He woke up in a room he didn't recognize. A room he was pretty sure he'd never seen before in his entire life. It was small... and cramped and he was sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair that was cold on his barely covered ass. In fact, he was pretty cold all over -- hospital gowns didn't go a long way in keeping you warm. He looked down at his arms and noticed the marks where the IV's had once been inserted. He pulled the tiny hospital gown away from his chest and peered down to find the bandages still covering the wounds so grotesque he dared not think about them.

He wondered silently where he was and how he'd gotten there. He remembered only moments of what had happened that day. He remembered waking up in his hotel that morning to the sound of the door creaking open when he was quite sure no one should be there. He remembered a flash of metal as he'd stumbled for the light on the table beside his bed. And he remembered a burst of pain that shot through him like a white hot bolt of lightning. He had no idea what had caused it or what had happened afterward, and he didn't really want to think about it. Nothing that could cause a pain like that could be any kind of good.

He wondered where he was now. Where the warm hospital bed and the kind nurse who'd given him the medicines that had made him feel so good before had disappeared to. He wondered how in the world a person could get so lost.

He breathed in deeply and curled into a ball in the chair hoping to rid his body of some of the overwhelming ache. He could really use some of those medicines right now.

He looked around trying his best to clear his muddled mind and take in his surroundings. The room he was in was painted an ugly pale green and there were several rows of chairs that lined a wall and led up to a large glass window. It was dark in the room and he couldn't see anything from his position in one of the chairs against the wall. He slowly stood as best he could and waited for the pains to subside to a dull roar before edging his way weakly along the row of chairs until he was seated right in front of the window.

Something told him not to look before he even took the first glance. Something deep within his brain was telling him he didn't want to see what was on the other side of that glass. But he did it anyway. The sight he saw as he peered down into the bright room made him gasp in horror. His fingers locked into a grip on the ledge of the window as he tried to steel himself. He was looking down into an operating room. An operating room packed with doctors and nurses and the body of a man he knew well... very well. So well in fact that he could almost feel the pain as the nurse knelt on the gurney beside him and pound for pound delivered compressions.

He'd heard of out-of-body experiences before... but he'd never believed you could actually have one.

He watched in horror as the blood spilled down the sides of the table and pooled into a puddle on the floor below. He dared not move or speak or even breathe as he watched the numbers on the screen beside the bed decrease... slowly at first... 110... 85... 76... and then plummet... 37... 20.... 5... and the long steady beep that followed as the line went flat.

"We're losing him!" A doctor yelled and he watched as the crowd of people backed away from the table "CLEAR"... and the way his body jumped before his very eyes at the shock delivered.

And he felt his head begin to spin and his body give way to the weakness he was now overcome by. Shock after shock, "Clear" after "clear", he clung to the window and stared down in horror at his own body giving up there on the table below him. And at the same time his own spirit giving up there in that operating room viewing theatre.

He felt his heart actually burst when the doctor delievered the final shock. It was a pain beyond any pain he'd ever felt before and he gasped as he sank to the floor and clutched his chest. This so could not be Heaven. Someone help him... someone save him.

And then in an instant the pain was gone. He took a deep breath and stood and peered once more through the window to the operating room below. But now all he could see was a brillant light and he could feel the steady rhythm of a calming, healthy heart.

He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes. So this was it. He knew it before it happened. He knew it before he heard the words. He leaned back and took one last deep breath.

And the last thing he heard before his entire world went black...

"Official time of death -- 9:32 pm."