Life-After by J. A. Laraque Read Free Book Online Page A

then it is true?” I asked Clara. “That stuff about life energy and the connection to God, it was all true?”
    “ I think we should discuss something else first.” Clara said her voice taking on a somber tone. “You were able to cross over and find me, but, what you brought with you, what is still burdening you...”
    She pauses and lowered her head. I had not seen her look so sad since her parents died. Seeing her in pain in what I believed was heaven saddened me deeply. I pulled her closer resting her head on my chest, holding her tightly. The skies began to darken and for a moment I wondered if we were truly in heaven or somewhere else.
    “ I had one promise I made to myself above all others when we first met.” I said to Clara. “Never cause her pain. I knew that life and love were not perfect and hard times were a way of life, but if there was something I could do to keep you from crying, from feeling sad then I would do whatever it took. I failed more than once in that promise. Leaving you that day was the greatest mistake in my life. We should have been together. You should not have died alone.”
    In the silence I could hear her, she was crying. She lifted her head from my chest and looked into my eyes. Streams of tears were falling from them. The pain I saw in them, it did not come from my words, but from something I had stirred up inside of her.
    “ I wasn’t alone, David.” Clara whispered.
    At that moment something within me shattered, all I had thought about since that day was how I had left her there to die. I cursed myself for not trying harder to get back to her. Visions of her dying, screaming out my name plagued my nightmares and with a sentence she had changed all of that. I did not have the words. She reached up placing her hands on my cheeks. I felt a rush of energy course though my body. Clara’s eyes began to glow a bright white. My vision began to white out as if I was trapped in a snow storm. I could feel my body fading away. It was as if I was turning into energy itself.
    When the blinding white faded I found myself in an open space, void, but not dark as before, this was a pure soft white. Something was familiar about it as if I had experienced something like this before. It was different than when I first arrived and was taken to the restaurant where I proposed to Clara. When that happened I did not feel as if I was in control. What I felt hovering there as a living consciousness was like a painter staring at a blank canvas about to paint an image from his memories.
    There was something deep within my mind. It was more than a thought or a memory or a feeling. I could not tell what it was at first, but it was something familiar. As the thoughts became clearer I felt that what was within my mind was a presence. It was Clara, her thoughts and feelings I could access them. She was trying to communicate with me.
    David, this place where we are now, it is created by our thoughts, our feelings. What we desire or what we feel we deserve will become reality here. I searched for you because I knew how you would feel after my death. Though I never blamed you, I knew you would blame yourself and take that guilt to the grave and beyond.
    Our life energy holds everything we ever were during our lives. When we shed our shells it is this life energy that becomes our vessel to travel to the afterlife. Sometimes our life energy becomes destabilized due to events in our lives or our death. Often this destabilization can be corrected during the retrieval process when you travel between the world of the living and your life after.
    Sometimes a loved one can help stabilize this energy. When you first arrived I created the memory of when you proposed to me. I hoped it would prepare you. I wanted you to enter this world I created by yourself and see what it was before I showed myself. I had hoped it would allow you to forgive yourself and accept your place here, with me. Your collapse obviously showed me that