After my six-hour long near-death experience over eight years ago (in which I entered a state of indescribable communion with the Great God Pan in his highest cosmic form, up at the sephira Chokmah of the Tree of Life, contrary to my expectations, which were either Jesus or Solaris), my mother told me that the first time she came to visit me at the hospital, right after surgery when I was practically comatose, she clearly heard her sister's voice coming out of my mouth, as if I was nothing more than a speaking tube. My aunt was telling her "I'm so sorry, I was so selfish, I'm so sorry..." over and over again.
That freaked my mother the f**k out, so much so that she was still very deeply disturbed even a year afterwards. I naturally DIDN'T tell her about my whole experience on the other side, the part when I fell into Pan's endlessly spiralling ram's horns, literally made of stars, and ended up walking down a spiral staircase made of black stone. Not a proper staircase really, simply steps made of obsidian or more probably onyx, floating above oblivion. After quite some time walking down the onyx steps, I found my aunt completely listless on the stairs (she had also violently commited suicide five years earlier), and she said "This is the abyss, the bottomless pit, where all of the lost souls end up, I've been here forever, there's no escape, I'm more lost than ever, I've just lied down and given up." Without thinking, I took her hand and replied "You're not lost anymore, I've found you." She looked up, her eyes full of life again, and said "James, I love you, I love you so much..." and that was it, next thing I remember was waking up at the hospital days later.
About a month later, I was at the public library, when I noticed a tall, young, beautiful woman looking at me, smiling. She looked familiar, but I couldn't remember who she was. She came up to me and asked "You look familiar, do I know you? Tell me your name." But I felt so incredibly uncomfortable looking at her face up close, it didn't seem right. In retrospect, it was like when they digitally de-age an actor for a Marvel movie; yeah, it technically looks perfect, but there's just something... "off" about it, too perfect. So I just told her "No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to tell you my name." and she just whimsically replied "Okay." AS SOON AS SHE WALKED AWAY, it suddenly hit me that she obviously was my aunt, looking as she did in my childhood, when she was in her twenties. When I turned around, she literally disappeared.
I rationalized it as an unintentional "Orpheus travelling to the Underworld to rescue the soul of a loved one" sort-of-thing, but more successful. Haven't seen her since.
