Eliza held onto my hand, tears flooding her face.

"Betsy....when I die-" I start.

"IF you die." She cried. "Y-you're not going to die....y-you can't die..."

"Betsy, when I die, I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry......for everything."

"I forgive you, you silly goose." She chuckled a sad chuckle. (Is that a thing?)

"I love you."

Death is....weird. It feels like going to sleep, but much, much longer.

Yet, just like sleep, it feels like moments in the void, even if it has been a few centuries.

You're just in....an endless void, void of any color or life.

Maybe a memory will come once in a while, almost like a dream, but it leaves as soon as it arrives.

Yes, I think sleep is a good metaphor for death. A life long sleep, with the occasional dream of a memory.

But, they're actual memories, not those strange dreams where you're saving your family from boiling in a vat of nacho cheese, which is strangely a memory or sorts.

No, but actual memories. Such as my wedding day, the day Philip came into this world (as well as our other children), etcetera.

But, as soon as the sleep is over, something strange happens. Something beautiful.

Life.

I heard a child's cry. A newborns cry, the same cry they cry when taking their first breath.

I look towards a bed, where a woman was laying, exhausted, and a nurse carrying the small bundle of screaming blankets, showing the screaming blankets to the mother, who smiled widely.

"What's his name?" The nurse asked, the blankets calming down in their mother's chest.

She smiled. "Lin-Manuel."

286 words

Keep in mind that, for some of this, I'm going to be doing quite a bit of research, just to make it as accurate as I could possibly make it.

Obviously, it's not going to be entirely accurate, but it's my story so...