Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Yawning, I close my laptop and rub my burning eyes.
Then I rub them again because what the fuck?
There are lights flashing.
In a circle.
In the air in front of me.
I blink. And blink again.
Still there. And getting brighter.
Blue, purple, and pink lights, all swirling together into something utterly surreal.
Shit. Did I die without realizing it? Is this the portal to the afterlife? Am I about to see my body from above, meet the angels, and all that stuff I don’t believe in?
But no. I’m still in my body. Still feeling shitty to the max. Yet the lights are right there in front of me, the circle gradually widening and drawing nearer until it’s… oh, fuck!
I scream as it sucks me in, and everything inside me breaks apart.
Chapter 2
Elsie
The mouthwatering aroma of barbecue hits my nostrils, waking me from a bizarre dream.
Wait, why is there barbecue in the hospital? And why does the fried meat smell so appetizing when I haven’t been able to smell anything edible without wanting to barf for months?
I sniff again, not yet daring to open my eyes in case the visual stimulation brings back the nausea.
Still smells like barbecue. Still smells good.
And there’s something else. An earthy, loamy scent that makes me think of Costa Rica. My parents took me on a rainforest vacation there after my third and final bout with leukemia, and it was one of the few trips I didn’t hate because I was feeling good for once. We saw howler monkeys, and I tasted a bunch of tropical fruits.
It’s a good memory, so the wet jungle smell isn’t unpleasant, but it definitely doesn’t belong in my sterile hospital room. Nor do the male voices speaking in some guttural foreign language nearby. Also, I’m wet and cold, especially where my back and my bare feet touch the damp ground.
Seriously, what the fuck is going on?
I open my lids a tiny crack.
It’s dark. Like pitch-black kind of dark.
The kind of dark that’s all but impossible to achieve in our age of modern electronics.
The kind of dark you never see in a hospital.
My heart begins to hammer. Hard. Much harder than should be possible, given that said heart is on the verge of failure.
Is this it? Am I dead?
Is this what there is after death—darkness, wet earth, and barbecue?
Wait a minute…
I cautiously turn my head, sensing something in my peripheral vision.
Yep, there’s a red glow from a fire to my right. And dark figures silhouetted against the flames, sitting with their huge backs toward me.
No. No fucking way.
Even if hell were real—and the future scientist in me is still convinced it’s not—I haven’t done anything to merit that kind of punishment in the afterlife. Wait, what am I saying? I don’t believe in the afterlife. That’s just a comforting myth people made up to try to come to terms with the fact that eventually, they simply cease to exist.
So… if this isn’t hell, where am I? And who are the figures around the fire?
Shit. Did I get kidnapped?
No, that’s ridiculous. Who would want to kidnap a dying girl?
Unless… oh, fuck. Of course.
I sit up, outraged. “Hey, you! Tell my parents to get me back home, pronto. I don’t have time for this farewell nature immersion or whatever. I have fucking exams to study for!”
The figures around the fire—all five of them—stiffen, then rise to their feet and turn to face me. The firelight illuminates their faces, and I swallow as my outrage evaporates, replaced by a cold wave of fear.
I don’t think my parents hired these men to take me from the hospital and show me the good life before I kick the bucket.
I’m actually not sure they’re men at all.
Even if I were to ignore their linebacker builds and the skintight snakeskin clothes they’re wearing, their features are unlike anything I’ve ever seen, in real life or on television. Their eye sockets are comically big, and their glittering, red-hued eyes sit deep within them, with no hint of eyebrows on the narrow, sloping foreheads above. Their noses are just two nostrils in the middle of their faces, and their chins recede into their necks, while their disproportionally wide cheekbones jut out sideways. And their mouths are—wait, do they have mouths?
One of them opens the horizontal slit below his nostrils, and upon hearing the guttural speech that emerges, I realize that they do have mouths. Flat, lipless mouths filled with shark-like teeth.
Now I’m sweating. It’s a cold, clammy sweat that gathers under my armpits and trickles down my back. Have I been wrong all my life? Is there, in fact, an afterlife, including heaven and hell? And have I somehow ended up in the latter… maybe because I didn’t believe in it?
I run my tongue over my dry lips and try to think rationally.
Unlike the demonic figures before me, I do have lips, and they get dry. That’s good. And my armpits sweat. That’s even better. Would there even be such a thing as sweat in the afterlife? Wouldn’t it all be metaphysical? Then again, how do you burn in hell if you can’t experience physical sensations? You have to have nerve endings to feel the fire scorching you, right? So why not sweat glands as well?