I can't remember how long i've been travelling, I can't remember where I started, all I know is that i've been floating through darkness for as long as I can remember, It seems almost pointless, but getting somewhere, anywhere, is better than staying here.

I can't be sure if i'd actually even moved, all I had experienced is darkness, but something about it felt so eerily familiar, so reminiscent and profound that I knew there was something wrong about it. Maybe It's fear that drove me, maybe it's that I had in fact been here before countless times, that feeling of deja vu, that sense of knowing that this was something i'd experienced before and that it will happen again. The further I went, the more hopeless it began to seem that i'd ever get away from it, and the more intensely I felt this sense of knowing that this was it, this was where I will reside for eternity, and the more I wished to fight this

For a long time I experienced complete silence, and with no vision to make sense of where I was, the only indicator that I was actually moving was a faint sense of motion, almost as though I was brushing past something, but not something I could at all identify, the more I tried to work it out, the less it seemed to exist at all

Every now and then, I'd heard a soft murmur, unsure whether it was just my senses playing tricks on me, or if there was actually something out there. It grew progressively louder the further I went, but it seemed so far out of reach, so intangible, that it made me question whether I was actually going insane trying to escape from nothing.

In trying to dismiss those thoughts, I began to ponder and question, trying to recall how it was that I got here. I could vaguely remember that there was once... something, something that I was attached too, something that has left me confused and lost in this place, i'm not sure what it was, or if it was even real, but I recall faint memories of concepts that are not existent here, space, colors, meaning, though I seem to have retained my ability to think, and to some degree, feel, I cannot remember what it was that I used to think or feel, the only distinctive memory I have is one of chaos, disintegration, the disarray of something that once had a sense of order. Like a flash of lightning it hit me, the most profound sense of deja vu and epiphany, the sudden realization that this was not the life i'd always known, that there must have once been more than nothing to experience, that there must have been something out side of my self and this present state with which I had a relationship.

Then it happened, the most painful experience of my life. The nothingness suddenly became bright, accompanied by the loudest ringing that seemed to consume every fiber of my being, the most intense feelings that could only be described as a mix of love, hate, pleasure, pain, happiness, sadness, anger, lust, all these conceptual feelings started to run through my mind as I suffered this intense, all consuming transition

I heard a voice

"Why do you seek to escape from nothing, what are you trying to achieve"

I had no answer, I was confused and overwhelmed

"Why do you deserve anything more than nothing?"

I had no answer, I was confused and overwhelmed

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

It, whatever it was, released it's grips on me, and released me back into the void but remained present alongside me

"Speak my child"

I suddenly realized what this was.

"I... I don't know."

I didn't know what to say, I knew this being, but I could not remember much.

"I can see you're struggling, I'll allow you to remember, then you may speak again"

And with that, it all came back to me. This was what people called god, I remembered what people were, I remembered loved ones, friends and family, and all that we knew as human life,

"Why are you running from nothing"

I took a moment, and thought about it, all the emptiness in my life, the lack of fulfillment and resent I felt towards having lived upon my death bed

"Nothingness is all i've ever known, i've been empty inside for as long as I can remember"

"But you've always had something"

It was right, I have always had something, so why did I always feel so empty? why was I so familiar with this sense of nothing? I had been running from it for as long as I can remember, but I was running away from something which I could not escape, and that which I was hoping to grasp was right in front of me the entire time..

"I see you're starting to understand now, I'll allow you to ask me one question, but only one. Choose wisely"

I had to take a moment to think about this, there were so many questions I had to ask, so many left unanswered, but I needed to ask something that could leave me satisfied in knowing, where other questions may never be answered

"Okay... This may sound a bit odd but, how do I escape from suffering?"

"I can answer this for you, but I shall respond in the form of a question in order for you to understand it for yourself"

I graciously accepted this.

"If trying to escape from suffering has caused you to suffer, why do you continue to run away?"