After They Die At The End

🕙 Part 1 - Chapter 6

(Photo credit to Pinterest https://pin.it/6GwWNAn)

Rufus
As my parents and I walk up the road, the ending of it turns into a white void again. I wonder if they can see this too. I don't doubt it, since we walk directly into it and the space around us changes too. It's now this place that looks almost like our old house when we were all alive. My sister calls me inside as me and my parents walk towards her.

"This is where we've been most of the time, you just so happen to appear on a day where we decided to contemplate our final moments," she says, quite cheerfully. She's always been this kind of person that's full of life, I was sure I would get the call before her or my parents. They should have had more time to enjoy living.

The place has the same features of the old place, same architecture, seeming to be the same room arrangement too, as if we were back there.

"Is my room in the same place?" I ask. My parents nod as we walk upstairs. Their room is the first one to the left while mine and my sister's room was a little bit later on the right. It used to be one room that we shared, but I guess that wouldn't exactly be fun without me here as well. Guess now I have a room all to myself, seeing as there is a new door besides what I think is probably my sister's. When I open the door to this room, there isn't anything there, but as I think about what I wanted in it, things start to appear. I guess it's now a mix of how my old room looked like and how it was when I moved in with the Plutos. Even if we all shared a room together, we each had our little corners you could say. I can tell that my family is watching me change it, recognizing some things and maybe not some others. This is actually a bit fun, getting a kind of "room makeover" as Aimee would say whenever we watched some romcoms together in the living room. When I finish, I sigh, pretty happy by how it turned out.

"Well, I can see some things changed about you after we passed," Mom says. It's funny that they weren't even gone that long and I still did start liking some new thing.

"I guess, but now I wanna see your room, Liv," I say, using the nickname I gave her since we were kids. I only use it when talking with her, and most of her friends call her "Olly" instead. She smiles and we just take a few steps to the right to get to her room. It's not much different than what I would expect from her: there's her bed, a couple posters from singers she likes, some shelves with books on them, a desk with some paper and notebooks open, a device for playing music, a nice carpet, a bedside table, and her bed. Her wallpaper is a light shade of lavender that goes well with the white furniture.

"Nothing really different, besides now having more space if I'm being honest," she says, closing the door after we leave.

"So, what have you guys been doing mostly?" I say, trying to keep a conversation going with my folks.

"There's not exactly that much to do here," Dad says.

"But we like visiting past memories and trying to meet other people here," Mom adds. I'll admit that Mom and Olivia are a bit more similar, sometimes at least. They both try to look on the brighter side of things while Dad and I are more realistic in some ways. Olivia then tells me how she plays cards and sometimes goes out on walks while listing to music.

"So, is there anything you can't do here or something?" I think of asking.

"I don't think so, but like you can't get hurt or bleed or anything like that so, yeah I don't think there are any limitations or anything," My sister says. Guess that will maybe make it easier to find Mateo, I can get those neon lights like I said and look for him. I'll admit, I already miss him.

We walk back downstairs, continuing to talk and all until it seems my mom remembers something.

"Oh right! The welcoming ceremony thing!"

"The....what now?" I say.

"It's this events where all the new souls are welcomed into the afterlife more "formally" you could say," Dad explains.

"You actually get to see all the people that died during the same week as you, and hey- didn't you say you wanted to see that Last Friend of yours again? I'm pretty sure he's gonna be there too!" Olivia says. I nod a little, it's true. And it's going to make it way easier than having to figure out how to find him in some other way. I don't even know how big this place is, but if it took seventeen years for me to find him, I'm sure it would be even harder here.

"What is he like, this "Mateo" boy you mentioned?" Mom asks. I think about this for a second, there are so many things I could say about him, all the things I began to love about him throughout our day.

"Well, he's about the sweetest person I had ever met," I simply say. I can feel a small blush begin to come across my face, but I look away, trying to hide it for now.

I do want to introduce him to my parents, but that's usually a big step in any kind of relationship, so for now I'll just tell them some things about him, basics, and how we got to know each other sort of things. I can tell my sister caught on to how I feel about him, we used to share those things with each other when we were growing up, so it's not the most unexpected thing. She's not going to say anything to my parents, but we're probably gonna talk about it later.

"When is that welcoming thing again?" I ask.

"Well, since you got here on a Friday-"

"Friday? But I died on a Tuesday..."

"I know, reincarnation takes quite a long time," Mom says, then resuming, "it's going to be tomorrow,"

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I get to see Mateo, my last friend, the one I held dying, the one I loved for one day.

(1092 words. I'm not sure if the picture I chose is specifically referring to TBDATE, but it was recommended when I searched it up on Pinterest :))