out of control | the rewrite

¹. ᵗʰᵉ ᵍʳⁱᵐ ʳᵉᵃᵖᵉʳ ⁱˢ ᵐⁱˢᵘⁿᵈᵉʳˢᵗᵒᵒᵈ

CHAPTER ONE: PART ZERO ; ASHES TO ASHES, THEY ALL FALL DOWN
Death didn't feel as peaceful as everyone had told her it'd be. In fact, she'd have described it much differently. To her, death felt like that scratchy tag in your shirt that you can't get rid of. Death felt like your blanket was too warm. Death felt like that bug crawling on your skin that wasn't actually there.

Death was annoying to her. An inconvenience, like she'd been duped at an antique store for a painting that was supposedly thirty dollars- but was really just a frame that was thrown out in a Marshall's dumpster.

"I'm gonna need therapy after all this." She whispered to herself, fixing the collar of her shirt nervously as she looked around.

Emerson remembered everything. Her last breath, the moment her heart stopped beating.. and it.. it wasn't as traumatizing as she expected. The first emotion that she'd felt after realizing that she - ya-know, died - was relief.

It sounded crazy, she knows that. But maybe.. maybe it was just her heart telling her that everything would be okay. As crazy as it sounds. Especially after waking up in this place.

Death was a giant, empty void of nothing.

Her aching body didn't feel like she'd been killed, she felt more like she was sore. It was just as if she were numb all over, every nerve in her body on overdrive. Emerson shivered in an invisible breeze. She kept glancing around as if the scenery would change, tentative steps walking forwards, whatever direction that was.

She realized with a sharp swallow that her footsteps held no sound, nothing to echo against. There was something going on here, and she was terrified.

"Is anyone there?" She shouted, throat dry but still able to produce some kind of noise. Her voice was thick like honey, she noted, sounding almost like she was drowning in a thick liquid. It was unnatural to her. "Hello?"

Blinking away panicked tears as they flew from her eyes, she used the ends of her sleeves to dry the area beneath her eyes. Thank god [or whoever the hell else she was about to meet] she was wearing her clothes, at the very least.

Her hand unconsciously reached for the pocket that her phone was held, but patted around to find nothing. At least, nothing but a small bump of what seemed to be a small ID card?

The girl slowly pulled it from her pocket. Almost immediately, she recognized the clip of metal. It was the money that her mom had left on the counter for her.

Granted, it was only twenty dollars. She supposed that it was unimportant, however, and just shoved the five-dollar bills back into her pants. Not like she could use it here.. wherever here was.

Walking forwards into the void, she set on a journey - uncertain if she'd be walking towards something more dangerous than where she was now.

--

It had taken an hour for the girl to spot something of interest.

Originally she'd thought she was walking into nothing, as usual, when a small spot in her vision - something that seemed out of place and definitely not part of the void she'd found herself becoming a part of - started to become larger the closer she walked towards it.

Her pace slowly started to quicken. At first she tried walking towards it, reasoning with herself that she would literally have all the time in the world to get to it. But of course, she was impatient, so her fast-walk had slowly turned into a jog.. then faster, and faster.

Eventually she was sprinting down the long expanse, her converse hitting the floor and still making no noise. Nothing to distract herself but her own voice and thoughts.