Water seeped into my lungs causing me to try and breathe. That only resulted in my breathing in more water. I reached my hand up it cut out at the water and grabbed onto flesh. I began to dig into the flesh as to beg for my life. I thrashed around, but the hand held firm. My eyes looked up through the chlorinated water, searching franticly to see the being holding me under. I felt my body burn seemingly engulfed in flames as my lungs burned for oxygen. I thought onto the time I heard of an average human actually being able to survive for up to eight minutes underwater. I felt my body lose weight as if I was losing my grip on life.
Then I was looking down on myself, it seemed more like a dream then a reality. I was looking down at my body. It was weird because my eyes had shut and my body laid there floating in a bath tub. I almost laughed; it seemed like one of those Hollywood movie stunts. Then in the blink of an eye I was in a white room. It appeared to be a receptionist’s room; it was heavily decorated in black and red. It was then, after a few minutes of admiring, I noticed the window with a little bell. I walked up to the window and the window was pushed open. A woman appeared; she was wearing a beautiful white dress and had the clearest green eyes.
Unsure of what to do I opened my mouth, “Hi I’m-“
“Oh dear I know who you are, You’re Evelyn Tate Summers,” the receptionist said contently, “I just need you to fill out this form and if there’s any questions just let me know.”
I stood a little puzzled at first before smiling and turning on my heel. My face quickly faltered as I held the clip board to my chest. I looked around while I picked a seat. There in the corner was a red seat leaning against the back wall. I sat, and peered down at the paper work. It read in big bold letters, “Death of Evelyn T. Summers”. I was a little petrified at first, before I began to read the work. I filled out the easy things first like my name, date of birth and my height and weight. That’s when I started noticing questions like, “What was your life like?”, “Who did you impact during your lifetime?”, and “Cause of death” I was bewildered. I had no idea how to answer questions like these. I filled the work out to the best of my ability before walking up to the desk and handing them over to the lady, who took them with a huge smile plastered onto her face. “Oh dear almost forgot, there’s a book in this room somewhere with your name on it. Find it and it’ll help with the whole transition, of course it may take a while for them to be ready, so you’ll have plenty of time to read it.”
“Thanks,” I stuttered before heading back into the room as my search for the book began. I saw the room for what it really was then. I noticed that the once pure white room was now a dirty dinge looking off-white. The red and black chairs that were once modern and comfortable were now old and torn and battered. Four bookshelves had appeared in the middle of the room; they stood about four feet wide and six feet tall. Each case held a certain distinguishable colored books. One case held books in every color of white imaginable, one with gray books that ranged from nearly white to the stormiest gray. Then there was the books that were black, I had always assumed that black only held one color I was very wrong. Lastly there was a case holding red books, at first these books struck me as odd, and then they grew on me.
I began to look for any signs of what the different colors meant. It was then that I noticed the little plaque on the upper left corner of the bookcase. The one with white books held the title “unborn to 15”; the gray books, “16 to 50”; the black books, “50+” and finally the red case, “Unfamiliar and Untimely Deaths”. For thirty minutes I racked the gray books E section. I came up with nothing and ultimately gave up on it . I then figuring I was in neither the black or white case I approached the red case and began looking for the E section. After two minutes I had almost given up when I read the spine label of a small slim book, no thicker than my pinky finger, with the initials E.T.S. I pulled it out of the case and found the cleanest looking chair in the once beautiful establishment, before taking a seat. I cracked the book open and began reading it. I was astonished; this book had somehow held every single detail of my life. It knew the color of the room I was born in and the exact time. It knew that I had snuck out of my house when I was fifteen to get my ears pierced. It knew that I had my first drink of alcohol when I was fourteen and three months and that I left the house when I turned sixteen and was not long after dragged back by my sister.
