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To whomever receives this note, once it’s been smuggled across the boundary:

As far as history stretches, humanity has theorized about what may be waiting for us beyond death’s veil, spawning so many ideas that it makes the head whorl.

Some believe we’re reborn into a repeating cycle of life, one that we wander through until we find meaning. Others believe paradise awaits us. Still more expound on this theory by claiming that only those found worthy may enter paradise while the rest go to a place full of torment.

I could go on.

My home followed a model quite similar to that last one. What our paradise might have been was never defined, not when all of our focus went to where the weak languish after death: Katanti.

I don’t know if I actually accepted my home’s beliefs or simply went along with them because no alternatives were presented to me.

Having heard a few of those now, I know I’d have favored the idea that after escaping the confines of one’s body, one’s essence joins into a vast collective of other beings. The idea of a single entity merging with a gathering of people, one boasting so many different life experiences and ideas, appeals to me on a deep level.

That’s not what the beyond is, though.

Please, whoever is reading this, take what I say, emblazon it on your heart, and spread it as far and wide as you can. What lies beyond death is like nothing humanity could have comprehended.

It’s so much worse.

Heed my words.

-Amari Kasai.