As I lay there, my eyes felt heavy. I wasn't sad, though my family was, I could hear the sniffling, see the tears. I raised my hand one last time and spoke to my family, "We'll be together again, I love you all so very much."

A cacophony of sniffles and sobs was the last thing I heard. I drifted above my body for a moment when reality around me suddenly seemed to fold in on itself. That's the best way I could describe it, the room folded into the ground and from it arose a long hallway with what seemed like a variety of scenes from my life.

I drifted past my doctor telling me and my wife of my prognosis, of my admittance to the hospital, to Christmas when I fell. The hallway seemed to both come to me and away from me, as if it was a carousel. The scenes shifted by faster and faster, allowing me to catch glimpses of the birth of my youngest, to my wedding, to Hannah and I meeting, my high school graduation, my parent's divorce, and finally the hallway stopped at my birth.

"So," a booming voice appeared in my head and all around me. I felt the word reverberate through what I can only describe as my soul. "That is what your life would be like, do you want to be born?" It asked as if I was at the end of a long conversation with it.

"I-" I could manage only one word, I had not a clue what to even think about let alone say.

"Ah, let me..." the voice faded for a moment as the scene hallway disappeared without fanfare, leaving me surrounded by a void. I saw nothing, heard nothing, not even a heartbeat. Even my tinnitus was gone.

For that moment, I knew peace.

The voice returned, startling me, "You were shown a preview of your life, should you choose to be born during this time. It's a trying and changing time, a challenging one that not many choose. However, your soul is a resilient one, which is why I showed you this option. There are more options, other lives in other times."

I had no response. My whole life, a preview? Of my life?

"You don't remember, do you?" The voice asked my soul.

"I... no, I don't." I felt both young and old at the same time, like I had the seemingly infinite energy of an eight year old, but the knowledge of an eighty year old and this was the only thing I knew nothing of.

The voice sighed. "Okay, this happens sometimes, give me a moment."

I was then in a room. A desk was before me with what appeared to be a human seated in the chair behind it, though they wore a cloak that covered their appearance. Behind me was a door, surrounded on both sides by bookshelves filled with thick, worn books of a variety of colors.

"You may be more comfortable in this setting; a familiar one. Every soul is allowed a choice of a time period in which they want to live, a choice of a life to experience. Souls, like you, choose. Oftentimes, souls tend to live out their lives in their previews which appears to have happened to you." The voice, now coming from the cloaked figure, continued explaining.

"Since you have lived that life, would you like to preview another? I have one in mind, one just as challenging, perhaps even more so than the one you lived." The voice gave me almost no time to process what was happening, yet...

My thoughts seemed to move quickly, faster than ever before. I looked back at my life, with my wife, the children, their children, their career, everything. I wanted more time, the life I lived was one that I wish I could spend an eternity in.

"You can." The voice replied to my thoughts. "But we advise against it. If a soul experiences the same life twice, it will forever remain, and your energy will return to the universe and a new soul will be created in your place. A soul as resilient as yours is highly prized, and used for some of the most challenging lives. Perhaps a new life will give you time to think it over. You can always return to your other if you choose."

If I had a head to shake, it would've been shaking. I knew not what to choose, nor what to do. I wanted to see the wife of that life again, and to be with her and experience it all again... I think... It felt as if it had been a lifetime, ten lifetimes since I saw her last, since I experienced that life. The children, the grandchildren, so distant, yet so close. It began to feel all too familiar. I remembered.

I looked to the cloaked figure who pointed to the window frame on the wall. In the frame was a view into the void, a view into my lives. I saw the wife again, everything I experienced with her. Then, a... husband? A mother? Faces flashed by, faces I knew. I felt a connection to all of them, as if my soul wanted to bind with theirs. All were from different times, from before the ancient humans to intergalactic human times and beyond, and more.

They were me. I was all of them. My soul.

"Your lives. Billions." The voice spoke. "You have the choice, relive a past life and allow a new soul to be born, or move on to the next. We highly recommend you choose the latter. Never before have we had a soul that experienced as many lives as you." The voice implored.

I took a moment, reflecting, remembering my lives.

"Show me the next." I replied.