Made for Error

Afterlife

𝚂𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚃𝚆: 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

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I cried even harder as they lifted his casket into the grave. So did our mom. Our dad just stood there, although you could see tears in his eyes. Everyone loved him, although I never understood why. Charlie wasn't a psychopath, but he was a jerk. I still loved him though. He was my brother after all.

The casket hit the ground with a loud thump. After that, our dad started to lose it. He started bawling and muttering something. I couldn't understand what he said, although it sounded like he was calling Charlie's name. The cemetery workers started to put the dirt back in the grave, covering his casket. We stood there in silence watching the grave be filled with dirt. He's really dead. I still can't believe it.

We stood there for who knows how long. The grave was almost filled when we made our mom leave. She cried the entire car ride home. Besides my mom's sobs and noises the car made, the drive was completely silent. Nobody talked, nobody turned on the radio. We wordlessly got out of the car and went inside.

The front hall had an eerie silence to it. I made my way through the house to the stairway. Passing a family picture, I felt a pang in my chest. I climbed the stairs to my room, not even bothering to look down the hall towards charlie's room. He had died a hero, and we're all grateful. Charlie had been on his way to work when he and a random lady crossed the street.

Nothing was wrong at first, not until the car appeared. A black Volvo appeared out of nowhere, with no intention of stopping. Charlie had pushed the lady out of the way, but couldn't get out of the way in time. He was hit and dragged across the road.

I opened the door to my room, which felt gloomier than usual. The light blue walls appeared grey in the dimly lit room. I changed out of my funeral clothes into comfier clothes and crawled into bed. All I could think of was Charlie. My eyes filled with tears, and soon I started crying. I cried myself to sleep

At first there was nothing. Then I was in a dark room. I reached along a wall and turned on the lights. The beige walls covered in posters felt familiar. I looked around the room. There's an unmade bed and an open window, which the sun shines through. On the other side of the room, an oak desk and black swivel chair. A clock on the wall reads 11:57.

Someone's sitting in the chair. Whoever it is turns around to greet me.

"Hey Emma! I missed you," the man greets.

His voice is strangely familiar. He has messy, mousy brown hair, green eyes and a thin nose. The man has a summer tan which I see when he waves to me. I have a notion that I know him from somewhere, that I'm supposed to recognize him.

Something drops with a loud clatter. My eyes fly open as I sit up. It hits me. The man in my dream was Charlie. That's one way to deal with grief, I thought. Dreaming about my dead brother, alive, and talking to me.

I groan, having been abruptly woken up. My room still felt as gloomy as when I went to sleep. Crossing the room, I opened my blinds. I went to investigate the noise.

~

Hours later after dinner, I returned to my room. I closed the blinds as the sun had set. It was getting late, and I was still tired so I shut off the light and went to bed.

I awoke in the same room as earlier. There were beige walls covered in posters, and a desk across the room. A guy was sitting in the chair at the desk. He turned around.

"I'm just not gonna question why you're in my bed, but it's really nice to see you Emma," he said. "It's really nice here, but I miss the rest of our family."

"Wait wait wait," I said. "Back it up. Where's here?" I asked

"The afterlife, duh," He said like it was the most obvious thing ever.

"The- the- the afterlife???" I managed to say.

Suddenly the room turned fuzzy. The beige poster covered walls faded to blue, bare ones. I was waking up. My dream faded away, and I was fully awake. My head was pounding.

I leaned over to check the clock. It read three am. My head was still pounding from the crazy dream I had. I don't know what that was, but it was insane. I started thinking about some of the details from the dream. I was clearly in Charlie's room, and he was speaking to me. He was speaking to me about the afterlife.

Running into a wall, I walked to the bathroom for Advil to help my headache. The pain started to dull as I walked back to my room. Pulling the covers back I tried to fall asleep again, only to wake up in the same room I've been waking up in.

"Em, you've got to believe me!" A voice stressed

"Huh...?" I mumbled

"Emma, listen, the afterlife is just another dimension! I can't truly be at rest and happy here until I know you're happy, until mom is happy, until dad is happy."

"Charlie..." I whispered. "This can't be real. You're talking to me in a dream! This is just my imagination going crazy."

"The afterlife is real! Please Emma, please believe me. I can only talk to you for so long before you wake up again."

"This is hard, but I'll believe you. As long as you're happy here."

"Trust me, I am" I heard him say before the noise faded and the room became hazy.

I woke up to sunlight coming in through the windows of my room. It was hard to accept Charlie being gone, but if my dream was real, if the afterlife is real, then I'm glad he's happy.

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𝟷,𝟶𝟷𝟽 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜