Israel Centeno

Neil had spent the last days of his illness thinking about eternal life. A committed Christian, he had lived a pious life in recent years, trusting in the promise that his soul, upon leaving his body, would enter the light of God. But the illness, that relentless procession toward dissolution, not only devoured his flesh but also began to erode his faith.

At first, it was a slight unease, a fleeting thought slipping like a shadow through his mind: What if none of this is true? He forced himself to push it away with prayers and supplications. But doubt, once introduced, took root deep within him.

Thus began his dark night. He prayed fervently but felt that no one was listening. He thought of God, and immediately, from the depths of his mind, a voice emerged—one he had never heard before:

—You are praying to no one. There is no one. There is no veil. There is only nothingness.

At first, it was barely a whisper, but as the days passed, it grew until it became a constant echo within his consciousness. His faith wavered, shaken by fear, by uncertainty. Every prayer was followed by a response of doubt. Every plea was met with absolute silence.

And then the moment came.

When he died, Neil did not feel the peace he had expected. Instead of a serene transition into glory, he was met with nothingness. Pure darkness. An immense void, bottomless, without edges. He felt his consciousness trapped in an infinite abyss, floating without direction, without purpose. Was this eternity? Was this the end?

An immense void, bottomless, without edges. He felt his consciousness trapped in an infinite abyss, floating without direction, without purpose. Was this eternity? Was this the end?

Yet, he was thinking—and that meant something.

I am here.

He did not feel his body, nor the weight of his past suffering. He was only pure thought in a black ocean. And within his mind, a phrase repeated itself:

Someone is coming. I will open my eyes. I will stand before my Judge.

He waited.

Time had no meaning in that place—if it could even be called a place. It was like being trapped in the exact moment between wakefulness and sleep, where reality dissolves and only a mist of awareness remains.

Then, a clearer thought surfaced amidst the gloom:

This cannot be eternity.

If it were, how could he establish a sequence of thoughts? How could there be a before and an after? If everything had ended, why was he still waiting? Whom am I waiting for?

Anguish coiled around his consciousness like a serpent.

He tried to remember his life, to search his memory for an anchor, something that would connect him to what he had been. But he remembered nothing. Not his name, not his face, not the world he had left behind. Only the certainty that he had once existed.

Consciousness and void. Consciousness and desert.

The nothingness continued to stretch around him—unfathomable, eternal. And then, on the horizon of that darkness, something different appeared.

A crack.

Small, imperceptible at first. But it was there. A fissure in the infinite shadow, a thin line where a pale glimmer seeped through.

Is this the threshold?

Hope rekindled within him like a spark in ashes. He clung to the crack, to its mere existence. If there was a crack, then there was something beyond the darkness.

The light grew, extending as if a veil were slowly being torn apart. Neil felt himself moving forward—or perhaps the crack was expanding toward him. A wavering glow began to take shape on the horizon.

And then he saw the little staircase.

He did not know where the certainty came from, but he understood that he had to ascend. It was a structure of worn steps, floating in the void, rising until it disappeared into the vastness. Beyond it, a misty clearing stretched out, as if an open expanse awaited at the end of the ascent.

A tremor ran through his consciousness.

Is this heaven?

But fear still gripped him.

What if it is not?

Neil hesitated. He wondered whether he should accept that light, whether he should believe that he was finally on the path to eternity.

He remembered his faith and his skepticism. He remembered the days when he prayed and felt that no one was listening. He remembered the voice that whispered there was nothing.

But now, there was something.

The darkness, the void, the endless abyss… all of that had been real. But so was this.

The light called him.

Neil stepped forward.

I Am the Way… The Light, The…

The voice did not emerge from anywhere, yet it surrounded him completely. It was not an echo, nor a whisper, but a certainty. A truth spoken from within him, as if it had always been there, waiting to be recognized.

“I am the way, the light, the life.”

The words resonated in the vastness, and with them, the little staircase seemed even more solid. Neil felt a warmth he had never felt in all his time in the abyss. A calling.

Fear tried to grip his consciousness once more. Is this real?

But something deeper, something more fundamental than his fear, answered from within.

He took the first step.

The touch of the step was firm, though he had no feet with which to feel it. It did not matter. He climbed another. And another. Each step took him farther from the abyss and closer to the light.

The nothingness faded behind him.

And then he understood.

He had not been alone in the darkness. He never had been. Even when he believed that nothingness had devoured him, the consciousness that sustained him was not his own. Someone else had held him in the abyss, in the timeless void.

The veil was completely torn apart.

The clearing he had glimpsed was no longer misty but an open horizon, illuminated by a clarity that did not blind but embraced. There were no walls, no shadows. Only an endless space and, at its farthest point, a door slightly ajar.

“No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Neil stopped wondering whether it was true, whether his faith had been in vain.

He no longer needed answers.

He simply kept moving forward.