Life After Death

Chapter 23

Jace had agreed to 'become' a Reaper. We had decided as a pair that he was the only one who had the slightest shot of being believed, after his display the day prior.

"Hey! Hey! Someone!" Jace cried, smacking the door with his good hand as I sat in the corner.

We needed someone to show up and get him to talk to those two girls. Now, it wasn't down to anything other than sheer survival, and this was the only thing we could think of that gave us a chance, or at least longer.

"What is it?" A man cried, opening the door, a handheld firmly on his gun.

"I want to take them up on their offer. I'm hungry, thirsty, dirty. And I want to see my sister. I'll join you Reapers, if that's what it takes."

Without a word, the man grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and then looked over and down at me, an eyebrow raised, clearly questioning whether I shared the same feelings. But I knew I had to appear hurt and betrayed. Shocked that my friend would do something like this, if this had any slight chance of working.

"Go fuck yourself," was all I said to the pair of them, before the door slammed shut, and I was back alone.

Without much of anything to do other than stare at four walls for hours, until anything else happened, I found my mind drifting.

Memories filled my head, the sarcastic jokes me and Nathaniel would share whenever we did anything, the times me and Jade would both just sit on the window ledge and complain about anyone or anything as the sun went down. The flower picking me, Brooke, and even Dahlia went on to pass the time.

Now Dahlia was dead, Jade could be too for all I knew, and Nathaniel was who knows where.

Nowadays Nathaniel felt as close to me as I remembered my family once had, like there was something more about him then the others, and Jade and Jace were like the best friends I used to have on the playground. Even Axel and the others, despite only knowing them just over a month or so, were beginning to feel as close as that.

I guess in this world, you couldn't pick and choose your friends or argue like you would at school. You either get on, or most likely kill one another.

. . .

It was at least another night before there was any movement, action. I spent most of it clinging to my mother's necklace that I still wore and had left hidden under my jumper in fear of someone noticing and stripping it from me.

Over two years, id learnt to tune out the misery and grief of those early morbid days and their absence, but left in that cell alone, I couldn't anymore.

But when morning, or afternoon, I wasn't to know, did come by, the doors eventually opened again and I was dragged to my feet by the same girl - Hermione - that had been with me and Nathaniel, and a few others. However long ago that was now.

"Get up. Get up!" She cried out, apparently with no patience about her as my joints ached and creaked.

This time I wasn't blindfolded though, and I analysed every stone, pipe, and crack in the halls that I went past. And the next thing I knew, we'd made it to the same great doors that opened up to the hall we had been lined up and left in before.

Inside, Nathaniel and Axel were already stood. Only a few Reapers inside with us, looking as though they were waiting for something.

"Thank God," Nathaniel sighed as I was pushed to stand next to him, "When you weren't here, I thought you were dead or something."

"Don't be silly," I try and crack a smile, though we both know it doesn't work at the minute.

"I'm guessing you don't know where Jace is?" Axel asked.