THE AFTERLIFE PARADOX

"Ahh!" Williams gasped for air as he looked around.

"Where am I?" He saw that he was still in the same jet and back in the body of that same person, as if nothing had ever happened. It was as if everything had just been an illusion, but his shaking hand told him that it was not an illusion.

"Not so fast, don't tell me you're tired already and you want to surrender. You've only just experienced your first death," the lady appeared in front of him and smiled. He frowned as he clenched his fist and threw it towards her angrily, but he felt an invisible force crush down towards him and hold him in place.

"You're feisty," she smiled.

"Well, it won't be fun if you just stop at the first death. The person who held the record went through six deaths before he surrendered. You should at least reach the fourth death." She said as she smiled at him while licking her lips.

"Enjoy your second death." She said and disappeared.

Suddenly, the plane started shaking immensely as it went through turbulence. His body shook as he tried to latch onto a seat and use a seatbelt, but he was thrown away and hit the wall with immense force that made him lose his shape. Just when he collided with the wall of the plane, everything played in slow motion, and he felt every inch of his body crashing into the plane, and the bones cracking due to immense force with the nerve-wracking and despair-inducing pain that was transmitted through every part of his body.

"Ahh!" he gasped.

"Crack!" This time, it was his spinal cord that cracked. The second time, his skull cracked. The third time, his lungs cracked. The fourth time, the crack on his skull widened. The fifth time, every bone starting from his chest to his back rattled as cracks spread out from them. The sixth time, some of his lungs broke, and the bones pierced into his kidney.

"Puah!" he spat out a mouthful of blood as he could not even breathe out because of the pain hitting him in waves. He could not even shout; he was experiencing violent pain on every inch of his body. Suddenly, time paused.

"How's it?" The lady appeared and asked.

"I would have loved to watch you continue to suffer, but I must still go through the motion." She said.

"Do you surrender?" She asked.

"In your dreams," he squeezed those words out from his mouth.

"Great, continue," she said.

"Wait," She looked at him. "Demons don't dream because we are the cause of nightmares itself." She smiled and disappeared.

It continued; he hit the body of the plane violently. Even the metal caved a little due to the force. All the bones in his body shook as his skull fractured. The eighth time, all his spinal cord had already broken. The ninth time, "Boom!" the plane crashed into what looked like solid ground, and he hit the body of the plane violently. All the remaining bones in his body broke down immediately. Now, the time he surrendered to death arrived, but time slowed down more, and he felt nerve-wracking pain hitting every part of his body.

"Life after death," he thought, as he had no choice but to look up, as he could not even summon the strength to just twitch his fingers. After a long time of torture and pain, he finally drifted into darkness.

"Ahh!" He gasped out as he looked around; he lost all the strength in his body as he knelt on the floor. He tried to regain his wit before standing up and looked around. This time, he was in an unknown building.

"Welcome to your third death," the lady appeared before him. "Do you surrender, or you choose to continue being stubborn?" She asked.

"I will never surrender," he shouted out as he grabbed the metal next to him and stabbed it towards the lady, but she disappeared.

"Then enjoy," her voice reverberated through the house. He looked around warily, trying to look for a path of escape, when

"Boom!" he heard an explosion from the kitchen. It was the sound of an explosion.

"No!" he said, as he shook his head and ran to the door, trying to open it to escape from the raging fire that was expanding every second, but to his dismay, the door was locked. It was also a tough aluminum door, which made it impossible for him to break. He rushed towards the window, but they were all locked. He returned to the door, leaned on it as he sat on the floor, knowing there was nothing he could do. He saw the raging fire expand inch by inch, covering every part of the house before making its way to the door. The flames made their way towards him, and time slowed down again as he felt the extreme heat causing blisters all over his skin. X That was the first wave of torture and pain. The heat continued to get intense very slowly, giving him the impression that he was being cooked alive. His whole skin turned red as his skin wrinkled due to dehydration.

"Fuck you!" he shouted as he watched the fire slowly catch up to him. There was nothing he could do. It latched onto his skin and covered his whole body slowly. From the feeling of being cooked, it evolved to the feeling of being burnt alive, and the pain had been magnified by ten times. He jumped into the flames to end things himself, at least he would die faster. He felt his skin being burnt alive and his bones being cooked for a long time before finally drifting into darkness, only to know that what awaited him next would be worse than this.

"Hmm," he gasped as he met himself in the air, wearing the cloth of a skydiver.

"Do you surrender?" He heard the voice of the lady and looked at her without saying anything. He had accepted reality; there was no chance of escaping from their hands, but he wouldn't surrender because of that. He would still fight till the end.

After some time, "I take that as a no, then," she said.

"Enjoy your fourth death, then." He started falling from a height of two hundred thousand feet.

"Parachute!" he muttered as he tried to deploy the parachute, even though he wasn't supposed to yet, but it wasn't working.

"No!" He tried to deploy it, but it wasn't working. He watched himself get closer to the ground until he was just a couple of hundred feet away from the ground.

"Parachute!" he shouted, and as if having mercy on him, the parachute was finally deployed.

A wave of ecstasy hit him immediately, but before he could revel in the feeling, "Rip!" The sound of something tearing was heard, and the parachute ripped apart.

"No!" he shouted as he made contact with the ground, and time slowed down. He felt his chest first make contact with the ground, along with his whole body. He felt his skin tearing open, along with his bones fracturing and breaking in many places, all along with the residue of the bones piercing into his skin and organs.

Normally, after such a thing happened, a human would die in some seconds, but time had been slowed down, so the remaining time he had left had been extended by a large amount. He felt pain hitting every part of his body for a long time before finally falling into darkness.

"Do you surrender?" he heard a voice as he was awoken. He looked around and saw himself in a body of water. His limbs were weak, as he could not even summon any strength from his body. He did not answer.

"You are quite a steadfast and stubborn one," he heard the lady's voice. "Enjoy your fifth death, then." "Pop!" The barrier separating him from reality popped, and water gushed into every inch of his body. He felt suffocated as he tried to breathe, but he could not breathe. He tried to summon strength to swim upward, but he could not swim upward.

"Ahh!" He tried to shout for help, but water gushed into his mouth. Time passed by excruciatingly slowly as he felt every function of his body shutting down. He felt bloated as the water took over every part of his body. He could not breathe; he had lost every bit of his strength, so he could not even try to swim upward. He was supposed to succumb within minutes, but the time passed by slowly.

"Life has been an illusion all along, and every belief I had had been an illusion," he thought. "We were used, and the people who used us did not even try to help us because we've outlived our usefulness."

"Ahh!" He sighed as he fell into darkness for the fifth time.