Eden

Eight

I bandage my wrists instead. I tear my dress, carefully, finding it rips quite easily, once I get it started away from the seam. I tear a strip all the way around it, bending and pulling at it to reach behind myself. Then I tear another strip, for the other wrist.

Tearing that much off is a bit of a nuisance, actually. If I'd known I'd end up here I might have only cut one wrist. Maybe. Or done something else entirely. Also maybe.

I tear, anyway, and then tie up my wrists, making these cloth bracelety arm-band kind of things. I tuck the ends inside the cloth to hold them, since there isn't anything to fasten them with. It seems to work. I move my arm and the bandages stay in place.

While tearing and tying, I keep thinking about politeness and where we are. I think, and decide I really do need to ask Lexi how she got here, even if it's rude. Because if it is rude, then she can tell me so and I won't ask again, but I really can't be expected to know what's polite in a place I only just arrived.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

I decide I have to just ask her.

"Hey," I say. "Um. If this isn't rude to ask...?"

Lexi looks at me.

"What happened to you?" I say. "I mean, how did you get here? Did you die, or..."

She seems surprised. "I died, yeah. Didn't you?"

I nod. "I died."

"Yeah, the guy inside that building said I had. It sounded like everyone had, to get here."

"I know," I say. "Me too. He said that to me too. I just wanted to check, that was all."

"Oh," Lexi says. She thinks about that. She seems a little surprised I'm bothering to make sure, but then she grins. "That really is quite suspicious-minded," she says, sounding impressed.

I shrug. It is suspicious-minded, I suppose. I don't know whether that's really a bad thing, though. Not somewhere like this, where I don't know how anything works. "I just wanted to make sure," I say. "Just in case, I don't know..."

"He's lying to us?"

"Yeah."

She concentrates for a moment. "Well, I think I died," she says. "I think I remember dying, I mean."

"Yeah, me too."

"I think that's what I remember anyway," she says. "I mean, maybe I'm just imagining it."

We both consider that.

"I think I remember too," I say. "I mean, I think I actually remember it."

"So maybe he wasn't lying?" Lexi says.

"Maybe not," I say. "Probably not. Sorry, I'm just being weird. It's just a lot to take in, is all. It's all kind of hard to believe."

"Except that here we are?"

"Yeah, except that." I think. I'm still trying to work all this out. "Um," I say. "If it isn't really rude to ask, how did you...?" I stop, reluctant to actually say it.

"Die?" she says.

I nod.

"I drowned," she says.

I nod again, even though I hadn't really meant that. I was actually wanting to know whether she killed herself too, like me. Or whether she died some other way, from something else. I'm wondering whether you have to kill yourself to end up here, or whether just anyone can. Whether, I suppose, this is all just some kind of bizarre, random lottery, a special ending that some fortunate people get given, and we're both just extremely lucky. Or not. Whichever it is that being here would be.