The pressure was unbearable. It felt as if everything will crush into nothing. I raised my head and looked around only to see thousands of heads swarming in every direction. Everyone was pushing forward. I tried to remember what happened, how I got there but couldn’t recall anything. All I had was this unexpected and unimaginable situation to deal with.

Where was everyone going? Why was everyone eager to leave? I raised my head again to look if anything had changed. Nothing, except there was a flood approaching, far behind me and everyone was running away from it. The pressure increased. The force of the push passed down from one another, making its way to those who were far ahead. I wondered whether they were alive or long dead. Suddenly, a crack appeared,, a way out, probably because of the pressure. The flood behind me was approaching fast and the crack ahead of me was widening in relation to the approaching flood and the collective force of all of those around me who were desperately running away from the flood to survive this strange situation.

The water level rose instantly. I was swimming in the flood. Finally, the flood broke apart the crack ahead and pushed us all into the darkness. There, for the first time, I saw everyone. There were millions of us, if not billions. Everyone was in a free fall. For a while, I couldn’t figure out whether I was going, up, down, or straight ahead, I felt no gravity and then it hit me, the sea.

There were tens of thousands below me, and hundreds of thousands fell on me. I had to act quickly, decide quickly, whether to let go and die or to fight and survive. My entire life, my existence depended upon this moment. Irony is, nobody wants to die and still everyone does. It was an easy call to take. I made my way to the surface, pushing whoever was around me with all the energy I had. I waited for the high tide, to be able to look as far as possible.

I looked at one direction first, nothing. Everyone was trying to drag each other down in order to get a view of their surroundings and probably plan their survival, the chances of which looked really bleak at the moment. I was continuously pushing everyone away from me. I had no idea survival could be so exhausting. On the next high tide I looked everywhere frantically and spotted something. I waited for another high tide before I could be sure of going in that direction to survive this confusing mayhem. I had a real glimpse this time, there was an island, way ahead, but reachable.

I started swimming towards it, and so did everyone else. The island was quite visible now and there was no way everyone could accommodate it altogether. There wasn’t enough space on it.

I reached at the shore after what felt like forever. While there were millions looking for a way out before the flood, there weren’t many left when I looked at the sea from the shore of the island. My estimate was absolutely wrong, not even a hundred made their way to the island, we were few in number standing in a circular line around the island shore, figuring out what to do next. I was too exhausted to do a quick tour across the island’s shoreline. Though, the island looked really small, it could easily accommodate a couple thousands of us, but alas, there weren’t as many survivors. It was a complete genocide and a truly unnecessary one. Who could have done that? I wondered. I felt too weak to ponder upon the question. Somehow, I crawled up the shoreline to solid land. Everyone else followed me too. To my utter surprise, there was a dome in the middle of the island, visible to everyone of us.

It was an easy decision to make. Everyone started to run towards it. I saw a few getting exhausted and falling down, I gathered all the energy I had in me and pushed myself for the last run. I reached the dome along with few others and we felt dejected to realize that the dome had no door. There was no bridge on it, to look at it from the top, there was no underpass to access it from the bottom and there was no window to peep inside. Some sat with their backs against the dome, others walked towards the sea again, in order to find rescue, only to find there was no shore left. The water level was rising, or to be precise, the island was sinking. I started punching and kicking the dome. I would have punched it hundreds of times before a small crack appeared. The water was approaching, the entire island was already under water, just the dome was left to be sunk. I continued hitting at the crack and it kept getting bigger and wider. I was half under water when the crack suddenly gave way and I fell inside the dome. I saw a door in the middle of the dome. I opened it and went inside. Outside, I could hear the water flowing into the dome. All my concentration was towards the water flowing in, I feared it would flood the room any moment and I would die. I was taken aback by surprise by a voice that rose behind me, “Hello.”

I turned around and saw a woman.

“Hello”, she said again.

“Who are you?”, I asked.

“You know who I am”, she said with a soothing smile on her face.

I was sure I had never seen her. But there was something about her I couldn’t ignore, she was perfectly at peace with the situation. As if she knew what was happening and more importantly, she knew the reason behind it.

“Outside, everything is flooded”, I said.

“I know, but you will remain safe inside this room.”

“Who told you?”

“Nobody, I designed this room to be safe during the floods.”

“How many have been there?”

“Countless.”

“And you survived all of them?”

“I am the reason floods happen.”

“I do not understand.”

“There is no need to understand anything.”

Confused, I asked her, “What happens now?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you want to happen.”

“Stop confusing me and tell me everything clearly.”

“There are going to be two scenarios. In the first one, you and me talk till you die and once you die, I die too. In the second one, we create something that lasts forever and so do we.”

“There is a flood outside, the only island there was is now under water. We cannot survive this flood and you are talking about existing forever? I suggest you go out and see what is happening outside.”

“At the moment, nothing else matters than what happens inside this room. What is lost is lost already. Nothing can bring the dead back, the dead will wither away with time and so would we if we decide to not stay alive.”

“Nothing is making sense, everything seems to be a dream.”

“The life you had before this place was also a dream, the life you will have after we decide to exist forever will also be a dream.”

“You mean to say that the existence is only a dream and we never truly exist?”

“Existence is not a dream, trying to exist is.”

“Who are you?”

“I am the one everyone is searching for in temples, churches and mosques.”

“You mean you are god?”

“If that is what you call your search, then yes, I am the god.”

“But they said the god is male!”

“You are a male, are you god?”

“What do you mean?”

“At this time, you are the only male alive in this world and the rest of the world, as you know, is already flooded. Everyone is dead. Only you and me exist inside this room, which can be our world now. If you are not the god, then I am. If you are the god, then too I am.”

“But all those books of wisdom, all those ideas about you, I cannot imagine how wrong they all were.”

“Well, atleast you agreed that I am what they call god. Mustn’t you follow what I say then?”

“Can you prove you are god?”

“ I don’t need to prove anything. It is you who needs to believe.”

“Believe what?”

“That you can exist forever if you do as I say.”

“And you will die too if I do not follow your command?”

“It is not a command, just a suggestion, and yes, I will die with you.”

“What happens when you die?”

She smiled at the question, “You don’t remember anything?”

“Remember what?”

“You asked the same question last time as well.”

“What are you talking about? I have never seen you before in my life.”

“Which life are you talking about?”

“How many are there?”

“As many as you can count, but as of now, you do not even seem to remember how you got here.”

“You are right, what was that flood?”

“It was a way for you to reach me.”

“You knew I would?”

“I hoped you do.”

“How do we create something that allows us to exist forever?”

“Before I tell you that, you need to understand the true meaning of forever.”

“And that is?”

“A moment.”

“I didn’t understand.”

“It takes time.”

“Only if you could elaborate.”

“A moment is forever.”

“Even the one that has just passed?”

“No, what has passed becomes the past, what is yet to come is always the future, what is happening now is the moment that stays forever.”

“You mean this moment?”

“And this too.”

“Wow!”

“The present moment is forever.”

“We exist in the present moment, so we exist forever.”

“It becomes pretty obvious once you know it.”

“Easier to understand this way.”

She smiled again.

“Have I said that too before?”

“Everytime.”

“What do we do if I agree to exist forever?”

“We need to create life, yet again.”

“How?”

“You and me become one.”

“God and man!”

“Yes, that is the only way.”

“How do we do that?”

“Do exactly as I do.”

She got up and walked upto me and before I could make sense of anything, she put her hand inside my chest. Surprisingly, I felt no pain, her hand went inside my chest as if my chest was a jelly.

I looked at her, she was already looking at me with that constant smile on her face.

“You turn”, she said.

I placed my hand on her chest and it smoothly slipped in. With her other hand, she clamped me tightly closer to her. I reciprocated her.

“Jump”, she said.

We jumped and the door of the room rushed open due to the pressure of the flood outside. The flood was below us, rising, but still at a distance. It appeared to be receding. I couldn’t see her face anymore. She was resting her head on my shoulder. I rested mine at her. I was getting comfortable in trusting her, she had been right so far. My gaze followed upwards because of my tilted head and I saw a string, going down her back. I felt happy. She saved me. The flood was way below us.

“How long we need to stay like this?”

“A moment.”

Several moments later, when I and the god created a new life together and as the string of life strengthened, I began to forget what I had just discovered. The god doesn’t reside anywhere else other than inside us, we weren’t created from the outside but from the inside. The god is nothing more than the basic building block of life and every living thing meets god inside a place we call a female’s egg.