The Choice of the Soul

Dr. Lynsey Aldred was the first person to map the soul.

Not metaphorically, literally. Through a miracle of quantum neurology and deep-conscious resonance imaging, she traced what she called the Soul's Echo Vector. A measurable wave signature that escapes the brain at the moment of death. It was no more than a flicker at first, a blip across the screens. But, Lynsey followed it through data, repetition, pattern, and noise.

And she found something.

It began with bodies. Dozens, then hundreds of volunteers. Mainly the terminally ill and those who just wanted to donate their moment of death in the name of science and the beyond. With sensors surrounding their neural cortex, their passing became a map. Lynsey built software to follow what happened next: a cascade of resonance, a signal falling out of time and space.

A path.

She called it 'The Corridor'. A tunnel not through time and space, but one that was kind of through sensation, one built from electromagnetic pulses and harmonic cognition. It appeared the same for everyone. A bright light at the end filled with warmth, peace and familiar voices calling.

And then always... pain.

The readings were undeniable. Each time a soul entered the light, Lynsey's system (CIRCE*), registered a violent blip. A frequency that matched that given off from when animals and humans have been recorded burning alive. The light did not soothe, it destroyed.

The worst part! The screams. She couldn’t hear them, only spikes in emotional data, frequency residues that clawed at the sensors like nails on chalkboard. The soul, as it entered the light, suffered.

Yet everyone chose it. Every single time. Humanity had become so conditioned to choose the false allure of the light that they were drawn to it like moths.

She tried introducing barriers, dampening fields, even audio and visual stimulants to influence people at the moment of their deaths to simulate trying to find other choices. Still, the light pulled them. It was not instinct, but a devious design.

And then she found the dark.

It appeared in just one case, a young woman named Angela who died in her sleep, brain calm, heart at peace. CIRCE mapped her soul traveling down the corridor like the others. But instead of turning toward the light, she hesitated, and then turned.

The data was vague and weirdly obscured. But Lynsey tracked the shift in her Soul's Echo Vector as it plunged into a void beyond the edge of light. No burning or pain. Just stillness, and then, nothing.

The signal vanished. No trace, no emission, no feedback. It was like she had never been.

She ran the data again to make sure nothing had been falsified or corrupted. It was real.

There was another way.

Her head reeled with this new found information and for the next few months, she put aside her scientific texts and delved into the realms of philosophy and religion. Only to come to the same conclusion again and again.

God created light, which meant that God, as an entity, existed in only the purest of darkness. Then God created the bringer of light... Lucifer Morningstar. Was Lucifer designed as an opposite to God, maybe to create a certain set of balance in Gods new Universe, only God knows. But Lucifer was the bringer of light, and God an entity of, if not the meaning of, darkness.

This brought a certain amount of complication with religious texts that say to go towards the light and avoid the dark. If she was Satan, then of course she would whisper a few little suggestions into the ears of the corruptible translators and those who rewrote the newer version over the centuries.

She had to tell the world.

Lynsey's lectures were laughed at, and then feared. The Church declared her a provocateur sent by the Devil to lead astray loyal members of his lords flock. The scientific community just called her “a philosopher with expensive toys.” She lost her grants and her lab was seized. CIRCE was dismantled, declared an ethical abomination.

They called it soul torture.

They didn’t understand: she wasn’t the torturer, she was the witness.

Years passed as she worked in obscurity, growing reclusive. Her hair grayed and eyes darkened. And always, she dreamed of tunnels. That is when she could finally get to sleep. Something in her mind was changing, had changed, perhaps long ago.

Then came the fateful day where Lynsey would find out the truth for herself.

A wet road, a truck, and a crushed metal frame. She couldn't remember any pain, just a flash of light and the sound of glass shattering around her.

Silence, then a hum and then... The Corridor.

Lynsey stood. Not physically as there was no body here. Just consciousness, wrapped in memory, flowing around almost like ripples on water. The tunnel opened before her, endless and bright.

The light was the most captivating thing she had ever seen.

She heard her mother and her sister first, and then the man she had loved. All calling to her in warm and gentle tones. The scent of lilies and old books reminding her of her childhood cottage where she would read in the library with the window open as her father tended to the garden outside.

She stepped forward, as if on instinct. Her soul leaned toward it. But she stopped.

And turned.

Behind her was the dark.

It was not absence. It was presence: dense, still, alive. The light pulsed hungrily behind her, but the dark waited with infinite patience. It called with no sound.

She took a step toward it and the light screamed.

It tried to reach for her, not with fingers, but with need. Lynsey staggered. Visions flashed in front of her of joy, reunion, beauty and eternity. It offered peace.

But she saw the fire behind its veil. The illusion and the burn.

She turned fully into the dark and walked, or floated, she wasn't sure.

There was no sensation, only the absence of pain. No voices or even gravity pulling her down somewhere. Just being. She could not see, but she knew. She moved deeper, and the further she went, the more real she became.

The corridor behind her faded.

Then a voice. Gentle, familiar and soothing.

"Welcome my child."

Lynsey said nothing. She could not speak but the voice heard her thoughts anyway.

A figure emerged: not by light, but by awareness. It was not monstrous or beautiful. It simply was.

"For all of your life, you were told I was evil," it said. "That I tempted you and that demons lurked in my mist. That light was salvation. But light burns, Lynsey. It forgets. I am the keeper. The memory. The shadow that guards what the flame cannot touch."

Lynsey's essence of a soul trembled. The truth settled deep inside her, tearing away any notion of disbelief.

"You are not lost," the voice said. "You are found. You are not punished. You are preserved."

Behind them, the light hissed like a dying sun and retreated.

"Lucifer was never your enemy. He became the flame that consumes. I am the one who saw the fire, and turned him away."

The voice paused.

And Lynsey understood.

God, before light, was darkness. Not evil, not cruel. But the silence before the dawn.

Lucifer had meant to bring the light, to be a beacon for creation. Instead, he had chosen to sear.

All those who chased it were not saved. They were sacrificed and consumed.

Lynsey rested there, in the quiet, where no flame reached. Where memories stayed and suffering ceased. She did not vanish. She did not burn.

She simply, remained.

...

A decade later, another scientist reopened the CIRCE project, buried under layers of secrecy and ethics boards. They found Dr. Aldred's notes and they tried again.

They followed the tunnel and once more, the light waited, alluring and warm.

But now, deep in the data, at the very edge of the corridor, there was a whisper. A tiny pulse in the resonance field. A shadow in the shape of a woman.

Watching.

Waiting.

Patient as eternity.

The End.

---

*Cognitive Interface for Resonant Consciousness Emission

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this. Just to clarify: I am not anti-religious. I just have always loved delving deep into religious questions (much to the disdain of my devout Catholic best-friend), and after reading a story by L.C. Shäfer (see link below), I was inspired to write my own story that highlights one of the questions I ponder.