The Lantern's Light

Prologue

A black-haired girl walks among a crowd thick with people. Her eyes remain fixated on the ground as she mimics dance moves in a tight area around her, getting in practice without knocking into the people around her. It isn't like she's aware she's doing this. The girl is lost in her own world. She had earbuds tucked into her ears softly playing a song that she has recently found herself obsessing over. Even though the dance moves didn't go with the song's beat or even the lyrics, she couldn't stop herself from humming along as she performed each step in a sequence. If it wasn't clear what kind of person she was, someone wouldn't need to look much further than the pale leggings she wore beneath her thick, black jacket or the duffle bag thrown across her shoulder. She was a professional. One that was minding her own business as she went on the trek back to her house. One that wasn't paying attention to the world around her. Well, to be fair, that car wasn't going the speed limit and the traffic light was a stark red. The red hand that halted the pedestrians had morphed into an illuminated green man who appeared to be walking. She had been taught in her youth what that meant. It was muscle memory at this point.

She landed on the ground, wind knocked out of her. Her earbuds had fallen out, the cord coming unplugged from the phone so the final verse of the song echoed into the dark night. Shadows that must have been people rushed around her, fearful and anxious and hoping that they wouldn't see a dead body. She wasn't thinking about it. Everything inside her was in pain. Her vision was prickling with darkness at the edges. She thought vaguely about the people she was leaving behind. She had a handful of close friends from the dance studio, but that was about it. She had spent her life achieving her dream, and that didn't leave any time to socialize with someone that wasn't strictly necessary. A sad, warbling laugh that sounded more like a pathetic cough came from her lips. She was dying. She was going to be dead in the next few minutes, and no one would care. Well, some people would care, but in a year's time, no one would remember her. No one would still care about her. She was dying in vain. She was dying because some man couldn't tell the difference between red and green traffic lights. She hadn't accomplished her dream, and she hadn't even died saving someone's life. She was dying alone in extreme pain.

I hope some soul out there will save you as I have failed to do

It was the song lyric, she realized, tilting her head up to see her phone with a cracked screen. The song had been something that played during the closing credits of a game that she had finished a few nights ago. When she had a few minutes of free time, she had peeked into the game to make a few choices here and there. It had taken her nearly a month to finish it, but it had been worth it for the climax and falling action. The main heroine had found out that her closest friend was the traitor. The song was the heroine begging the fates to allow her former friend another chance to be happy, and it was so beautiful that she had been playing on loop since she finished the game. She smiled rather sadly at the irony of it all. Maybe the heroine could share some of those good wishes her way. Maybe the heroine had a line in there just for her, that way she would be happy in whatever comes after death. Wasn't that a positively silly thought to have right before the darkness took her?

The heroine had asked, in her song, that someone would find a way to save her friend and make her happy. Maybe there was some real magic to a song like that. When someone wishes for something so selflessly, and it reaches another's heart, maybe a higher power can arrange things. Maybe someone who hasn't done anything particularly good or bad with their lives, they need another chance to determine if they get eternal punishment or a comfortable rest. There could be a million different reasons that could make just enough sense to be plausible, but that doesn't really matter, does it? There's no point speculating in something that could never be understood within one lifetime. What does matter is that there was a reason why this happened... there was a reason that one soul crossed the boundaries into another world.