Postmortem

The Afternoon After

    "You guys forgot me last night. It was cold, you should have remembered blankets at least." I smiled sweetly at them, my would be friends. Would be if they hadn't killed me, that is. Now they were just checks on a list of their own creation. It would go like this; first Danni, then Nicki, Luna, and finally our own mastermind, Bruno. That was how they would die. Or, how I would kill them. We were playing at murder? My turn.
    "I- um. We're sorry, Al." Danni was the first to recover his voice. Everyone had a different emotion on their face, mostly confusion, some anger, and from Danni and Nicki, relief. Of course they're relieved. Not that I seem to be alive, but that their hands are clean. My death won't hang over their heads for the rest of their lives. Well, what's left of their lives.
    "I didn't mind, really. Lots of time to think on the way back." I looked meaningfully at Bruno. His expression shifted to surprised terror for a split second before he looked away. I know why none of them will quite meet my eyes. Dying leaves a trace, it kills that light behind every human eye it touches. But death didn't just touch me. It did something much, much worse. It took me.
    That is why none of them could meet my eyes. In them they could see how they threw me to death, and death threw me back to repay the favor. They could see how willing I was to do so.
    "What- ahem. What were you, thinking about?" To my surprise, Nicki asked. I turned my gaze to her, watched her noticeably freeze, then smiled.
    "I thought about all of you. In fact, it was like worms to a corpse how you plagued my mind." I let out a light, unnatural laugh. "But, of course, I shouldn't say such morbid things. We should go. We'll be late to class." I said abruptly, linking my arm through Luna's and practically skipping down the hall. With how stiff she was in my grip, one could almost believe that she had been the one buried beneath several feet of cold dirt the night before.
     I bent close to her ear to whisper, "are you alright, Lu? You're stiff as a board." She tripped so bad that she would have fallen flat on her face had I not caught her. She stayed silent. I frowned. I turned to the others, walking just as stiffly, staring at me. "What is up with you guys today? You're acting so odd. Cheer up. We have three more classes together before school is over."