Chap­ter XXIV begins not with sor­row, but with an invitation—a child requests Aph-Lin’s pres­ence at the funer­al of a rel­a­tive. I, sens­ing the weight of a pos­si­ble encounter with Zee, ask to join. My motives are mixed: part curios­i­ty, part avoid­ance, yet most­ly dri­ven by the chance to under­stand how this extra­or­di­nary soci­ety embraces some­thing all liv­ing beings must face—death. Their tone, from the start, is not mourn­ful. In place of grief, there is readi­ness. Death here is not shunned but wel­comed, espe­cial­ly when one has lived long and well.

We arrive at the home of the depart­ed, where guests gath­er not in hushed sor­row but in warm reflec­tion. The body, rest­ing on a couch, appears untouched by pain. A smile plays on his lips, peace­ful and whole, not worn by age or ill­ness. He had passed after dream­ing of his beloved wife, whom he longed to meet again. That dream was tak­en as a sign. Among these peo­ple, death isn’t sud­den or feared—it is accept­ed as part of a grace­ful exit. The moment felt unfa­mil­iar, but strange­ly com­fort­ing. No tears fell, yet respect filled the room like incense.

A near­by device, unlike any­thing I have seen, qui­et­ly emits a deep, fra­grant aro­ma. Its sur­face is smooth and dark, with glow­ing red lights flick­er­ing through tiny cir­cu­lar vents. It isn’t spo­ken of direct­ly, but its pres­ence dom­i­nates the room. I assume it has a pur­pose relat­ed to the body, though no one treats it as mys­te­ri­ous. Its sub­tle hum blends into the atmos­phere. There is no cof­fin, no grave, no final­i­ty. Their tech­nol­o­gy embraces death as anoth­er process, not a dra­mat­ic end. The empha­sis remains on cel­e­bra­tion, not on loss.

As the town’s melod­ic chimes echo in per­fect har­mo­ny, the cer­e­mo­ny begins. Gen­tle music rises—not the kind meant to draw out sor­row, but rather to invite joy. It’s soft, vibrant, and alive. The air shifts as if warmed by mem­o­ry, and faces glow with a col­lec­tive calm. They do not sing dirges. They sing renew­al. Their belief in an after­life isn’t sym­bol­ic; it’s struc­tur­al. The dead are not remem­bered for their absence, but hon­ored for their con­tin­u­a­tion into some­thing bet­ter.

The cer­e­mo­ny is pub­lic, yet pro­found­ly per­son­al. No words are forced. No roles are assigned. Every­one par­tic­i­pates as moved by feel­ing, not tra­di­tion. What struck me most was the hon­esty of it. There is no pre­tend­ing, no dra­mat­ic expres­sions. Each per­son speaks to the depart­ed as though he’s only gone ahead by a few steps. Chil­dren are not shield­ed, nor are elders treat­ed with tired pity. Their uni­ty in fac­ing death grants dig­ni­ty to the deceased and strength to the liv­ing.

Aph-Lin lat­er explains that the body will be giv­en to nat­ur­al forces through meth­ods guid­ed by vril ener­gy. There is no bur­ial, no cre­ma­tion, only an ele­gant return to the ele­ments. The body, through their sci­ence, is con­vert­ed safe­ly and silent­ly into pure ener­gy, absorbed into the Earth or air. It’s not destruc­tion, but release. The process, he says, avoids decay and hon­ors life’s cycli­cal nature. Their prac­tices reduce fear by remov­ing the unknown. I found this approach sur­pris­ing­ly humane, though my mind strug­gled to let go of earth­ly cus­toms.

The cer­e­mo­ny clos­es with a ges­ture of parting—a hand laid gen­tly on the brow, a moment of silence, and a final note in the air. There are no funer­al pro­ces­sions, no grief-strick­en dec­la­ra­tions. The peo­ple qui­et­ly dis­perse. I leave with Aph-Lin, my thoughts heav­ier than I expect­ed. I do not weep, but I feel some­thing stir­ring with­in me—a kind of envy. Not for their pow­er, but for their peace. Death, which ter­ri­fies my kind, has become to them a bridge.

Reflect­ing on the day, I find myself ques­tion­ing my own culture’s treat­ment of death. We resist it, dress it in fear, and veil it in sor­row. But per­haps that is because we are unsure of what lies beyond. The Vril-ya are not uncer­tain. Their con­vic­tion is root­ed in belief, but guid­ed by knowl­edge. They do not just hope; they know—or believe they do. That clar­i­ty gives them seren­i­ty. As I pre­pare for sleep, I won­der if it is clar­i­ty we lack more than courage.

There’s a deep­er les­son in what I’ve seen. Tech­nol­o­gy here does not replace tra­di­tion; it reshapes it with mean­ing. Faith and sci­ence are not at war, but in har­mo­ny. The death I wit­nessed was not only the end of a life, but the con­tin­u­a­tion of values—love, dig­ni­ty, com­mu­ni­ty, and belief in some­thing greater. In the end, per­haps that is what mat­ters most. Not how we die, but how we live toward that moment. In their world, death teach­es not despair, but bal­ance. And in observ­ing them, I begin to under­stand how lit­tle we’ve done to make peace with the inevitable.