That Time I Reincarnated as a Stone

Chapter 1: The Immobile Observer

Death wasn’t like the movies. There was no cinematic montage of my failures, no blinding light beckoning me toward eternal rest. For me, the end of Frido was defined by the echo of a persistent beep and a gluttonous cold devouring my hands, all while I watched my wife and son dissolve into tears beside my bed.

I had everything an “successful” man was supposed to crave: a house, a loving family, a prestigious job. Yet, ironically, success tasted like nothing. I spent my life waiting for a bus that never pulled into the station. Pancreatic cancer wasn’t a tragedy; it was merely the period at the end of a monotonous sentence.

“Peace, at last,” I thought as the world faded to grey.

But peace is a fickle thing.

As I crossed that pale tunnel, a voice belonging neither to man nor god thundered through my consciousness:

—“It is not your time. You have another purpose.”

—“Purpose?” I tried to scream, but I no longer possessed a mouth. The white stained into an absolute black, and I felt myself dissolve.

When I opened my eyes, the hospital had vanished. There was no scent of disinfectant, no rhythmic chirping of machines. I couldn’t feel my limbs; in fact, I couldn’t feel anything at all. My gaze was anchored to a sky of an alien blue, streaked with brushstrokes of an unnatural pink—as if someone had spilled paint across a cosmic canvas.

Panic tried to claw its way up my throat, but it found no passage. What the hell is happening? Is this heaven or hell? Why can’t I move a single finger? The silence screamed answers at me that I couldn’t comprehend.

Then, a voice that seemed birthed from the wind itself whispered:

—“Henceforth, you shall be known as Samuel, the creator of m… u… n…… s.”

The end of the sentence unraveled in the air. Samuel? A new name for a body that refused to respond. Surprise kept me distracted for a few hours, but reality soon struck with the force of a shipwreck: there was too much peace. “Tranquility” is just the elegant name the living give to the absolute boredom of the dead.

For a guy who lived chained to screens and noise, the silence of nature was Chinese water torture. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t even close my eyes to shut out the landscape. I could only exist, lost in an endless loop of thought.

Days passed. Or perhaps weeks. Time is a flexible dimension when you are a static object. What am I supposed to be? A rock? A monument to my own bad karma?

And then, the first shift occurred.

Without knowing how, I felt my perception tear and expand. My vision, previously fixed on that slice of pink sky, began to rotate as if an invisible camera were pulling back from my center. For the first time, I saw further. I saw the emerald moss creeping up my sides and gazed upon the vastness of the desolate landscape surrounding me.

I had no brain, no nerves, no eyes. And yet, there I was, seeing the world truly for the first time in my entire existence. I was terrified, I was bored, and above all… I was alone.

“What is to become of me?”…

…"

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