[ WP ] In order for a child to be born , someone else has to die . You 're right on the border of life and death , and you 're hanging on for all you 're worth . The baby whose birth is dependent on your death has to convince you to let go .

Sleep had become increasingly difficult as of late, my dreams plagued by an endless whisper for attention. I knew what the voice wanted, what it needed, but I refused to listen. There was so much I had n't done yet. I recalled my new bucketlist, the one I had created after I learned I was next in line for a Life Switch. It was a petty thing to do, to make a list of what I wanted to do before I die, after I learned I was to die, but I needed a way to focus and stay alive, after all. 
 
 I toss and turned in my bed, willing myself to stay awake, but my body arguing with my pleas to stay awake. Fighting cancer had a way to wear a body out quickly. I shut and opened each eye in succession, but never together. It was next to impossible to keep them both open, but too possible to close them both. I willed myself to think about my day tomorrow, my week next week, my next month, how far I would get, how long I would get, the different plans I had made to travel and see the sights I had decided I always wanted to see, the different places I wanted to go, and I thought I could go without too much effort. This was a mistake, I quickly realized, letting my brain drift off on a tangent, because I found myself wandering the places I was thinking about, and I found myself floating through a dream pool, without even realizing I had done the one thing I did n't want to do. 
 
 I casually walked an empty street in Paris in my head, or what I thought a street in Paris might look like, I had never been. My hands were in my pockets, the familiar smells wafted into my nostrils, or at least, what I thought familiar smells would be. The temperature was perfect, and so was the sky. There was no one in sight, and I had pure painless solitude for the first time in months. I found myself sighing happily, and giving the first sincere smile I had given since I found out about my death sentence, and wandered casually. It was a paradise, until the whispers began again. They always began when I did n't want them too. 
 
 I knew what it was, it was the Life Switcher, the next soul in line to take my place on the physical plane. It lived in a limbo until my soul departed from the physical, and it could take my place in the population, so to speak. Once we had reached a certain population, births stopped unless someone was dying somewhere. Of course, it took us a few decades and censuses to figure out, but when we realized out population was staying exactly where it was for years straight, we knew we had tapped whatever ethereal resources were in charge of giving us a battery. 
 
 It almost goes without saying that a lot of people's belief systems were easily destroyed with this concept, but there were new ones created, and some preserved. Many people refused to accept the concept because that very much proved death was inevitable, and laid out the concept very clearly. Many, like myself included, have a lot of trouble with facing our deaths as a necessary and unavoidable subject, and so we had become increasingly bitter at the fact. I knew I was next because I was a terminal patient with the nagging whispers. They usually start when you have less than year left, it's almost as if they can latch on and know when you're going to die. It's frightening at first, knowing your time is soon, and it is still just as frightening as it was three months ago. I was n't ready then, I was n't ready now. 
 
 The whispers disagreed with me, and steadily their siren song floated into my ears, casually whispering the dooming sweet-nothings I had heard everytime I slept for the last three months. I vowed I would ignore it until the time came that I was satisfied with my life. I also vowed that I would never be satisfied. If I do n't give up my place, then I do n't have to die, not yet. This argument had worked for a time, but tonight, the Switcher had decided that I was no longer in charge of my time, and was making it harder and harder to ignore it's calls, it was getting louder, shriller, and closer than it ever had before. I should have known then that I was on death's doorstep, but I was delusional, and I thought I was more precious than this. 
 
 I found myself half walking, half running in my dream, the feeling of running through water was very clear and present while I was trying to escape, and as always in every nightmare, the one thing you are running from caught up eventually, I could feel it's cold fingers on my shoulder; but they were n't cold. In fact, they were warm, and almost inviting, as if my father was clasping my shoulder in pride. I was stopped, but because I was in a dream, I had no momentum, no forward motion, so I just... Stopped, and I was turned around to face the most striking eyes I had ever seen. They were every color, and they were no color. He had the same skin tone I did, the same smile I did, and the same height I do. I felt calm with him, happy in fact, that he had caught up finally. 
 
 `` You can stop running, it's alright. You still get a choice.'' 
 
 I thought to myself, as my dream turned less into a lucid dream, and more into what felt like reality. 
 
 `` I get a choice?'' This was news to me, I had never heard of anyone dealing with a Switcher and surviving the aftermath. 
 
 `` Of course, you're still a free willed being. We ca n't just take your life, we would be the very antithesis of human life, removing all choice from you.'' 
 
 This was an interesting philosophy. I had never thought about our choices and free will having this much impact on my future. 
 
 `` I know what you're thinking, and it's because death is not the end for you. There is no end for you when you choose to switch with me. You never top existing, and you can still see the things and do the things you always want to, and always wanted to since before you were you.'' 
 
 If I were walking, I would have paused. Instead, I just opened my mouth slightly, unable to truly form a response. He continued casually; `` we are not grim reapers, and we are not asking for 2 pennies to cross the river of Styx. We know that every biological life is precious and beautiful, even if the owner does n't truly see it until it is too late. We simply understand when your body is going to stop and we can take your place on the physical plane.'' He smiled, grabbed my wrist, and started pulling me gently, but excitedly, like a child wanting to show their father something they created in the other room. 
 
 `` Let us walk, and I can tell you why it's time and how we can move on so that you may rest finally.'' 
 
 Rest sounded very good, I thought to myself, I have n't had rest since the diagnoses. 
 
 `` I know,'' he replied, as if my thoughts had spoken out loud. 
 
 `` Let me show you my favorite place in these dreams, and you will understand.'' 
 
 Everything morphed and grew into the night sky, our path became the milky way galaxy, the stars in the distance, illuminating those eyes that I had first seen, the nebula's and galaxies giving colors to our skin and my imagination that I had never seen. 
 
 `` Nothing important here, I just love the sight,'' he said through a friendly laugh, and stopped in the middle of the path that he had created on the milky way. 
 
 `` Listen, I know death is hard to accept, and I understand it is. I have had to accept it too, but so have you. We have accepted it hundreds of times, and we will for the rest of eternity. It's part of how our soul learns. We have experiences in life, which we take through death. Have you ever noticed how sometimes you just know things? How dealing with certain things, or skills just come naturally to you? How you treat something like you have had experience with it before, but have never in your life touched it?'' 
 
 I thought about it hard, and nodded slowly as I came to realize certain things came easily to me, but I had no clue how. 
 
 `` It's the perfect concept of free will, and sentience. The more we experience, the more we learn, and the more we learn, the more we try to experience. Life and death are just cycles in our choices, but neither are truly the final choice. Life is just another step in our infinite learning process. Like the edges of space, we go on forever.'' 
 
 I was enthralled at this concept, mostly because it felt familiar, and partially because he had such an easy and welcoming tone about it, it was as if I was explaining it to myself. Like I was having an introspective conversation about a big decision I was going to be making. 
 
 `` Exactly,'' he exclaimed out loud. I jumped a little, not expecting him to answer, because I was n't used to him knowing what I was thinking. 
 
 `` Exactly, what?'' I said, this being the first thing I had said out loud. 
 
 `` That is the point I was building up to. You are dying, yes, but I am not replacing you. You are replacing yourself. Your choices and needs and wants and experiences are going to move forward through a new biological life, through new eyes, but with the same old ethereal being that has floated through this universe for as long as time has existed.'' 
 
 I thought about this for a minute, letting the concept float through my head, half understanding, and half confused. He stood on the galaxy line, smiling, eyes filled with a million non-colors, and galaxies spinning gently around us, stars flickering, and comets falling softly. Then I slowly began to realize what he was truly saying. 
 
 `` Wait a second, you are n't switching with me, or replacing me. You are...'' 
 
 `` You, yes.'' He finished my sentence with a smaller glimmer in his universal eyes. 
 
 `` Then how come...'' 
 
 `` How come the population rose for a long time before plateauing? Because some of us did n't want to be physical bodies for a long time. We were content with floating through the universe and learning what we could observe, but having a life filled with finality has a way of showing you things you can not learn while being infinite.'' 
 
 `` How long have I been...'' 
 
 `` Physical?'' He continued to finish my sentences as if we were melding into one.'' 
 
 `` We learned early on that being alive was beautiful.'' 
 TBC
