Fate's Exchange (Twisted Fate, Book 1)

Chapter 4

A cool mist brushed my skin, reminding me of a day with Tina at the hot springs at the edge of town, lying beside the steaming water, the sun blazing while rain drifted through the light. I breathed deeply, savoring the fresh air. Stretching, I felt the catharsis of freedom envelop me.

I blinked, and the dream shattered.

Blinding light bombarded me. My body jerked. One moment, I was resting on something impossibly soft, the next twitching as if ants scurried beneath my skin. I tried to blink away the burn in my eyes as reality struck hard.

How was I awake? Breathing? Alive?

I looked around, and a flutter took flight in my chest.

Only an insane person could think my surroundings could be explained.

There was no sound, no ground, no walls or sky. Just endless white haze, weightless and suffocating, like being trapped inside a snow globe of light and mist. The air was too pure, and my lungs rebelled against it. Looking down, I flipped my hands palm-up to inspect.

My wrists were unmarked, the gashes and rope burns gone. No pain, only the strange pressure building in my chest. It vibrated, anchoring me. It wasn't a dream. My imagination wasn't that cruel.

"Alyssa Frank."

I froze. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere. My pulse spiked. Great. Voices in my head now? I forced slow breaths. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy.

"H-hello?"

"Alyssa Frank." The tone was neither male nor female, but it filled the air around me like surround sound in a theater without a screen.

"Who's there? Where am I?" My voice trembled as I pushed myself to my knees.

"Hello, Alyssa Frank." The voice deepened.

"Oh, come on!" I snapped, grasping for courage. Why not? If I were dead, what did I have to fear? "You know my name. What's yours? Hmm?"

A breeze stirred, whipping hair into my face. I puffed the strands away.

"Alyssa Frank, you have been brought here for judgment of your mortal life before you may enter the afterlife you are deemed worthy of." The voice was higher this time, still detached and robotic. "Mortals call it life after death."

"Who are you?" Silence. "Where am I?"

"Neither Heaven nor Hell. But far from the living."

I drew in a shaky breath. "So... I'm dead?"

"Of course."

"You say that like I should've expected to wake up after dying," I groaned. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I fought both feelings. "Care to elaborate?"

"You died from the wounds that you inflicted upon yourself."

"The wounds I... What? No." My stomach twisted. I hit my fist on my thigh, feeling no pain. Another thing to worry about after. "I was trying to save myself."

The air before me blurred, spinning like cotton candy being spun. Slowly, the fog parted, forming an image.

It was me, lying beneath the trees, arms around my journal, wrists slashed.

My breath hitched.

That journal held everything. Every humiliation, every insult, every jagged thought from my final week, all written down in damning detail. Anger. Disillusion. Dejection. It added up to proof that I'd killed myself.

"No!" I pointed at the vision, voice cracking. I fell to my knees, a cool rush filling me. "That's not what happened!"

"Be that as it may, it is what you have done. You would have survived the other wounds had you not cut yourself trying to escape."