What Happens After You Die?

[TrixxedHeart]

You're sprawled in one of the old chairs, the kind that's molded to fit whoever sits in it long enough... Your friend is in the one next to you, sideways, legs draped over one armrest, head resting on the other. The stars stretch out in every direction...slow, silent, endless. The only light comes from them and the faint glow of the plant on the sill.

Neither of you has spoken in a while. It's that kind of place. The kind that makes you talk less and think more.

Your friend's voice comes low, unhurried, as though the quiet itself granted permission.

"Random-"

You glance over.

"But I've been thinking."

They don't look at you. Their eyes are on the stars, tracing something only they can see.

"What do you think happens?" They nod toward the glass, toward the dark between the pinpricks of light. "After. When someone doesn't walk it off."

They let out a breath...not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. Something in between. Something that knows.

"I've seen people go out," they say. "More than I count. Hull breach. Fires. Science accidents. And every time, I wonder if they went somewhere. Or if somewhere came to them first."

A long pause. The plant rustles slightly. Maybe the vents. Maybe not.

Your friend shifts, pulling their legs in, sitting up just enough to look at you properly. In the starlight, their face is calm. Thoughtful. The way people look when they've been sitting with a question for a while, letting it settle.

"What's the bet? Void? Something else? Nothing at all?"

A small, tired smile. The kind that comes after too many shifts, too many close calls, too many people who didn't make it to cryo.

"I'm not trying to get philosophical on you. Just..." They gesture vaguely at the stars. "All this. Makes you wonder, right? What do you believe?"

[kthulu278]

When you look over to Relilikav, he has that look on his face again. The one he gets whenever you ask a question like this- like you just punched him in the face. All his feathers askew, like a puffed-up cat.

"Some peace and quiet, for once," he snaps, moving to leave the chair he's in.

"We've been here too long," he says, leaving, "We need to get back to work."

You're not really sure what you expected, really. Just when you think you've achieved the status of friend, he always snaps those walls back up again like a clam's shell. Even getting him to just sit down for a while was a chore and a half. Besides, this was probably a better question for a drunker Reli- that's one of the few times he'll actually talk about himself.

Speaking of a drunker Reli, you can't help but think to the last time he had drank. It wasn't just one of those shifts where everything seemed to go wrong- he had also been roped into becoming Acting Research Director, which you know for a fact he despises. He had told the bartender that he didn't care which drink he had, as long as it made him drunk. You had to loop an arm around him and help him half-stumble to a quieter part of CentComm, all while he complained about the shift in a voice so slurred you couldn't hear half of what he was saying. You had waited until enough alcohol had left his system that he could actually be understood (but not enough that he'd clam up again- it was a fine art, getting Reli to talk) to pop a different question that had been gnawing at you.

"Why do you push everyone away?"

"What's the point of making friends?" he countered, still slurring enough that you really had to listen, "I'll just get a dose of MindWipe at CC. Or they'll die. It's all pointless, really. Why should I care about anyone? Why should they care about me?"

It's this memory, along with your (admittedly, scant) knowledge of Reli, that lets the truth click into place-

Relilikav is terrified of the answer.

[Scrambleking]

Scrams come back, Scrams remember. Scrams come back, Scrams remember. Sometimes Scrams change. Sometimes Scrams same. Sometimes see many Scrams. Tube always bring scrams back. Death is no end. Death is prison. The end of one is the start of another. Death brings life brings death brings life. All things will end but not Scrams. Many scrams make many things in many lives. All end. All die. All live again.

Scrams scared there is no end for lizard who eats own tail.

[AAAAAAAAAAANGELA]

... ssstories ssstories, they say of a place a place of those who passsed, I belive in it, mossst do?...
It hasss gotten clossse a few timesss more I want to admit, dive headfirssst into a blade... you don't sssee you dont hear...?
Yet you feel handsss, holding you, handsss familiar, handsss of thossse you never knew the onesss before usss, I try to venerate thessse handsss of thossse we never knew... ksssh

I dont know if thossse hands are reaching for me, drowning me, or pussshing me out
I want to meet them, when itss time, hopefully not sssoon.

[Rilln]

Baxter Hati, IAA.

She took a deep breath, picking up the half finished glass of Melon infused vodka and chugging the rest, spilling a slight bit on her shirt.... It was fine, she was already a mess.

before mustering a reply

"Depends how important you feel you are, if your too important to lose, they'll always find a way to clone you, but if ya dont wana, who knows, maybe there is somewhere you end up based on your actions"

"Or maybe its just your brain dying."

She took a good look into the glass, taking the little chunk of melon off and just eating it whole

"For me, the scent of fresh bread always lingers before i fully give out, maybe just an old memory, maybe just my brain firing anything it can, ive never opted to... Yknow, give in, to see what's there."

she stood up from the chair. Stretching

"Now, if you'll excuse me, i have laundry to do"

[gaesnek]

Rose chuckled to herself at the sudden weight of the conversation.

"Well... depends I think..."

She let that statement sit in the air for a moment before continuing,

"What actually happens? NT pulls up your last brain scan and pops out a new you,"

She chuckled again, a failed attempt to lighten the mood,

"But I guess... you can't be sure if that new you is actually you. Cloning always confused me. I really don't know though, I've read just... so many ancient texts on afterlifes. Hell half the scripture I can get my hands on is about it. People have thought a lot about what happens I suppose.

She paused for a bit before pulling out her PDA and pulling up a picture of a medium sized chromite slab. It was engraved with various circles and connecting lines, all coming together to form one confusing image.

"This one is my favorite interpretation I think. The civilization that wrote this is long long gone by now. The carving probably dates back at least 20,000 years. They all died out before they could become space fairing. Large meteor impact if I recall, the resulting planetary temperature cooked this thing and many others into indestructible pieces of rock. Their writing was a pain to translate but this describes how they thought of the afterlife. They imagined it just as everything is in the current moment. You never even realize you'd died. Just. Life as it is. Forever. My dormmate back at uni called me crazy for being so interested in that concept. Perhaps I was, never know when you're reading some ancient dead language. Every other culture I had studied up until that point thought about death as the ultimate entropic force. But this one was different. It's certainly a scary concept, continuing life forever with no end, being unable to realize the hell you're trapped in. But that's what makes it so interesting to me."

She looked up from studying the picture and looked at you with a hint of curious excitement in her eyes.

"Ah... I'm not helping am I? heh... yeah perhaps not the best idea to tell ya that while you're like this. To be frank, I got no clue. The nice thing about it too is it doesn't really matter. You'll figure it out when it happens. Until then you make the most of what you've got here. Here take these"

She tossed you a bottle of pills from her coat pocket.

"Anti-anxieties. Side effect of knocking you the fuck out haha. Get some rest, I've got some papers to write. "

[trabunt]

Finch McMatthews:

She brings her legs up into her seat, arms wrapping around her knees. Staring into the deep expanse, a deep breath escapes from her.

"Well... I think there's something," Finch murmurs, followed by an uncertain pause. She looks to her friend, a vulnerable expression plastered on her face. "...I don't really ever talk about this, but... I-I am somewhat religious. Heck, there's probably a timeline out there where I wound up a p-priestess!" Nervous giggles slip out. "But I... get doubts. Yet, ironically, those doubts are pushed away when I run into someone who firmly believes in nothing, and certainly doesn't hesitate to reeeeaaally hammer home that they believe in nothing." Her gaze trails back to the stars. "Like... obviously, they're allowed to think that. Though I can't say I've ever met anyone like that who didn't also just seem miserable all of the time."

A silence stretches between the two of them. She speaks up again. "S-Sorry, that was. A little out of left field. And didn't really answer your question. You wanna know what I think happens." A finger idly twirls in her hair. "...Well, without getting really deep into the scripture of my faith, essentially I believe... our souls reincarnate. Like... there's this idea of a sea of souls, and one can kind of imagine a single lifetime as if you were to cup your hands, scoop, and wait for it to drain from your fingers and back into the 'water'. When we rejoin the sea, we lose our shape, the memories, everything. Back to our purest form, waiting to be drawn again as we gently drift along. There's, er, also this whole thing about... what Aspect is shining in the Mother's domain affecting the kind of individual we turn out to be when we get drawn, buuuut I can't remember it all that well and also I can see your eyes are starting to glaze over a little." She flashes a rare teasing expression as she pokes her friend's arm before it turns to a gentle smile. "Just... don't feel like you're alone in your uncertainty. But also don't let it paralyze you, either. Y-You... can't really live if you're too worried about what comes after, y'know...?"

[Dove]

Bound stares off into space, eyes scanning the faraway points of light as her hand idly fusses with the ribbon attached to the beret sat on her lap. Her voice is soft, her thoughts far away from the station, anchored to this time and place only by the thread of her friends voice.

"I'm a scientist, I'm supposed to deal in facts and logic, things I can observe and document." She pauses, chewing slightly at her lip "But... there is so much we can't know, even things I've seen that I can't explain."

She grabs a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, offering one and lighting them both with an engraved silver lighter.

"I recently met my grandpa, he lives out near the Thaven homeworld, and I attended a service with him while I was there. It was, nice?" She gives a half shrug "Never been big into religion before, but the tenants of this one stuck with me. Stuff about how we are just guests in the universe, and when we die we return to being part of it. A million grains of sand all together on the shore being lapped at by the waves. Matter supposedly cannot be created or destroyed, so what we have is what we get ya know?"

She takes a deep breath, faltering slightly on the exhale.

"I wish death was gentle, like being carried away by your parent when you fall asleep at a party, and sometimes it is, if you are lucky, But I've seen people die... in horrible, awful ways, and... and I guess it would be nice if after that, there was something soft." She shakes her head. "But I've felt watched when there was no-one there too many times to think people just move on."

She turns to face them, eyes dim.

"You wanna know what I believe? I think a part of people sticks around, for a little or a long time, depends on the person. And then we just... fade away. Footprints on the beach, and the tide is coming in."