thechurch

[T. Reid]

If
I
Died
Today:

A Short Story By: Taylor (SPY) Reid





Beep…beep…beep… That’s the only thing that could be heard in the hospital room with the eighteen year old boy infested with cancer lying on what could be his death bed. This boy was an ordinary boy. Nothing wrong with him at all, but anything can happen, Right?

This boy had dreams, he had a future. He was athletic and talented beyond his years. He played instruments, he had an imaginative mind. But he was the furthest thing from perfect. He gave into pear pressure, he smoked, drunk, did drugs. No one knew these things besides him. Everyone thought he was the perfect boy living the perfect life.

He gave off the impression that he had a relationship with Jesus. He went to church, he sung along to the songs and went to the alters. Truth be told, he did have a relationship with Jesus, but it became broken, his will power was shot. He had no urge to love his god. He believed in the bible, but did not abide by it. He usually respected good writing to begin with, but what the bible said seemed pointless.

His parents thought he was the best son they could ask for. They did not know that he was hiding his life away.

The boy just lay there. Lifeless, but aware, he was unconscious, but able to think. “This is weird.” The boy thought. It was like being awake, but unable to open your eyes. He didn’t know what was going on, the last time he was conscious, he was behind an ally, taking a smoke without a second thought. “What has happened to me?” He thought again.

He didn’t know that the doctor’s just informed his parents that he had a brain tumor the size of a man’s fist sitting in his head, eating away the little life that was in him. He thought he must have fallen asleep and was having a weird dream.

His parents watch over him. The parents watch over him with tears and sadness.

“Even if this is the end dear, he has lived a life with god, and he would be going to heaven.”

The boy didn’t hear that, but if he were asked the question he would say it wasn’t true. He would say he screwed up somewhere along the line, and that if HE died today, he would surely be going to hell. But then he would think… “I can always get right with god in the future, I’ll get better sometime. It’s not like I’m going to die!”…

But the boy was going to die. He was given a ten percent chance of survival. No one EVER survived those odds. That would be impossible.

As the boy lay there things were happening in our world that people in that room were unaware of. Kids were being exposed to pornography. Teens were getting high off of over-the-counter medicine. Men were beating there wives into a bloody mess, Senators and people that the world got accustomed to trusting were cheating and lying to there families.

The boy felt agony. Sitting there, thinking, and not being able to open his eyes was torture. He knew for sure this wasn’t a dream. Was he being punished? If so, by whom? He started to panic. He started to catch his breath, and had a hard time breathing…


__________________________________________________________________


“His breathing is going hay wire!” The doctor said.

“What’s wrong with him?” His mom said. He was now twitching around.

The mom started sobbing, and his dad was holding her tight, crying as well. They thought for sure he was dying. They shielded there eyes… but then… his breathing returned to normal.

“That was odd.” The doctor said. “Whatever happened, he is back to normal now.” The parents sighed in relief…


The boy was consumed by all that was dark. It wasn’t a color, it was darker than black. It was the color of pure evil…

He noticed he had feeling in his feet! He tried to get up, but his strength wouldn’t allow him. He tried again. Same outcome, He rolled on his back.

“Where am I?” He thought to himself.

He tried to get up once more. He held his breath and eased him self up. His strength seemed to be renewed, but that didn’t help much considering he was in utter darkness.

He just walked the way he was facing in a forward direction. There was an incline, he had to be somewhere. He still had his Nike shoes on, but he could tell the ground under him was hot. Very hot, and it got hotter too. But he just kept going; there was no other place to go.

He started to see a dim light, a red light. He kept walking, almost climbing, forward, toward the light. He wanted to get there. He was attracted to the light, he thrived for the light. It was a weird sensation that he couldn’t explain. It was walking FOR him. He started to near the edge of the incline. It was getting him tired, but he didn’t notice. All he could think about was the red light.

He was at the end. What he saw…was not much, all he seen was a pool of red light. But he liked it. It felt comforting. He just stare for the longest time…





“The boys breathing speed is dropping, I don’t know about all of this weird breathing going on, but it can’t be good.” The doctor at the hospital said.

The parent’s attention was renewed.



The boy was still looking at the red. It was making him sleepy. But not for long, the red started to ease. It became shades of yellow, and white… the boy’s attention was strong again all of the sudden. He just looked at the color changes… But, something else was forming too, in the midst of the colors. What was it? It took a few seconds, but he finally made the figures out as people…

They were on the ground, all with there shirts off, and only a cloth to cover them. He didn’t know what they were doing on the ground. Well, he didn’t even know where he was! But he was certain that it wasn’t good, and that the awesome red light was a fluke.

The images started to get clearer. The faces were clear too. He gasped, for the sight was so unbearable.

The faces were all alive. All were mourning and crying out to nothing. There faces were all bloody, and everyone was bald, with there hair burnt off. The cries they made were worse than death it self. It was as if a sound was just screeching its way through there mouth. The last thing he noticed was the worst. There was a two handed sword jutting out of everyone’s stomach.

He couldn’t take it anymore. It was just too much. He turned around, planning to run away out of sight. But there was nothing to run to. There was just a wall were darkness used to be. He pounded on it hopelessly. He was crying at the images he saw. Wanting more than anything to get away.

Until he heard something.

“Would you like to join the club?” The voice that said that was the most hideous thing the boy ever heard. He just lay on the wall of stone, unable to turn around.

“This is where you belong boy! This will be your home!”

The boy forced himself to turn around. Once he did, he immediately regretted it. What he saw was the…thing…that talked to him. The pool of red and all of the bodies were gone. They were in a room, just the two of them, with only a candle light to provide sight.

The thing he saw was not a man. Not a women, and no animal he ever saw. It was evil. Just… evil.

“Scared boy?”

The creature seethed. The boy backed away, only to be caught by the wall. The creature moved in.

“This is what is in store for you.” The red light was coming back, and the suffering people were once again visible.

“That God you once believed in has turned on you. This is what HE plans for your future. He has brought this on you.”

The figure seemed to be molding itself into human form. It was a gruesome. The man he turned into had smirk on his face tainted with insanity and evil that was unbearable to watch.

“This is your life kid. This is Hell!”

The boy tried to run to his left in panic. But the creature, that was most certainly the devil or at least a demon, appeared right in front of him everywhere he went. The boy started to panic. He ran in random places, with the same affect every time.

“There’s no where to run! This is what your life brings!”

The place he was in started to ignite in flames. The boy felt every ounce of heat it gave off. It was burning his flesh straight off. The boy started to scream. The devil kept laughing. The boy felt something at his feet; he looked down to see crying men in pain and agony all around him. It became too much. The boy couldn’t think straight and fell to the ground to join his fallen companions.

He planned on just letting himself die. The flames started to reach his organs, and tear away every once of his flesh… He wouldn’t die! He gave off the same screams as everyone else around him. He wondered how his body could hold up so long. It started to burn so bad he couldn’t feel it anymore. He closed his eyes, wishing it to all be over. Thoughts of his gruesome life passed by in a blur… He wanted to die so bad!

“I... I… can’t take it anymore!”

Then black.




The beeping in the hospital room stopped all at once. There was no sound from the machine.

“No! No!” the mom screamed, and rushed over to her son. She shook him, and surely enough the beeping, and his breathing, started up again.




The boy felt as if he was being shaken. He jolted up, expecting to see his mom there waking him up for another long day of school.

But there was noting there. Blackness…complete darkness once again.

The boy didn’t want to get up. He could still remember the burning and suffering that just shortly happened. But something beyond him told him he had to.

He got right up this time, without any troubles. He started walking like last time, but took the other direction instead. He did it almost carelessly, as if he didn’t care where this direction took him.

It wasn’t to his surprise, but he started seeing another light again. This time it was white. The color of light, he walked a little faster forward.

Once he got to the light, he was nearing what looked like an edge, but to his surprise, the surface gave out, and he fell…endlessly.




The boy laying in the hospital bed unconscious, shot up before his parents. Eyes still closed. He just held that pose for a second and then fell back down on the bed.

“What is going on here?” the father said sheepishly.




The boy was laying, belly flat on “a” ground. He rolled over and opened his eyes, only to close them in protection from the brightest light, that he thought, could ever be shown.

The boy got up with his eyes closed, and once he was up, he tried to open them again. The light barely got any dimmer, but enough to keep them open.

There was nothing but bright light to be seen where he was standing, so he turned a full 360 degrees.

What he saw puzzled him. It was a gate. A gate with pears lined up on the edges. He moved in on the gate and examined it. It looked almost familiar, but the thought seemed so far away that he let it go.

What he noticed that was odd about the gate was that there was a golden lock on it that was bolted to the ground, and everything else around it. He felt the lock, and couldn’t even shake it a bit.

While he was still looking at the gate, the lights started to get even brighter. He whipped around just to fall on his face.

He was immediately over whelmed by being in the presence of the one and only God. For he knew it was God, for he knew there could be no other thing in existence that could be like it. It was an amazing presence. His feet seemed to be lifted off the ground, his heart seemed to not find that need in beating… He couldn’t get up, even if he tried, he would surely fail. God then spoke.

“My son, you have failed me.”

The boy tried to force his head up just a little bit. What he saw was images in the background of every time he took a smoke. Every time he wasted his life away on pot, and the times he acted a fool when drunk.

The boy lowered his head in shame.

“Son, would you like to continue on a road to hell?”

The boy started balling. This was the ultimate sham, to be confronted of your sins by the one and only God.

“You’re so full of sin… yet, I was once in you, do you remember?”

The boy could only shake his head.

“Wasn’t it so much better than this? Is truth and a clean slate so much worse than a life of sin and deception? Does this hurt bad enough to quit?”

The boy still was on the ground with his head down. He couldn’t bear this humiliation.

“Raise my son, for you have been given a second chance. Your time has come.”

God moved in on the boy and offered a hand of assistance to the boy. The boy gratefully took his hand. It was an awesome feeling.

They started floating upward towards the sky.

“Do you see that gate down there? Would you ever like to see what is on the other side?”

He then grabbed the boy and through him downward with full force. The boy crashed into the ground and…




The boy rose slowly with his eyes opened. The parents just stare in awe at the boy that they thought was his deathbed.

The boy looked around thoughtfully, taking everything in, not noticing that the whole hospital staff was cramming into the room.

The boy looked at his parents in the eye and said slowly.

“Boy, do I have a story for you. It starts in a local ally way…”









Eighty one long years later of living the right way, Michael Lennings lay on his deathbed in peace and happiness, knowing surely that he was going home. He died with a smile on his face.




Michael stood at the gate that was so familiar to him. The only difference was that there was no lock on it this time.

He turned around and looked at god. Michael said.

“Thank you so much ahead of time God, I’m just glad I could save some people trough the story you provided me with. Thank you.”

“Michael, you have lived your new life with no guilt.”

God then said the words that he was waiting every since that day to hear.

“Well done my good and faithful servant.”





What if you died today?







~Taylor (SPY) Reid