Here we gooooooo!!!!
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What is life?
I was ten when I first asked the question.
We were at my uncle's wedding. Everyone was crying during the vows, my mom clutching tissues like her life depended on it. The bride and groom were saying all the right things about love and building a life together.
And I just sat there thinking, Okay, but what's the point?
Not in an edgy way. I genuinely wanted to know. They'd go home, wake up tomorrow, go to work, come home, repeat. Maybe have kids who will do the same thing.
It always confused me. Everyone seemed so sure. Like, they all just knew, that this was what you were supposed to want. That this is what life was.
I didn't get it.
My mom noticed me spacing out. "Isn't it beautiful?" she whispered.
I nodded because that's what you do. Right?
But I kept thinking about it. At school, teachers talked about our futures like it was a clear path: study hard, get into a good university, land a stable job, make money, start a family. Check, check, check, and voila, that is life.
Everyone around me seemed to just... know what they were working toward. My best friend Kaito wanted to be a doctor like his dad. My classmate Yuki was already planning her wedding aesthetic on Pinterest. Even the slackers had dreams, stupid ones maybe, but dreams.
Me? I had nothing.
Food? That tasted good. My parents loved me, even if they worked late most nights. I liked reading manga and watching anime... That's all. That was the whole list.
No burning ambition. No grand plan. Just existing and wondering why everyone else seemed so convinced that existing in a particular way mattered.
Since then, I started asking people. "What's the point of life?"
My dad laughed and said, "To be happy, obviously."
My teacher gave me some philosophical answer about leaving the world in a better place than you found it in.
Kaito said, "Dude, that's too deep for a Tuesday."
Nobody actually answered the question. They just gave me the responses they'd heard somewhere else.
So I kept searching. I read books, watched shows, consumed every story I could find. Maybe someone else had figured it out and written it down somewhere. All I had to do was find it.
But fate is a funny thing. When I turned thirteen, 'life' took an interesting turn.
***
The doctor's office smelled like antiseptic and coffee, they always do. I always wondered with the salary they get, affording decent coffee should not be that big of a task, but it's not my business.
My mom held my hand too tightly while the neurologist pulled up brain scans on his computer.
"I'm sorry," he said, which is how you know it's bad news. "It's a grade four glioblastoma."
My mom made a sound like someone had punched her in the stomach.
My dad asked about treatment options, survival rates, clinical trials. His voice cracked on every other word.
I just sat there, staring at the weird gray blob on the screen that was apparently killing me.
The doctor said something about twelve to eighteen months with treatment. Maybe less.
Fourteen years old, I thought. I'd get to reach fourteen, maybe fifteen if I am lucky.
The weird thing? I felt... nothing.
Not fear. Not anger. Heck, not even sadness.
Just this weird sense of: oh, okay, so that's how this ends.
My mom was crying her eyes out. My dad was asking questions he already knew the answers to. The doctor was using his gentle-but-professional voice to repeat the same thing for the tenth time.
And I was thinking: at least now I don't have to figure out what career to pick.
.
.
.
Since that day, people treated me differently.
Teachers stopped calling on me in class. Friends got weird and quiet around me, like death was contagious. The school counselor kept scheduling talks I didn't want.
Everyone kept telling me to fight, to stay positive, to keep hoping.
But hope for what? Another sixty years of waking up, without knowing what I was waking up for?
The chemo was worse than the cancer at first. Vomiting, exhaustion, losing my hair. My mom cried every time she looked at me.
But then something strange happened.
Once I was stuck in the hospital full-time, once everyone stopped expecting me to pretend everything was normal. I felt... lighter?
I know, weird right?
No more forcing myself to laugh at jokes I didn't find funny. No more acting interested in conversations about nothing. No more pretending I had plans for a future I clearly didn't have.
Just me, a hospital bed, and all the time in the world to finally search for an answer.
I read everything. Philosophy books I barely understood. Novels about people finding meaning. Religious texts from every tradition I could download. I watched shows about people discovering their purpose. Heck, I watch people with cancer doing random stuff. My favorite, if you ask, was about that dude who became a drug dealer. (Say my name...)
I kept a notebook next to my bed. Every time I found something that felt close to an answer, I wrote it down.
Life is about love. (But I loved my parents and still felt empty.)
Life is about experiences. (I'd had experiences. They were fine. So what?)
Life is about helping others. (Why? What makes that inherently meaningful?)
Life is suffering, and you just have to accept it. (Okay, but that's not an answer, that's just giving up on the question.)
The pages filled up with half-answers and doodles.
More time passed.
Kaito visited once. He brought me the latest manga volume I'd been reading and some snacks from the convenience store.
"How are you doing?" he asked.
"Dying," I said.
He flinched. "Dude... Don't say that."
"Why not? It's true."
He left after twenty minutes and didn't come back.
I didn't blame him. What do you say to someone who's running out of time? Especially when that someone doesn't seem particularly bothered by it.
The doctors said the tumor was growing faster than expected. Six months, maybe.
My mom stopped going to work. She sat by my bed every day, holding my hand, telling me stories about when I was little. My dad took a leave of absence and did crossword puzzles in the corner, like if he looked busy enough he wouldn't have to think about it.
I appreciated them being there. I really did.
But I also wished they'd understand that I was okay with this.
Not happy. Not sad. Just... okay.
***
The last week was mostly sleeping.
Pain meds kept me floating in this weird space between awake and unconscious. Time stopped meaning much.
I remember my mom reading to me. My dad holding my hand. Nurses checking machines that beeped.
I remember thinking: this is it. Fourteen years, eleven months, and some number of days I'd lost track of.
Alas, I still didn't have an answer.
On the last day, I was lucid enough to see my parents clearly. My mom was crying again, like she'd been crying for a year straight. My dad was trying to hold it together and failing.
"I love you," my mom whispered. "I love you so much."
I wanted to say it back. I did love them, in the abstract way you love people who've always been there.
But the words felt hollow. Like I'd be saying them because I was supposed to, not because I understood what they meant.
The heart monitor's beep was slowing down. I could feel it, this heaviness spreading through my body.
My last thought was, I really wish I'd figured it out.
And then nothing.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Except it wasn't nothing.
I was still somehow thinking.
Which, according to every science class I'd ever taken, shouldn't be possible.
I looked down at myself — except I didn't have eyes to look down with. I was just... an awareness. A blob of light, I guess, if light could think.
In front of me was a desk. A normal office desk, the kind with too many papers scattered across it.
Behind the desk sat a Doberman. Brown coat, intelligent eyes, and a pair of reading glasses on his snout.
He was writing something in a ledger, a pen floating in the air next to him, moving on its own.
I stared at him for a while.
Then he looked up.
We made eye contact — or whatever the equivalent is when you're a blob of consciousness, and he's a dog in glasses.
"Huh," he said. "You're taking this rather well."
His voice was deep, professional. Like a lawyer or an accountant. who has spent twenty years in their line of work.
A talking dog?
The situation just got a lot weirder than I expected.
"I guess so," the dog said, responding to my thought like I'd said it out loud.
The ledger floated up to his face. Pages turned on their own.
"Let's see..." He adjusted his glasses. "Hiro Ren. That's you, correct?"
I didn't have a body to nod with, but I projected agreement somehow.
"Good." The book snapped shut. "You can call me Charles."
Charles the Doberman, I thought. Sure. Why not.
"I know it's unusual," Charles said, pulling out what looked like a handkerchief and cleaning his glasses. "Most people expect angels or white lights or their deceased relatives. We find that animals put souls at ease. Less intimidating than humanoid forms."
Does it matter what I find intimidating if I'm dead?
"You'd be surprised how many souls arrive traumatized by the dying process. The form matters." He put his glasses back on. "Though you seem remarkably calm for someone who just expired from brain cancer at fourteen years, eleven months, nine days, three hours, two minutes, and nineteen seconds."
That's... very specific.
"It's my job to be specific." He sighed, and for a moment he looked tired. "I've got three hundred and forty-seven cases to process today because Happy is playing fetch with some girl, and Golden is practicing his 'welcome to eternity' speech for the thousandth time. I swear, Jack and I are the only ones in this sector who take the work seriously."
He caught himself rambling and shook his head. "Sorry. You didn't need to hear that."
It's okay. You sound like you needed to say it.
Charles smiled — or did the dog equivalent of smiling. "You're an odd one, Ren. Most souls are either screaming in confusion or sobbing about unfinished business. You're just... processing."
I had a lot of time to think about death. It doesn't surprise me that something comes after.
"Fair enough." He pulled up the ledger again. "Now, let's make this quick. You have two options. First: ascend to heaven. Peace, eternal rest, all that. Or second: I grant you one wish, provided it's not too absurd."
I thought about it.
Heaven sounded nice. Peaceful, no more questions, no more confusion. Just existence without the weight of wondering what it was for.
But then I remembered.
The notebook by my hospital bed. The pages filled with half answers. The question that followed me right up until my last breath.
I'd died without knowing.
And that felt like the only thing I'd ever actually wanted.
I want to make a wish.
Charles looked up, one ear perked with interest. "Oh? Most choose heaven. What's your wish?"
I want you to answer a question. Using everything you know.
He tilted his head. "I'm listening."
I gathered my thoughts, this blob of consciousness that used to be Hiro Ren, and asked the only thing that had ever mattered to me.
What is life?
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Not bad right? Another doggo added to the family. (Something my OG readers know)
I know it just the first chapter but let me know what you think! Powerstones and comments are greatly appreciated.
And if you enjoyed it, add it to your library.