Welcome to Heaven

Chapter 1

Faint pre-dawn light filtered through a thin curtain and settled on Jonathan's eyelids. He groaned and shifted slightly in his bed, weighing the consequences of sleeping for another hour against going to school. The mental scale tipped towards the latter when the insistent buzz of his alarm clock shrilled through the messy room. With a defeated sigh, he sat up and rubbed his eyes clear of sleep before slamming his hand down on the clock. A few well-used minutes later, he was out the door, shimmying into his grey sweater with a slice of toast in his mouth.

He noted the sun barely heaving itself over the horizon as he started across the street. Jonathan took the brief moment of silence to hook up his phone to his purple headphones, and to ponder toast. Bread was already cooked, mind you. Why would you want to burn it again?

Just as he stepped onto the curb, the yellow monstrosity that also happened to be his ride to school pulled up in front of him. The door opened with a breathy sigh, insisting that he step inside. Sliding the headset over his ears, his quietly stepped onto the bus.

From his seat near the back of the vehicle, the teen gazed out the window. Houses and cars and parks and trees passed at increasing speeds. Jonathan liked to imagine this was a metaphor for life. There's just so much of it, and it goes by so slow and dull at first. But then it gets more exciting, and then you actually get to live it. Unfortunately, he was still on the boring part.

Wake up, go to school, homework, go to bed. Wake up, go to school, homework, go to bed. Jonathan's life seemed to have become a well-oiled machine engineered to do exactly this, over and over again.

Honestly, he was sick of it.

Suddenly, there was a loud pop, followed by a deafening screech. The bus was filled with the a screams of the few student who wake up at this ungodly hour as it spun to the right and skidded to a near halt. From there it tilted ever so slightly. Inch by inch, then by increasing intervals, the vehicle tipped over. There was a crash of all of the windows shattering, then silence.

After a few excruciatingly long seconds, the bus driver cautiously asked, "Is everyone okay?"

Jonathan quickly looked over himself. There were fragments of glass embedded in this skin, mostly on his right side, where he was pressed against the asphalt inside a window frame. Aside from that, however, he was miraculously unhurt.

That's when the truck hit.

...o0o...

With the shred of consciousness he was slowly regaining, Jonathan knew he was way too comfortable. He felt as though he was lying on a fluffy cloud.

A soft, loving hand pressed against his temple, while another stroked his hair. A soothing hum filled the air, coaxing Jonathan to slowly open his eyes to meet a pair of dark purple ones that seemed to hold the galaxy. The warm, cocoa-colored face that the eyes belonged to smiled down at him, still flat on his back, and said a few simple words that should have stunned him for the better part of a minute, had time existed:

"Hello, Jonathan. My name is Providence. Welcome to Heaven."