Dead!

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Now serving Number 599! Number 599, please come to the front of the room! Number 599! To all others: remember that numbers may be called out of order. Number 599!"

I was still waiting for my number to be called, and I was as lonely as ever. I had talked to Joe a few times, and Samantha stopped by every once in a while, but I couldn't talk to my real friends. They were all alive, while I was stuck in the afterlife with no hope of escaping.

I was a bit surprised when Raj decided to sit next to me. I had seen him around, running laps around the room or waiting in line to get a bowl of spaghetti, but I had never really talked to him. "Hey Ivy," he said. "How are you?"

"Not good," I said.

Raj shrugged. "I could be better too," he said. "I just really want to go back home. There's so much that I miss."

"Me too," I said. I glanced over at Maya, Jack, and Henri, who were all talking to each other. "They're so lucky," I said. "They were all friends before all of this happened."

"Yeah, I wish I had my friends," Raj said. "I've been trying to entertain myself by rewatching all of the Star Wars movies on my phone. It's not the same on such a small screen though."

"You like Star Wars?" I said.

"It's my favorite movie series," Raj said. "I collect Star Wars memorabilia on top of that. My room is like a really, really small version of Rancho Obi-Wan."

"That's crazy," I said.

"You wouldn't say that if you had the glove that Darth Vader wore in Return of the Jedi," Raj bragged.

"Do you actually have that?" I asked.

"Not here, obviously," Raj said. "It's in a case in my room so it doesn't get damaged. Assuming that my parents haven't sold it, I still own it. I had to spend almost a thousand dollars to get it, but it was so worth it."

I still thought Raj was a little crazy, but I kept talking to him anyways. I probably wouldn't see him again anyways. As far as I could tell, Raj was a nice guy. He would probably end up in Heaven. "Star Wars is actually a pretty cool movie," I admitted. "I've seen all of them."

"I've seen all of them... thirty two times each," Raj said. "I think I've memorized the script."

"Prove it," I said.

"Okay," Raj said. "Here's the beginning of A New Hope." Raj cleared his throat and began to recite the opening sequence. "It is a period of civil war. Rebel

spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet... oh crap, I can't even remember the rest of the opening section!"

"You fail geekiness forever," I said, laughing.

"I'm not a geek," Raj said. "I just really like Star Wars."

"Whatever you say," I said. Raj took out his phone and started typing something. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Looking up how the Blackhawks are doing," Raj said. "There's a game tonight."

"So you're into hockey too?" I said.

"Yeah, I play on the school team...or I did," Raj said. "What sort of stuff do you like?"

"I love hanging out with my friends, but they're not here right now," I said. "I also enjoy listening to music, and I took a photography class last year and I thought it was really fun." Photography was one of the things that I really did love. Unfortunately, I didn't have much opportunity to take photos in here. There just wasn't anything for me to take a picture of.

"That's cool," Raj said. "I miss my friends too. At least Caleb would have had something seemly deep and philosophical to say about all of this."

"Wait, are you talking about Caleb Sage?" I asked.

Raj nodded. "He's my best friend. Do you know him?"

"Yeah, he's my boyfriend," I said. Caleb and I had only been together for a few weeks, but he was so perfect. He was the sort of boy that I didn't deserve. I wondered what he was doing now that I was gone. Had he moved on already? I was almost certain that he was going out with someone else now.

"Really? Why didn't I know about this?" Raj said.

"Caleb and I were trying to keep it quiet," I said. "I didn't really want people gossipping about us."

"That's understandable," Raj said. "I just miss him and his 'philosophicizing,' as he called it."

"Me too," I said. Raj took out his phone again to check the scores on the hockey game. "You know, if you want to talk about hockey, you could go talk to Henri. I heard that he's from Canada."

Raj considered this for a few minutes, and then said, "That's a pretty good idea, Ivy." He walked over to the spot where Maya, Henri, and Jack were, and I followed him.

And that was how we found out the hard way that Henri Lavoie, despite being from Canada, could not care less about the sport of ice hockey.