Soul Survivor

The Silver Veil

Capitulo Dos

I just stare at him. I stare and stare and stare. Not because I'm flabbergasted by his obvious good looks, but because I am in a vast expanse of nowhere. All around me is white. The ground upon which I lay is white as well as the sky and everything in the distance. The shades of white don't differ; they're all the same. It's all sort of milky and cloudy. It's hard to see that far in front if me, like a blanket of fog had dropped down every few feet.

Fingers snap directly in front of my face, making me blink rapidly and refocus. My eyes meet the boy's and one side if his mouth pulls up in a clever smirk.

"If you're quite done admiring the obvious view," he motions to himself, "let's get the fack to where we're supposed to be going. A'ight?" He doesn't give me a chance to respond. Instead, he grabs my wrist and yanks me upward, off the white ground. I grapple with gravity, trying to gain my balance. The last thing I want to do is end up on the ground, stunned, again.

Too out of it to object to being pulled around by this stranger, I let him tow me and try to calm my racing brain enough to formulate some questions. The first one that pops into my head seems to spurt out of my mouth right away, "Where am I?"

The boy just rolls his eyes and sighs, smirking once again. "That's the first question they always ask. 'Where am I?'," He mocks in his Irish accent. "Why never, 'Who are you?' Because, obviously, I am much more interesting than this place." He winks at me, his slate grey eyes sparkling.

Coming out of my state, little by little, I start to get a little annoyed with his cockiness. I sigh, "Fine. Who the hell are you?" I flash him a mocking grin as he looks over his shoulder at me, trailing behind him.

"Ah. Much better, love. You must be dying to know." He turns around to face me, but continues on walking, only backward this time. He runs a hand through his hair and smiles brightly. "I, love, am Etienne Batiste. And welcome to the Silver Veil," he says with a grand bow and a sweeping motion of his arm.

"The Silver Veil?" I asked.

Etienne laughs and turns back around to face ahead of him, still dragging me through the mist. I take in his appearance, feeling safe enough to check him out without him knowing.

He's wearing a dark, grey hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dark skinny jeans, and a pair of Vans to match his sweatshirt. When he was facing me, I noticed that he had on a silver medallion hanging from a leather cord around his neck. In the hand that isn't holding my wrist, he still has that darned, blue flashlight.

I cough, involuntarily, causing him to look back at me. Water comes up into my mouth and I realize that, up until now, I've been having trouble breathing, almost as if I was underwater still. I discretely turn my head and spit it out, but of course Etienne notices.

"Wondered when you were gonna do that. Usually all the physical repercussions of the accidents are gone when you get here, but not always. Like, you must have still had some water in your lungs."

"Accident?" I mumbled, confused. My eyes searched his face for a clue as to what he was talking about. Suddenly, memories of what had happened course back to me: The metal ripping away from my Jeep, the feeling of flying through the air and being plunged deep under the black, freezing water. The feeling of weakness and hopelessness and being trapped in the Jeep by my seat belt, not able to free myself and slip to the surface like I so desperately wanted.

I really was in an accident. Now, the million dollar question is, "Did I...Am I...dead?" I ask, my eyes filling to the brim with tears as I grip onto Etienne's own wrist with my free hand.

Etienne's seemingly permanent smirk slips from his face and his eyes turn downcast. He reaches up and runs a had through his hair, his eyes quickly flicking up to meet mine. "Fack, this is just as hard as the first time, no matter how many times I do it. Well, Every...You're not alive..."

I suck in a deep breath, quickly. Finding myself unable to find words that could express my feelings, I sink to my knees. Etienne lets go of the wrist that he was holding in time to not be pulled down with me.

"That's what the Silver Veil is. It's the place that you go...after. It's pretty much the reception area for all new...deaths. I'm sorry, Every," Etienne says.

I just nod. I can't be angry. It all sort of makes sense; the whiteness, the sarcastic Irish boy, the memories of the accident. Of course I'm...dead. No one could have survived what I went through. "So, I'm a...ghost?" I look up at him.

A twinkle sparks in his eye and he smiles widely. "No, no, no. Those are just made up facking stories used to scare kids into staying away from old houses. No. You and I are souls. But it's so much bigger than that! There are three tiers on the soul 'food-chain.' At the bottom, you have your ordinary souls. The ones that are still looking for a way to heaven. Next, you have the Saviors. That's us," He pauses to gauge my reaction. I furrow my eyebrows, tears still threatening to spill over the brim of my eyes, but motion for him to continue. "Lastly, we have the Angels. We are meant to help lead the ordinary souls to the Angels so they can pass through the gates of Heaven, yadda yadda yadda. Text book shite, really. Pretty much, our job is to figure out why the souls haven't moved on by themselves, fix whatever the problem is, and then take them to the Angels."

I start to speak, but Etienne gets a text from a cell phone that he must have been keeping in the pouch if his hoodie. He reads it and yanks me, once again, off the ground and starts running at a speed that leaves me breathless.

"Oh, fackity fack fack fack!" He says. "Antoine is so going to kill me, err, re-kill me, this time." He whips his head around to speak to me. "Ready for your first lesson?"

"Ahh..." I trail, a tear slipping down my cheek. I feel so confused and all I want is to curl up in a ball in my bed with more ice cream and them sleep away this dream.

"Great!" He laughs, the sound like melting honey. "Lesson Number One: Never, ever, ever be late to Antoine's class. Ever."