“Mr. Grey?“ the voice penetrated the void. "Can you hear me?”

Now that it had appeared out of the void, I became aware of the void itself. It was neither dark nor bright, nor did it have space, nor gravity, nor temperature; nor did it have anything at all. Except for this strange voice.

    “Y .. Yee .. Yees?” It was great effort to speak. My words themselves were strangely hollow. “I .. caa .. caa .. can .. ee .. eea .. ear?” They were not words, for I recognized them as mere thoughts only. And with them being thoughts I recognized myself. I was. Encapsulated in an endless void, without a body, just my mind.

    “Mr. Grey, is this your name?”
I had to think. Yes, it was. I was Grey. Throughout my whole life I had been. Life. I had a life. God.

    “Aa .. aamm I .. d .. dea ..dead?” I asked my creator.

    “No, Mr. Grey. You are not dead. We will discuss this in a matter of minutes though. But, first -”

    “Aaa .. are youu .. Go.. God?”

    “No, Mr. Grey. I am not God. But, first, please don’t worry, you are in perfectly safe hands and everything is perfectly fine.”
I was still worried though for if I was not dead, what was I then? What had I been? I had had a life. I was .. I am! Robert Grey. I felt memories rising slowly from the darkness of my mind. I had had a life. I had .. I had .. something was rising .. someone was .. I had .. a name popped up. I had Julia!

    “Whe .. Wheer ii .. is .. Juu .. Juulia?”

    “You are remembering Julia, Mr. Grey? That’s good. Who is she?”
Who is she? Who is she? It was terrible to think, and even worse to remember. My mind felt scattered and dissolved and it was hard to grasp the torn thoughts. Ju .. lia .. Julia? Julia! Of course.

    “Shee .. iis .. myy wife.”

    “Correct, Mr. Grey.” the voice seemed a bit nervous though. “Now, can you remember other persons as well?”

Others .. With Julia .. I had a family!
     “Myy .. My chiildren .. Pe .. Peter and .. and .. Jennifer!”
     “Correct, Mr. Grey. Now - ”
     “Wheee .. Where aree .. they?”
     “Please, Mr. Grey, we will discuss this in a matter of minutes. Now, what else

can you remember?”

What else was there? I had my family .. they were mad at me though. We had been fighting recently. About what? I had been sick. Very sick.

    “I .. I was sick.”

    “That’s also correct, Mr. Grey. Can you remember what sickness it was?” Something terrible. Something incurable.

    “Caa .. Cancer!” God!
     “Correct, Mr. Grey. Wh-”
     “Did I .. did I .. survive it?”
     “.. What is the last thing you can remember, Mr. Grey?”

The memories came flowing in like a steady stream now. I had been terribly sick! All the treatments hadn’t worked. There had been no chance.

    “Nothing worked. And .. I was fighting .. with my family .. a lot”
    “Can you remember what you were fighting about, Mr. Grey?”
    “It was a new chance. Not a cure .. but .. but .. ” a further name came up, not the name of a person though, but of a company. “Alcor!”

    “Right, Mr. Grey.” the voice got a bit shaky. “What did Alcor do?”

Alcor .. Alcor .. what did they do? .. I remembered the hospital, the doctors telling me that there was no chance of curing me. I remembered my collegue from work. He had told me about Alcor. I had enough money for it. Then the men from Alcor came to me. We talked. They told me about .. about .. I had signed something .. OH MY GOD!

    “I got fro .. frozen, didn’t I?”
     “Yes, Mr. Grey. You got .. cryogenized. Can you remember the year?” “It was 2014 .. wasn’t it?”
     “Yes, it w-”
     “What year are we in now?!”
     “I can not tell you yet, Mr. Grey, as to prevent shock.”

    “Is it far?”

    “Yes.”
God. How far could that be?

     “Is my family still alive?!”
     “No, I am sorry, they are not alive anymore.”
     “Did they .. did they preserve themselves .. like me?”
     “I am sorry again, but they didn’t let themselves cryogenized, Mr. Grey.”

I started to feel terrible. Julia had been screaming at me, It isn’t what life is about she had screamed at me, There won’t be anything left for you then she had screamed. Then she had cried and had ran out of the hospital room. I had cried too. A lot. In the cold hospital bed in fetus position. Alone.

    “They are surely dead?” I whispered, hoping to change it through asking.

    “I am deeply sorry, Mr. Grey, but yes, they are.”
    “And they surely didn’t get preserved?”
    “They didn’t.”

    “Did .. did my children have children at least?”
    “.. Neither of your children had any offspring themselves.”
    “Is .. is there anyone .. anyone who I knew .. still .. alive?” I almost didn’t dare to ask, being afraid of the likely answer.
    “I am sorry, but no, there is no one alive anymore you knew.”

I now felt as lonely as I never had been before. The endless void now creeped the hell out of me. It even creeped into me. I felt void myself. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t since there was no body I possessed.

    “Where .. what .. what am I?”
    “Are you asking about your physical form, Mr. Grey?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Can you remember it yourself, Mr. Grey? Can you remember what exactly you had agreed upon, Mr. Grey?”

What had it been? My body had been dying, the cancer had spread through all of it. No need for the body anymore .. Oh. My.

    “Just my brain got preserved!”
    “Yes, Mr. Grey, you became, what we call a ‘neuropatient’”

    “So, that’s it? The .. the void?”

    “The 'void’ you are experiencing, Mr. Grey, is the lack of sensory input .. frankly put, due to the lack of sensors themselves .. Mr. Grey, what you are experiencing is the effect of your brain being placed in a sustainment vessel. We are directly talking to you through nanoscopic implants inside your brain right now.”

That’s it. That’s me. A brain in a vessel …
     “But don’t worry, Mr. Grey, science has evolved tremendously since your time. As we have agreed upon in our contract, you will be given a new body. Even a better one. A young, fresh and healthy body. No more sickness, no more pain, no more death. It’s a new start, a new chance. Health and life are being given to you again, Mr. Grey.” The voice sounded cheerfull, but I wasn’t.

    I could remember, that this was, what I had signed. I could remember, that this was, what I had longed for so much during the years of my illness, during the years of fighting against certain death. I could remember, that this was, what my family had been against. They had been so mad at me. They had loved me too much to endure the thought of me being frozen like a piece of meat. And I had betrayed them. Hell, I had betrayed death itself. Now, I was given the chance of life again, a healthy body. But I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t! All I wanted was my family! I wanted to be with them again. I wanted to be hugged by my wife and by my children for one last time. And I wanted to say a proper good-bye. I wanted to tell my children to take good care about themselves and about their mother. I wanted to tell them to live their lives fully. There is just so little time. Life is precious. And I wanted to tell them that at some point it’s time for everyone to go. To let go. That everything ends at some point. And that one has to be strong enough to accept fate and even to embrace it.
But above all, I wanted to die.

––
BY STEFAN RESCH