Brooke was currently standing in a dark hallway, a blinding light shining at the end far ahead of her. She squinted into the light, trying to see whatever was producing it but to no avail. She stepped forward, her legs feeling almost nonexistent beneath her, propelling her toward the light.
“What is this place?” Brooke asked the tall stranger at her side. “Why am I here?” She had no recollection of how she had come to be here, but she felt an unusual sense of calmness within here. She felt empty, almost non-existent, yet her curiosity prevailed.
“This is a place with no true name,” he replied. “Here you will see both the light and the dark. Only you can ultimately decide which path to follow.” He stopped walking and pointed forward, "Go."
Brooke continued to move forward, getting closer and closer to the brightness with every step. She felt as if she were floating forward rather than walking, her mind still in that strange fog. Soon she stood drenched in light. She looked around at where she was. She stood in a long white corridor, doors lined up side by side on both walls. She approached the first door on her left and reached for the handle. Her hand felt nothing as she turned the knob, but as the door slid open, the fog in her mind began to clear.
A scene played out before her, almost as if she were watching a film, only, it was herself that she was viewing. It was her as a child. She was being embraced by her mother, and she felt warmth within her as if it were happening at that moment. Her mother...she had never loved anyone as much as she had loved her mother. That unconditional love that they shared filled her up as she moved to the next door.
Again, she swung open the door, still not quite feeling the handle. The other side showed her another memory, but this one was not quite so pleasant. She saw herself at school. She sat at a desk, one hand fisted tightly in her blond hair and the other holding a pencil so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The exam. She felt the anxiety tighten her stomach and stimulate her nerves. So many of her answers were blank despite how long she had studied for. She remembered how the next day would bring her to lock herself in the bathroom while she cried over her failed major exam.
Brooke turned away, hoping the next door would hold something better. When she turned the knob, a warm gust of wind brushed her face and she inhaled the scent of fresh rain that it carried. She smiled as she recalled the day she had met her. The girl of her dreams walked into the scene, hair wet and struggling with a broken umbrella as the rain poured down. Brooke watched herself rush forward and hold her own umbrella over the beautiful, drenched woman. She would never forget her smile.
Brooke opened the next door, the handle now rough in her hand. The image gave her an uneasy feeling which quickly turned to intense nausea that stayed with her for the next few doors that she opened. She saw herself become unemployed without a formal college education. She saw her love leave her behind, unable to thrive with Brooke weighing her down. She saw her mother die, leaving her, at last, utterly alone in an unforgiving world.
Finally, she approached the last door, nearly doubled over in the pain that she was still enduring. She opened it up, handle hot like fire in her hand. And she watched... as she wrote her own fate. She remembered getting into her car after she had swallowed half a bottle of pills. She remembered driving up the snowy hill to the bridge that overlooked a freezing, thrashing river. She remembered her intentions, the need to end it all for good. And lastly, she remembered her tires sliding in the wet snow and throwing her car into the metal columns of the bridge, killing her before she could do it herself.
Brooke backed away from the door until her back bumped into the man she had left behind at the start of all this. With a single word, she finally understood why she was here.
“Choose.”
She had the chance to return to her body that she’d left behind on that freezing bridge or continue on into the dark unknown that awaited her. She had weighed the good and the bad, she had seen the light and the dark. She knew the choices she’d made and the mistakes that had followed. However, she knew this was the most important choice of her existence.
So now, Brooke chose.
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