Miss Invisible

Chapter 1

Last wishes, a stupid concept. They only really get enacted when the person wishing is already dead. I am dead. I have been dead for 542 days and three hours. Every second with a profound sense of absolute nothingness and loss. As if I have nothing in the still living world, but that's not true, I have her and her sage green eyes and her cascading blonde hair. If you hadn't met her personally, you'd mistake her for someone like Regina George or Heather Chandler, however, she is definitely neither. Though she is popular, she couldn't kill  a bug to save her life even if you gave her a shotgun.

I died in Bradcliff hospital, at 8:07 on a Wednesday morning, swarmed by doctors and nurses trying to save my life. Though, I'm afraid, they had already tried to save me 3 times that morning. This time was different. I remember feeling more numb than frightened like the other 3 times and instead of shooting my glance around the room in panic, I focused on one nurse in particular, Lia. Since I had been in the hospital for around one month I got to know the staff more than most and Lia was my absolute favorite. She used to slip me extra desserts at meal time and always would check up on me when she could, always arriving with a smile on her face. As I stared at Lia this time however, only a frantic worry plastered her face as she met eyes with me, realizing I was already way too far gone just by the way my gaze had softened and, even I, had given up on trying to fight. I was too tired, too lost. I think the thing that saddens me the most now is that, if it had been a different morning, any morning where I wasn't  so tired and so caught up in everything around me, I probably would have gone on to live a perfectly normal and happy life afterwards. When I first saw the way Lia looked at me then, I was slightly taken aback. As a nurse she had seen many people die, and even I, having been there for only one month, saw her witness at least 7 or maybe even 8 deaths all with the same stone hard face she put on. I suppose now I've realized she would need to do that, to maintain a good mental state but that act, that mask, she dropped it for me. I hope she wasn't too affected by my death, pray she wasn't. Lia didn't deserve that, she was kind and always there to listen when I was worried about death and somehow she managed to juggle all that with her work life and family life too. If I could pick someone to receive an award, she would definitely be on my list. That was when my vision blurred and all I could see were big spots of light. I didn't walk towards them but they gradually grew bigger and bigger and I waited and waited. It felt like being underwater in an icy lake, not able to break through to get to the surface so all I could do was sit and wait. And as I slipped slowly away into a lit abyss, I heard gentle words whisper down my ear,"I love you," and then everything froze.

I could then see the world around me, however, not from my eyes. I was officially a ghost, a spirit condemned to only walk through the living world and to never interact with it again. I saw the doctors wrap my body in a bag, and then wheel the bed I was in to the morgue. It all seemed so unreal as I had never believed in ghosts or spirits before but here I was, watching my own lifeless body get carted away. Crying next to where I died, was her. Wiping her eyes in a last ditch effort to savor her pride, it clearly didn't work. A part of me wanted to smile then, happy someone was crying because I was gone but my brain told me to stop, it was a sick feeling. I was dead, I shouldn't be happy. I stood still for a while then, unsure of what to do or where to go until I noticed something I couldn't before, around me walked everyone living but everyone dead too. Their spirits walked around the hospital calmly, some even greeting each other from time to time as if everything were normal even whilst they were phasing through people and doctors. I smiled when I saw Alex, talking to another spirit in the corner. Alex had been my friend for my first three weeks in the hospital, before unfortunately he died due to a heart attack in the middle of the night. He was my age,19, and had curly chestnut brown hair, sea blue eyes and a strong build. He always used to joke around with me about how many girls he would get, even though due to his poor temper he really didn't get many. I ran up to him, overjoyed to see my best friend again and hugged him tighter then I had ever hugged anyone before.
"Alex! Oh my lord, I missed you so much... I'm so so sorry about what happened," I said, tearing up.
"Andrea, it's alright. I'm sad I have to see you here though, did Kassie stay with you whilst it happened?"
"It was, how do you say? Very sudden. She got  there just as I was gone, I had to leave the room. I don't think I could or ever will be able to watch her cry." He hugged me tighter.
"It's alright now Andrea, we can't change the past just remember there's still  people who care for you and there always will be. In the afterlife and in the still living world, otherwise I wouldn't be able to see you right now."
As he said those words, I really started to cry. I was hit with the thoughts of what if I did this instead? What if my life had taken this path and not the other? No matter how many times I could shed a tear or think of one of these imaginary scenarios however, nothing could change the fact that I was gone and there was no going back.