Chapter 1, Why do I need to heal? Denise’s short story

I had done hard things before. I had lived through Crohn’s flare-ups so excruciating that I learned to dissociate from my own body. I had walked out of hospitals, half-starved, barely able to hold myself upright, only to rebuild again and again. I had endured chemotherapy that drained every ounce of energy from my bones. I had survived a mastectomy, my body permanently altered, leaving me staring at a stranger in the mirror. I had gone through seven surgeries before this one, each one knocking me down, forcing me to crawl back up.

But this? This was different.

I was exhausted. No—beyond exhausted. I was done.

My chest had just been sewn back together. My pectoralis muscles, which had been cut away during my mastectomy, had just been reattached to my sternum in a grueling ten-hour surgery. My body was a battlefield, and I had no fight left. I woke up in a pain so consuming it took my breath away. I couldn’t even cry. Crying required breathing, and breathing hurt like hell.

Pain like this doesn’t just sit in the body. It seeps into the soul.

And the loneliness? That was worse.

I had no husband at my bedside this time. The weight of that realization crushed me more than the physical agony. I had carried myself through this journey before, but never quite like this. Alone in the sterile hospital room, surrounded by machines that beeped in an indifferent rhythm, I felt hollow.

I had endured enough.

“Hadn’t I suffered enough?" I asked God. “How much more do I have to give?”

And then—

I was gone.

It happened in an instant. One moment, my body was screaming in pain, my mind spiraling in grief, my breath shallow and labored. The next, there was... nothing.

No pain. No emotion. No weight of existence pressing down on me.

I wasn’t in the hospital anymore. I wasn’t anywhere.

I was floating in darkness—but not the kind that makes you afraid. This wasn’t the cold, terrifying darkness of the unknown. It was... comforting. Like a warm bath, but infinitely better. Every inch of my body, every single cell, every fiber of my being felt light. Free.

How is this possible?

I knew I should be scared, but I wasn’t. There was no fear here. No stress, no worries, no thoughts running wild like they always did. I had spent my whole life trying to escape pain, but now? Now, I was weightless. Suspended in a black cloud of stillness.

And for the first time in my entire life—I felt safe. Safer than I had ever felt before.**

I could have stayed there forever.

I wanted to stay there forever.

But then… a thought flickered into my mind.

I wonder what’s over there…