Music. A light hit my eyes as I opened them to stare over a huge crevice gaping up at me. I was standing before a bridge. There were countless other bridges to my left and right, spanning from one side of the canyon to the other. I could not see the bottom of the pit, and I could not see its ends to my left and right.
I was a child, and I felt warm arms around me, carrying me towards the bridge. I could see that the bridge was very old-looking and looked as if it could collapse if I or the one carrying me made the slightest misstep. As we drew nearer, I began to grow and the arms around me became smaller and more frail-feeling. But I felt the love coming from them. The arms set me down gently on the first board of the bridge. It creaked under my weight, and gave way a bit.
I began to walk. As I walked I could feel two sets of hands holding mine as I walked towards the other side of the valley, of which I could not see. I continued to grow. Soon I was in my teen years and I pulled away from the hands and began walking away on my own. The boards under continued to creak and groan, but I kept on, drawn to what lies at the end of the bridge.
Soon I saw other bridges beginning to merge with mine. When they met I felt presences around me. Some felt malevolent and others felt peaceful. I felt a need to linger with them. I went near the kind essences and they welcomed me.
We walked together towards the end of the valley once again in peace, until the more negative spirits neared. They whispered in our ears and tried to draw us away from each other. They took a few of the spirits and changed them into images of themselves.
Others did the opposite. The evil specters showed the aura of a deep sadness and the kind spirits reached out to them and helped them heal. Soon we had made and exchange of companions and continued to travel on. The bridges divided again and many of both parties split ways to their own bridges and towards the rest of their lives.
I continued on my original path, accompanied by some of the friends I met at the last intersection. Occasionally my path would merge with others, and now and then my friendds would diverge on their own and either I never saw them again, or they met back with me farther down the road.
I was now twenty seven. This is where I came across a presence unlike any I’ve ever sensed before. With others I had felt something similar to it, but nothing quite as strong as this. I remember the feeling of the arms when I was young. Love.
This spirit came to me then and we walked together, both overjoyed in the sharing of each other’s company. We stayed by each other’s side even as more of our friends disappeared forever. Occasionally one from our company would just vanish into thin air, and other times they took too far of a step and disappeared into the abyss.
One day a miracle happened. A small presence suddenly appeared between me and my partner. A new life had showed itself to us. A life we had helped bring about. The three of us continued on, happy in our love for each other. Now I am thirty-nine.
One day one of my closest friends had wandered off, his aura seemed to become more and more depressed. He had been following these cups with strange liquid that messed with your mind that always popped up in my friend’s lowest hours. The glasses led to a diverging path that looked wrong to me, but my friend didn’t see it. It was more broken-looking that my own bridge, which had grown more stable the more I was with my family.
One day my friend had reappeared, but this spirit seemed much different. I only saw the eyes. The eyes, empty as the chasm beneath our feet. The spirit numbly raised its hand, as if being controlled by an evil spirit, and both my partner and my child vanished with a loud bang. I knew this specter had taken them, and that they were now gone from my life forever.
I went in a rage, and I wandered back onto another broken bridge without noticing. A knife had appeared on the railing, as if daring me to grab it. I grabbed it and charged at the ghost that had just stolen my loves, but the board beneath its feet suddenly gave in and it fell. The next board I stepped on gave way as well and I tumbled into darkness.
I continued to fall and was shocked at what I saw rising to meet me. I was fifty-six when I realized I had reached the bottom. I looked around me and I was standing on a very dark rock. Around me I saw nothing but a flat plain with the occasional rock similar to the one I was standing on. I stepped down and gasped; human bones were scattered around the ground. In the distance I heard the sound of hundreds of voices crying out for help, for rescue from the thousands to tortures they are now enduring.
I looked up but could no longer see the dim light that was there surrounding the bridges. It was as if I was thrown in a dark room with no escape.
I felt my way in the darkness and ran into a large wall. Around me I saw the shadows move and near, and then I saw them. Skeletons had gotten up and started to go near him. They whisper the ghostly chant, “Join us, JOIN US!”
I was frozen in place by fear, and one boney hand had reached out and grabbed my arm. Its touch burned and I stared in horror as my arm began to lose its flesh and began to look identical to the bony hand that was grasping it. I could feel my will giving up, but my mind continued to search for some sort of help. Suddenly I saw something fall from the sky and land in the midst of the skeletons. The bones screamed in fear and vanished back into the darkness.
I crawled to the thing, wondering what could have scared the monsters away and saved him. It was a book. On the cover, in beautiful gold handwriting, the title read “The Holy Bible”. I opened its pages and started to read. As I read, I noticed my arm began to regain its flesh and my soul began to heal as well. The hope the book had given me began to glow with a physical light and let me sit in a peaceful state. This magical book had healed me, and it seemed to tell me to share with the other captives.
If a skeleton came near, I began to read and it would flee from me. But sometimes one would come near but would never touch me. It sat and listened, as if curious, and I saw its skin and muscle begin to grow back as well. Soon more and more skeletons joined us and more and more of them returned to their human forms, and I continued to preach.
One day I woke up to the flutter of wings and the sound of music. The same music I heard when I began my journey. I was ascending out of the abyss and towards the other side. I am eighty two. The arms around me held me gently but protectively. I was surrounded by light. I closed my eyes and when I reopened them, I was sitting in Paradise with all those I had read to in the canyon, and my family.