Questions, Choices, and a Rendezvous With Death

We beg those who bring themselves close to death to run from the light at the end of the dark tunnel. Isn't that weird? If you turn around when you see the light wouldn't you just be...turning into...more light? Am I running into darkness, blindly slapping the soles of my feet along an unknown path to save my soul? Am I really going the way I came? Was there a fork in the road where I turned right when I should have looked left? When it gets hard, and my breath gets laboured do I continue on? Am I going up hill to better places? But doesn't...what goes up...have to come down?

I'm falling. Stumbling and tripping over my feet in the dark because I was told to run from the light. Hands thrown before me, sightless eyes as wide as physically possible, mouth agape with a cry that gets swallowed into this void I've chased myself into. I'm now prone, staring into...something that is also nothing. My face is wet with...tears or blood I don't really know at this point. It's cold in the dark. The emptiness feels so full with every fear I've ever had. The air simultaneously makes me lightheaded with too much oxygen and suffocates me. I tried to rendezvous with a Reaper. But I must have gotten the time mixed up because I am here alone. Listening to the begging of my loved ones brought me deeper into darkness. And I am so cold. And I am so alone. While they are all drenched in the light they begged me away from.

Should they not have coaxed me closer? Swathed me in the warmth they had haloed around them? Is this the fate they wanted for me? Did they know this was the fate they chose? Can they choose my fate for me? Is it the only choice they had? Can I choose a different choice than the one chosen for me? Can I curl onto my side in the fetal position and then drag myself to sit on my heels? Can I stand back up and walk instead of run? Slowly, to let the wounds on my palms and knees heal and then run again, at my own pace?

I try. And get no further than a kneeling position. Weak from running, sore from falling I need help to get up. While I sit there, face turned up, eyes closed even though it's the same darkness, my ears pick up a sound. It could be a loved one. On their way to save me. But...they are soaking up the light behind me. Instead, it is the Reaper I meant to meet. He stops beside me, illuminated from within, he is all I can see anymore. And he is the only one offering his hand.

So, feeling theres no other choice to chose but the one chosen for me, I grasp his hand and walk with the light.

No longer just close to Death, but forever alongside him.