Isaac discovered that death did not begin with answers.
It began with the careful removal of lies.
First, they took his body — and he did not protest. Then they took time. There was no before and no after, only a continuous now, too vast to be measured.
Then they began to take away his justifications.
He tried to think like a soldier, and the thought would not come. He tried to remember himself as a commander, and memory returned only empty gestures. He tried to cling to the idea that he had been righteous, and that idea dissolved like mist.
So this is it, Isaac thought. Death is when the stories we tell about ourselves stop working.
There was no answer.
But there was presence.
It did not announce itself. It did not ask permission. It simply was, and that was enough for Isaac to understand that everything he had considered "center" had always been periphery.
The White Light did not illuminate.
It stripped bare.
It passed through Isaac like a gaze that did not judge, but saw — including what Isaac himself had never dared to form into thought. It was neither heat nor cold nor brilliance. It was something prior to the very idea of light. Something that existed before the need to exist.
Isaac tried to speak, but realized he had no mouth. He tried to kneel, but had no knees. He was only naked consciousness before something infinitely greater.
And even so, he thought: If You are God, then You know I did not come here clean.
The Light did not respond with words.
But Isaac felt — not heard, felt — an invitation. Not to justify himself, but simply… to see.
The first thing he saw was himself.
Young, studying ancient texts by candlelight in forgotten libraries. He remembered the genuine fascination, the feeling of touching something sacred each time he turned yellowed pages.
I was seeking You, Isaac thought.
And then the memory unfolded, and he saw the precise moment when the search changed.
It was not dramatic. There was no obvious temptation. It was merely… a subtle shift in perspective.
He had begun studying the texts not to know God, but to know about God.
The difference was minimal. Lethal.
Knowledge became the end, not the means. God became a dissertation topic, not a source of life. An object of study, not a Lord.
I still believed— Isaac protested.
The Light did not contest him.
It simply showed.
Isaac saw himself making complex ethical decisions, always choosing the rational path. He saw himself helping people, leading men, doing good — all without ever, not once, asking what God wanted.
Because he already knew what was right.
Because he had become wise enough to govern himself.
That was my fall, Isaac murmured, and the word fall reverberated in ways he had never understood before.
It was not spectacular sin.
It was… independence.
The choice to be good without being obedient. To be just without being dependent. To carry one's own light without asking for borrowed fire.
Then the vision expanded.
He saw entire cities. Philosopher-kings ruling with secular wisdom. Logical-priests maintaining rituals not out of faith, but out of useful tradition. Mage-scientists unraveling mysteries without ever thanking the Creator.
They were not monsters.
They were competent. Ethical. Civilized.
And completely self-sufficient.
Isaac saw the moment they stopped praying — not because they doubted that God existed, but because they no longer needed His help.
God had become a historical concept. An archived hypothesis. An ancient foundation upon which they had built, now buried beneath layers of progress.
You forgot Me, came the communication, not with anger, but with a sadness that transcended human emotion. Not through denial, but through replacement.
And then Isaac saw what came next.
The Ancients did not invade.
They were invited.
Isaac saw sages in high towers, invoking not demons, but "higher intelligences." He saw pacts written not in blood, but in logical treaties. He saw the construction of a new order — not through violence, but through enlightened consensus.
We can be better, they said. We can transcend our limitations.
And the Ancients answered.
They descended like wandering stars, beautiful and terrible, offering exactly what humanity asked for: power without accountability, knowledge without wisdom, progress without purpose.
Isaac saw the construction of what should never have been built. Not a physical tower, but a spiritual structure — a Babel of converging wills, all agreeing that they could reach heaven by their own merit.
And at the center of that structure, fed by every autonomous decision, every justified pride, every silent rejection of the divine…
Something began to take shape.
Isaac could not see it clearly. The vision fragmented, became obscure. But he felt its weight — a terrible gravity pulling downward, collapsing inward.
He was not born in a moment. He was gestated through thousands of small choices.
And when he finally emerged—
The vision ended abruptly.
Isaac gasped, though he had no lungs.
What was that?
The Light offered no explanation.
Only acknowledgment that he had seen.
Isaac felt something like nausea.
It wasn't an invasion, he said, his voice breaking. It was… an answer.
The Light remained silent.
Why did You allow it?
The question escaped before Isaac could stop it.
And the answer came, not as condemnation, but as simple truth:
Because love that forces is not love.
Isaac understood something terrible then: God had not abandoned the world.
The world had dismissed Him.
And He, respecting the choice, had withdrawn.
And I… Isaac tried to form the question that burned within him. Was I different?
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Isaac saw himself again. The competent soldier, the respected captain, the man who studied ancient texts not to know God, but to preserve historical knowledge.
He was the last one who still remembered.
But remembering is not the same as knowing.
I kept You as… a concept, Isaac confessed. As a relic of the past. Something to be studied, preserved, but not… not obeyed.
There was no accusation from the Light.
Only acknowledgment.
Igovernedmyself, Isaac continued. With ethics. With reason. With discipline. I did good. I led men. I saved lives. All without ever asking for Your help. Because I thought I didn't need it.
The Light remained.
Thatwasmyrejection, Isaac whispered. I didn't deny Your existence. I simply decided I could live without Your presence.
Yes.
The word brought no condemnation.
It brought clarity.
And clarity, Isaac discovered, was more painful than judgment.
And now? Isaac asked, smaller than he had ever been in life. Is this the end?
The Light intensified, and Isaac realized that what was coming was neither cheap forgiveness nor just condemnation.
It was something more costly than both.
It is the return.
Return to what?
To witness.
The Light showed him something — but the vision was shrouded, unclear. Isaac saw the world as it was: darkness growing. He saw people consumed by shadows they carried within. He saw the King of Night, but only as a silhouette, a shape suggested rather than revealed.
The true disease was invisible. Ancient.
They forgot, came the communication. Not only Me, but their own need.
And I… will I return to remind them?
No.
The answer surprised him.
You will return to prepare them.
Prepare them for what?
But the Light gave no answer to this. Only the certainty of purpose without understanding its end.
Isaac felt weight returning. The smell of smoke. The impossible heat.
Wait— he cried. I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to say—
You will learn. Live.
But they won't understand!
Not immediately.
When—
But the question dissolved as Isaac inhaled for the first time after death.
The air burned. Flames touched his skin. Muscles contracted in agony.
And before the scream came, the Light remained — no longer visible, but present. Like an inner fire that did not consume, only sustained.
Isaac rose from the funeral pyre.
Not as a celebratory miracle.
Not as a victorious conqueror.
But as a burned witness, carrying something he did not fully understand.
A memory of light.
A mission without clarity.
A purpose that would only reveal itself in walking.
He did not know what he was meant to prepare.
He did not know what was coming.
He knew only that he had been sent back.
And that the White Light — though now invisible — had not abandoned him.
Not yet.
Not yet.