In his mind, the thought of heaven brought a wry smile to his lips. Heaven, with its pearly gates and harp-playing angels, seemed a far cry from this desolate void. Hell, on the other hand, seemed too harsh, too punishing. Compared to those two places, this place felt neutral and at the same time, wasn't it?
"I seriously don't understand what is going on here." He groaned. At that moment, Victor tried to recall any religious teachings he had been exposed to, including stories of the afterlife, but his memory was a bit hazy.
"Ah, this sucks ass...."
For many reasons, Victor sighed, annoyed as he had never been a particularly religious guy in his entire life and was more of a pragmatist than a believer. But now, faced with the unknown, he questioned everything he thought he knew.
A chilling thought suddenly struck him. "Could this be... purgatory?"
"If I'm not wrong, that's where you wait before you go to heaven or hell," Victor muttered, feeling that it was the only explanation he could come up with that fit the current predicament as he opened his eyes. "But... I don't remember signing up for any waiting rooms to meet the devil any time soon."
He couldn't help but chuckle darkly, the sound swallowed by the emptiness, feeling a little proud of his own jokes. "And besides."
"I don't think they have a VIP lounge for guys like me. You know, the ones who stained their hands with a little too mu..." Victor then scoffed, but his words soon trailed off when he remembered something. "Wait, no, that's not right."
"Purgatory isn't a waiting area for judgment, and if I recall correctly," he murmured, realising his mistake. "It's more akin to... a punishment space for sinners."
"If that was the case, why am I still intact?" Victor questioned, feeling the absurdity of the situation and his own existence growing increasingly weird by the second. "If I were stuck in purgatory, I should be a broken yet messy shell of my former self by now."
"I mean..." Victor chuckled nervously, a bitter smile playing on his lips. "I've done quite a lot of jobs in my entire life that were so dirty and evil that it can easily book a one-way VIP ticket straight down to the bottom layer of hell."
As he closed his eyes again and tried to imagine what hell would look like, the image in his mind showed vivid images of a hellish landscape, demons with grotesque faces, and flames that danced with malevolence.
"Despite the fact I don't regret any of it, not one damn bit..." Victor sighed, opening his eyes with a solemn look. "I was kind of expecting some kind of divine retribution after I died and not... whatever this is."
A sudden gust of wind, though there was no clear source, somehow ruffled Victor's hair. "Honestly..."
"Where's the punishment I deserve? Where's the torture? Is the devil on a coffee break or something?" He questioned, glancing around, feeling confused that nothing had happened to him yet. As his eyes continued to scan the featureless landscape, he mused, "Maybe... is this the punishment? Or am I just stuck here? Waiting for some kind of judgment?"
As a gangster, his life had been in a constant state of danger. Deep down, Victor always felt that someone was always out to get him, always a threat looming over his head, especially when he had gained his position.
Now, though, he felt a sense of tranquillity. It was as if all the world's weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Victor could feel the tension in his muscles melting away, and his mind was clear and focused.
"I don't understand," he said, his voice a whisper. "Why am I feeling this way?"
A thought occurred to him. Maybe this was the punishment he had been expecting. Maybe this was his hell. But it didn't feel like hell. It felt like heaven.
"So, is this it, then?" Victor asked, his voice barely a thought. "Is this the end?"
"Death finally got its hand on me, huh?" He then muttered, his voice a little more than a thought echoing in the blackness. "What a shocker."
In the past, Victor had cheated death a dozen times before, always with a cocky grin despite being in a critical state a lot of times. Now, there was just a hollowness where his bravado used to be.
"No pain, no worries," he said with a ghost of a smile after a moment of silence. "Well, this isn't exactly the afterlife I pictured, but then again, who am I to argue?"
Even in this situation, Victor nearly missed the thrill of a good brawl, his family's togetherness, and the pleasure of a job well done. But there were only echoes now, whispering in the eternal darkness, and in that nothingness, he felt a weird feeling of serenity. A tranquillity that is beyond comprehension, a stillness that defies rationality. It was a tranquillity derived not from joy or happiness, but from the absence of all feeling and sense.
"Maybe this is the real peace I never found in my life," he mused, a melancholic acceptance colouring his thoughts. "No more running while dodging bullets, no more fighting, no sleeping with one eye open, and no more bullshit that I have to clean up after."
"No more... especially no more of those goddamn crappy meetings with that blockhead bastard!" Victor said before erupting into laughter, clutching his stomach. "Those endless hours sitting in that stuffy room, listening to fucking Tony drone on about some half-baked scheme while I just sat there wanting to strangle the bastard every second for each crap that came out of his mouth. Or worse, having to sit through those stupid 'team-building' exercises where we had to pretend to be fucking trees or some shit."
He chuckled, the absurdity of his past life finally hitting him. "Remember that time we had to do that trust fall? I almost pushed that slimy little weasel, Andrew, off the roof! I swear, I'd rather face a firing squad than another one of those ridiculous retreats."
Victor shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. "And don't even get me started on the suits that Emma made. Those goddamn tailored nightmares! They were more uncomfortable than a straitjacket. I'd rather go commando than wear another one of those things. And the shoes that her little brother made! Don't even get me started on the shoes."
He paused, a wave of nostalgia washing over him. "But you know what I'll miss?"
"My favourite whiskey. Good old Glenlivet," he mused, a hint of sadness in his voice. "That smooth, smoky taste... Ah, the memories."
Victor sighed, the image of a dimly lit bar, a glass of amber liquid swirling in his hand, and the comforting hum of jazz music fading into the background.
"And the girls," he added with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Those beautiful, fiery women... always a welcome distraction from the day's chaos."
Victor couldn't help but chuckle at the memory of a particular brunette with eyes like molten gold and a laugh that could melt glaciers, briefly warming the chilling emptiness.
"But hey," he shrugged, a philosophical air about him, "all good things must come to an end, right?"
A subtle tremor flowed through the void as Victor was ready to embrace the emptiness completely, causing him to look surprised "What was that?"
This odd sensation was unlike anything he had felt before. Surprised, he turned his head, seeking the source of the disruption. "Where did that come from?"
Another tremor soon followed before Victor could understand the situation, this one stronger than the first, accompanied by a peculiar sensation – a thought?
It didn't belong to him, obviously, but it brushed against the edges of his mind, like a distant memory. Victor didn't know how to put it into words, but he could sense it through his emotions, and it felt familiar.
"What the hell is going on?!" Victor exclaimed, his voice sharp in the sudden silence. The tremors had stopped as abruptly as they began, leaving him disoriented and strangely... curious.
"Wh-what was that?" he muttered, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It felt like some kind of... thought? But whose?"
The idea was crazy, absurd even. Thoughts belonged to the living, didn't they? How could a thought exist in this... this nothingness?
But the feeling lingered as a faint echo of something familiar, something... human. It was like a whisper on the wind, a fleeting sensation that refused to be ignored.
"Well, this is getting interesting," Victor said, a hint of excitement creeping into his voice. "Maybe this place isn't as empty as I thought."
"Here I go." He muttered, pushing off, propelling himself towards the source of the tremor, his curiosity now piqued. If there were others... things... here, other beings, then perhaps he wasn't alone after all.
After a while of travelling, Victor noticed the tremors that had originally stopped resumed and became more frequent over time, with the distortions in the void more pronounced. Sometimes, the darkness would ripple and distort, as if something was trying to break through. Other times, he would feel a sudden chill, a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the constant coldness of the void.
"What the hell is going on here?" Victor muttered, his voice laced with a newfound urgency. "Is this place... alive or something?"
"Okay, okay, I think I've had enough of this," Victor muttered after investigating for a while, his voice trembling slightly. He felt like the void itself was trying to crush him, to squeeze the life out of him, whatever that meant in this... place.
He pushed off harder, his movements frantic now. He had to get away, had to escape this... whatever this was. Victor didn't know where he was going, or if there even was a "where" in this endless nothingness. But he had to keep moving, had to keep pushing forward.
"Come on, come on," Victor urged himself, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "You can do this. You've survived worse."
He thought back to his life on the streets, the countless times he had dodged bullets, outrun the cops, and escaped from impossible situations. He had always found a way out and always survived. He would survive this, too.
Victor pushed himself harder, his body straining against the invisible forces that seemed to be pulling him back. He could feel the darkness closing in, the tremors intensifying, the void itself screaming at him. "Urghhhhhhhh...!"
"Yes, yes, yes..." Victor roared, his voice echoing through the void as he somehow managed to gather all of his remaining strength at the last second and escape the crushing darkness. He stumbled forward, his body trembling, his heart pounding like a drum. He had made it. He was free.
But then, he stopped. His jaw dropped, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Huh?"
To Be Continued