Finis

Story by Revresbo on SoFurry

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At first, it wasn't so bad. There wasn't really anything to hurt him. As a matter of fact, there didn't really be anything at all. He'd been warned of the heat and how it might singe his fur, but his fur didn't seem to be on fire. Actually, he couldn't tell if his fur was anything. He culdn't feel it. He slowly came to realize this. He couldn't feel his fur. Why?

He tried to move, to touch himself, but he couldn't move. Or could he? He couldn't feel himself moving, either. It wasn't like his muscles were unresposive; rather, he couldn't feel his muscles at all. He tried to open his eyes, but it seemed they were already open. He tried to blink to clear the darkness away, but it seemed his eyes were already closed. What the hell is going on? The irony of the question didn't occur to him.

He gradually came to realize that all of his senses seemed to be unresponsive. He couldn't see, hear, taste, smell, touch; he had no sense of balance or acceleration; temperature and kinesthetic sense were gone; and, perhaps oddest of all, he couldn't even feel pain. Or was that oddest? No. He had no sense of the passage of time. He could not tell if he had been in this state for seconds or years. Yet he was... conscious? Could he be sure?

He remembered a philosopy class, and specifically Descartes. I doubt, therefore I must be. So, he existed. But did anything else?

Increasingly, he had the feeling that something was missing. Something more important than even his missig senses. But what?

He spent an eternity pondering the question. A moment after he started, he had exhausted the list. Everything he could think of that he might be missing from before was not what caused this emptiness he felt. After another eternity (or was it only a moment), he recalled what others said they had.

He scoffed in his mind immediately, but some small part of him wondered. He had thought it beyond unnecessary. To him, it had been nonexistant. And yet...

His logical mind tried to find a parallel. It hit him then. What if he had been ignorant of gravity his whole life? It still would have pulled him down to Earth regardless of whether he believed it wholeheartedly or proclaimed its nonexistance. Yet, had he been put in a world without it, he would have noticed its lack even if he knew not what he lacked.

A minute or maybe a year of thought made it clear to him. A famous passage came to his mind: In the beginning...

So, he though, this is what I get. After a lifetime of saying there was no God, I got my wish. A world without God.

And then, with the clarity of a mind that had spent all eternity in thought, he realized, a moment after he arrived: I am in Hell.