You’ve all heard of me.

I’m the one who was brought back from death by the wondrous breath of the man you call the Messiah, said to be the child of divine sire.

They called it the greatest miracle, heavenly spectacle. They kissed his healing hand and exalted him as the holiest of the land. They said I was blessed with the greatest gift that could ever be possessed.

I wonder if they’d say the same, and praise the saviour’s name if they saw what I saw behind the wall, the wall that conceals the greatest truth of all. For, the world beyond was full of horror, ghastly horror like no other.

At first, I found myself floating on a river of the dead, the repository to which all who once lived are led. We had all turned into strange creatures with insect-like features, stuffed into a channel inside a long and narrow tunnel.

The convulsing tangles of bodies and legs made what looked like a twisting and writhing arachnid braid. We kept sliding down somewhere, into the interior of the cavernous air. The curling and churning masses would occasionally halt and crawl, then, at one point, began speeding up as if entering a rapid or a fall.

Soon, I could see afar what looked like a grey ocean, a vast plain of heaving and rolling motion. But, as we reached further, I could see that what I saw was not water but massive swarms of our kind, the insects of the underworld, which every surface lined. The waves I thought I saw were flailing limbs making troughs and peaks along different seams. The critters piled into sliding mounds reminded me of floating piles of ants I saw once.

As I drew nearer to the main commotion, it all turned into a wild panoply of gruesome contortion, spread into the horizon, creating a terrible vision far beyond the most depraved earthly creation. An awful sight of billions and trillions of insectoid configurations all desperately twisting and gyrating in grotesque indignation.

Incredible sadness overtook me in every ways, seeing death itself face to face. ‘This is the place’, I thought, ‘where souls are finally brought’, discarded into this heap of wasted chaos to endure the eternity like ash spent of purpose. To do no more than bear witness to the monstrosity of the universe, the void within the void that makes life a cruel jest and death an insurmountable curse.

Now, by the grace of The Saviour I’m back among the living, the tortuous sight of death still vividly lingering. I don’t know the length of extension I gained from my resurrection but I’m doomed with the knowledge of what death holds in storage, when the darkness falls again and draws me back to the familiar horror and pain. I’m not like you to whom all beyond life is a mystery. I’ve seen much, much more than anyone should.