GIRLS will be GHOSTS

Chapter 1 | Rigor Mortis

Iris' ears were ringing as if a gun had been shot at her head. This was most likely because a gun had been shot at her head, and a bullet had lodged itself square in the middle of her forehead. Blood began to slowly creep down the left side of her nose and reached Iris' top lip, building up before gaining enough force to continue down the left of her mouth and dropping downwards to strain her shirt.

It was a strange feeling. Not quite dreadful but more akin to the feeling you get after you burn your fingers on a ceramic plate that's been in the microwave for too long. A quick sensation of pain, then a slowly falling shock. Everything felt as if it was in slow motion. Iris wanted to scream. A perfectly reasonable response to being shot but one that simply was not possible. Try as she might, Iris could not move her mouth. Or her arms, or her legs, or her head. Iris had seemingly lost control of her entire body save for her eyes which scanned the situation.

Taking in the situation she looked at the attacker who had shot her. His arm was outstretched and pointing at her head, a faint spark still lit in the chamber of his gun. The head of this attacker was obscured by a completely white facemask and a pair of shades. Just barely, Iris could make out a glint of horror in the shooter's face. Standing in the middle of aisle 17 of the grocery store, a small crowd had been drawn to the gunshot. Around 5 or so people looking on in horror at the sight of this young girl with blood trickling from her head.

At this exact moment in examination of her surroundings, Iris realized an awful yet obvious truth to the situation she had found herself in. No wonder she could not move, for time had stopped. But this could not be true as the blood was still trickling and the sweat on her foe's arms was getting more and more obvious as the minutes passed. Looking at the large clock located directly behind the shooter on the wall at the end of aisle 17 revealed the answer to this mystery. The clock was still moving, but at an unforeseen pace. Each second felt like a full minute was passing. Time had slowed to a crawl.

Iris counted the seconds between each strike of the clock. *tick* 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.... 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. *tick*. It took exactly 37 seconds for one second to pass on the clock. Iris once again tried to scream for help. Nothing. Iris pushed over and over for anything but did not move an inch. This fruitless effort persisted for what Iris counted to be 10 minutes in her head, totalling 16 seconds on the clock. In this time Iris did not move, voluntarily that is, as she was pushed over by her attacker as he ran out of the store. It was an interesting fall. Around 10 minutes to hit the ground as she fell, the anticipation of the hit rising. Yet when her body finally landed, nothing was felt.

Iris sat on the floor and thought for a bit. She was dead, that was clear. But if she had been shot and died, what was to happen to her now? Iris was not a religious person herself but had grown up in a Christian household with those beliefs preached to her from a young age. After some debating with herself on what she should do, Iris decided to take her new death in stride and just wait it out. Presumably this was just her final brain activity burning out and she would be brain dead in just a couple more strikes of the clock.

Around 33 ticks (or 20 minutes ) later Iris was still thinking. Now came the screaming. A young lady began to scream in terror right after Iris had settled into her new position. It was terrible. She just wouldn't stop screaming. Iris had only been a dead body for half an hour, and it was ever more painful than when she was alive. From everything she had been taught, post-death existence was supposed to be painless. Then again, from everything she had been taught, there wasn't exactly a moment where anyone explained she would be trapped inside a waking nightmare of a corpse. The screaming would continue until the woman fell to the ground as well. Faint of heart, clearly.

Never seen a dead body before? Well, you're not too good looking yourself lady!

Iris considered how she had gotten into this predicament. It all started when she came to work. A completely normal shift like any other. A robbery had begun to take place whilst she was stocking the same aisle 17 that she now lay in. Having two headphones inside of her ears left Iris completely oblivious to the tomfoolery taking place at the cash registers, and it was not until the burglar ran into her after the cops entered the store that she found out. Seeing the bag of money, Iris thought that this could be her moment. She could finally be a hero. It was but a moment later that she was shot in the head. What a dunce. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of people slowly running over and touching, prodding, and poking her lifeless body, Iris' vision began to fade.

Here we go. Come from nothing, back to nothing. Yeah baby. Here we go. Sweet release.

As the bright ceiling lights faded out of view, Iris was at peace. So what if she had died? She didn't have the best relationship with her mother and her father had long since left them. This dead-end job was the end of the road anyway, might as well cut to the chase. Two fingers quickly snapped in front of Iris, clicking her vision back to full focus and making her jump up in shock at the sudden motion. Iris let out an audible gasp. "What the fuck!"

Iris looked up at the figure that had awoken her. A 5"9, tan and curly-haired man wearing long baggy pants and a white button shirt tucked into his pants by a leather belt. The two top buttons were undone leaving little to the imagination about his toned musculature. A spiked collar sat tightly bound up on his neck. His ears looked warped and pointed like an elf and his eyes were bright yellow. His slight amount of stubble surrounded lush lips and a smile comprised of a set of perfectly white teeth and two large fangs, similar to that of a vampire but just large enough to rule out that possibility.

"Sorry I'm running late, ran into some traffic on the Styx Highway." He smirked at Iris, extending a hand towards her. Iris looked at the hand. It looked smooth and soft, like a baby's hands. She wondered if this could all just be a dream, hoping to wake up in her two-bedroom flat with her mother in the room next door. It was at this point Iris realized the man was still waiting. Iris was now sitting upright on the floor, but it didn't feel like she was. Everything felt cold to the touch. The floor to her sides, the windy, stale air, her corpse lying underneath her. Wait.

Iris looked down in horror not only seeing that she was not attached to her body, but that she could see her corpse through her new form. It was still lying on the ground, dead as ever, but now here she was. Iris looked exactly the same, same uniform, same face, same hole in her head, but she was pale, whiter than snow and partly translucent.

Iris began to speak in an almost disappointed, mostly displeased tone. "Please don't tell me I'm a-" He cut her off. "A ghost? We prefer the term spirit but whatever floats your boat. Now please, let us get going, I'm sure you're just dying *heh* to find out what this is all about." Giving a small chuckle to his own pun, he once again beckoned Iris forward.

Iris grasped his hand with her pale arm, a puff of smoke coming out of her hand, or more so her hand became a puff of smoke, quickly rematerializing into a hand. It appeared this new form was not a solid one, yet not quite gaseous. Whatever Iris was, she felt a mixture of disgust and intrigue at what this man was leading her into.

Now firmly gripping Iris' hand, the man with the long white fangs used his other free hand and brought out a large ornamental gold dagger, with a short hilt separating the scratched leather grip from it's blood-stained blade that had slight indentations on the edges to better help cut it's presumably many victims. His grip tightened around Iris' wrist, and before she could react, he plunged the dagger deep into her hand.

The pain was immeasurable.