried to cast away those thoughts as he sank into unconsciousness. Why not sleep for a few minutes? Give into the darkness. Ismael's eyes flew open. I remember. He'd discovered the truth: there was nothing behind the veil of death but emptiness. As the frantic beeps from the machine next to him grew faster, he gripped the sheets tight, unable to breathe. A nurse ran into the room and pushed a little red button on the side of the bed rail.
Marta burst into tears and buried herself in her husband's chest.
"What's going on?" Abraham shouted.
The nurse asked the Pérezes to step outside while a doctor rushed in.
Ismael didn't care about any of this. Nothing mattered except for the void that followed the Grim Reaper.
Blood will clot in my veins; my rotten skin will turn black, my swollen body will burst to spit out worms, he thought. Eternal darkness awaits me.
The beep of the heart monitor became a uniform high-pitched wail, and everything seemed to stop.