To The Other Side

Chapter 4: First Save (part 2)

"Who's out there?" A voice spoke out. Bright yellow lights lit up the yard and a huge shadow was cast in front of Jake. He turns around to see a female figure standing at the door, it was his mother in a night gown.

Jake stood up and spoke, "calm down mom it's just me, Jake," he walked closer to the light so let his mother look at him more closely.

"Oh Jake! What are you doing out here in the middle of the night? You should be inside asleep by now!" His mother scolded, she was walking Jake inside where he took one glance at the oak tree to still see the man at the tree and Willow following shortly behind him.

Jake and his mother go upstairs and to his bedroom before she gave a a tired scolding before trudging back to her room. And after a good ten minutes of pretending to sleep, Jake sat up and saw Willow just staring out the window.

"What's it like to be dead?" Jake asked quietly.

"Empty," Willow spoke in a very soft manner, "It hurts all over, kinda hard to explain, but it opens your eyes to something different I've never seen before. The real world,"

"What do you mean?" Jake questioned.

"The man, your father, he still has unfinished business. But he can't leave the proximity of that tree, he still hasn't accepted his death. My guesses would be that he's buried under there, if you tried you could probably find him six feet under," Willow still looked blankly out the window. Jake thought about it a bit, sure he could try and dig him up but his mother is always home. And when she leaves to get the groceries, roughly thirty minutes isn't enough to aimlessly dig in the yard.

"Well we don't have enough time to which my mom isn't home and when my stepdad is at work. So digging him up is a bit out of the picture, any other ideas?" Jake stated.

"Well sleep is the first thing, you can't do very much when you're half way asleep anyways," Willow suggested. Jake, who wasn't tired reluctantly agreed and after a couple mumbles of disagreement, the young boy fell silent.

The next morning, light lit the room through the spots where the shades didn't cover. And it uncomfortably landed on Jake's eyes which woke him up from annoyance. Slowly opening his eyes and using his arm to shield the light from his eyes, he sees Willow in a corner and reading another book. She took a glance over at him before closing the book.

"So what do you suppose we do about him?" Willow asked.

"Well he died-" Jake answered.

"Obviously." Willow cut in.

"Let me finish. So he died, so there must've been an investigation on his death, right?" He continued.

"Nope, probably missing person case. Never found the body, thus he's considered missing," Willow informed.

Makes sense to why his mother would say he left us, Jake thought. "And how can you say that?"

"Because, souls are stuck until they're found. They found my body but my case was never solved, but I can still somewhat roam freely though not everywhere. Though that's what I've seen, maybe there's exceptions," Willow said.

"Then to the police station for missing file cases?" Jake suggested.

"Huh, really?" Willow scoffed, "Do you really expect them to let a kid look through their files?"

"Ughhhhh........ Yes?" Jake answered, Willow sighed as she rolled her eyes.

"C'mon lets go then. Not like we have any other option as of right now," Willow said floating towards the door.