An Assembly had been made. A single human representative had been requested to answer a distress call regarding their specie’s nature. Many creatures gathered to watch and register every single moment of such encounter, curious, not knowing how destructive said encounter would be for the very understanding of human nature.
The Assembly’s caller quickly arrived, showing holograms around. Then, she asked:
“This”, she responded, pointing to an hologram. “This place you humans call ‘Heaven’. Where is it?”
The human went silent for a second. They looked at the bigger alien, floating, and stared at her eyes. “Heaven isn’t a physical place. It’s… A belief some humans have”.
“I know how your human religions work. All I want is to know if there’s any indication of a physical place for it”.
“Heaven cannot be entered through this… Plane of existence. There isn’t a portal, or an area you take to access it”.
“Then how do you go to it after death?”
“We don’t ‘go to it’. Those who believe it might enter it, if they were good while alive”.
She wasn’t understanding. She shook her head, lifted herself up, pointed at the holograms, all of her findings, showed the human the images and the notes she had so carefully put together. “What do you mean?”
“Some humans believe they will go to a good place – Heaven – if, during life, they are good people. Kind, compassionate, always trying their best. Otherwise, they will go to a bad place – Hell”.
“No, no! What do you mean you don’t know how to go in there?”
“We know exactly how – by death”.
“You got it all wrong! There’s a moment in which you stop, in which you change. After this change you go somewhere else! How do you find that place?! Where is it?!”
“Are you talking about death?!”
“Death, termination, the end, who cares about your fancy names?! You change! You…”
“We don’t ‘change’, we die!”
“You change! Y-you change, your physical manifestations cease function, but what is after it?! How do you go to that place, how does it work?!”
“We don’t change, we die! It’s the end of our lives, our existence! We don’t actually know, scientifically, how does it work post-death! Some religions speculate of an afterlife, of a place where our souls go to, but that’s religion, it’s a belief, not something concrete!”
“What do you mean you don’t know?!”
The human flinched. The alien, with a trembling form more equal to water than something of flesh and bones, wept as she threw holograms and books around, pointing at the evidence, the feelings becoming too much.
“I-I don’t know!”, the humans responded. “Everything just stops!”
“Your minds, your beings, everything just stops existing?! Y-you can’t be real! I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it!”
She pointed at the human.
“You are all liars! You don’t want us to know about your changes! You don’t want us to know anything! I’ve felt it, I’ve seen your forms become one within the Other Planes as your bodies stopped moving for your deathworld to consume! The physical became bones and dust as your souls ascended!”
“You ascend! Your conscience, your mind, it all changes! A-and all I want is to know where and how to get to it! She isn’t following me anymore, she isn’t here and she hasn’t come back ever since that change! I do not care about what you humans want in exchange for this information, I will do everything to provide what you want! Just– please, I need to know where Verônica went!”
The room grew quiet. The intelligent species eyed each other as the human representative widened their eyes.
“I’m sorry”, they whispered. “Your friend is dead. She… She will not come back”.
“Liar. I know stories of yours, where the death came back, where your minds ‘haunted’ the ones who are ‘alive’. I know about your books, about your interviews and conversations with them! They do come back!”
“It’s not scientifically proven. These books can all be false”.
“You are a liar”, the alien growled. “I saw Verônica go. I saw her body change and release her. I saw it prepare itself for the change. It grew old. It slowly stopped working as before, it grew wrinkles, it grew pale hair, it grew to be beautiful and then it grew to release her”.
The human looked at an hologram, reading a small paragraph of text, informing themselves of a crucial detail before they sighed.
“Verônica died of old age, didn’t she?”
“That’s what our human colleagues called it”.
“We do not grow old and fragile. We keep on existing until the end of it all”.
“We have been together for more than seventy years. I am sure she would want to stay with me, even with all of this time. Y-you humans have a reputation for being heartbreakers, but her love was genuine. She never left me. She refused to, many times. I’m sure… I’m sure she wouldn’t leave me this time”.
“I know”, the human agreed. “I’m sorry. I don’t think she can come back, even if she wanted to”.
The alien wept as the human hugged her, the water-like body shaping itself and becoming red and purple and green with pain for never experiencing such grief before. She cried, and she screamed, and she raged against human nature.
The Human Manual had to be updated shortly after.
