It's Like Cluedo, But Real.

Chapter One

“You must be Aubrey.”

 I swirled around – easy to do when you’re floating, I guess. There was a man, dressed in a white suit. He bore no wound, but his coal black hair and brown eyes stood out against his white clothing, formal white shoes and paper-like skin. From what I could tell, he looked around 40, judging by the wrinkles starting to form on his pale face.

“Where am I?” I asked, the sudden burst of my own voice startling me as much as it did when the man spoke. Up until then, I had assumed it would be impossible to talk.

“You’re in a doorway, or passage. From life to death.” He replied, waving his hand in the direction of the space in front of me. As soon as he did this, a door appeared. A basic wooden door, one you'd see on most households, with the number ‘2’ printed on it in silver. There was an aluminium handle I was suddenly drawn to. I twisted it, but nothing happened.

“It’s locked.” I stated, looking around at the man again in complete and utter confusion.

He did not reply. With a fleeting look of satisfaction, he raised an arm and clicked his fingers. Then I was engulfed in the white nothingness and never saw the man again.

 ***

The second time I woke up, I was back in my room, in bed. It was a dream, all of it. Thank god. It was dark, as I could barely see the posters on my wall, and I couldn’t hear the blaring of the television from downstairs, so the rest of my family had obviously gone to bed. I got up to go and get a glass of water. Only when I got halfway down the stairs did I realise I was wearing the same white pumps from the dream, and the dress. The huge knife wound was there too, proving that whatever the hell previously happened was certainly not a dream, and I was in fact dead.

Unsurely walking into the kitchen, I reached up and took a glass from the cupboard, turned on a tap and filled it. Cautiously, I lifted the cold glass to my lips, and drank.

Despite my dysfunctional or non-functional organs, I could still drink. I didn’t want to know where the water had gone, in fear it would permanently mess up my brain, but I tested the experiment on food as well. Picking up an apple, I bit into it. Apparently, I could still eat too.

Then, I heard a gasp behind me. Pivoting, I saw my little brother, Tyler, gaping not at me, but the apple in my hand.

“Did you want one or something? Because there are more in the fruit bowl.” I pointed to the stack of fruit on the kitchen counter. When Tyler didn’t respond, I waved the hand with the apple in it and he gave a small shriek of terror.

“What is up with you?” I asked, looking round to see if there was something else he was looking at that may have scared him – possibly an armed axe murderer standing outside the house or something, it could have been an unlikely possibility.

Instead, Tyler walked up to the kitchen counter, and poked the apple with his index finger, and I dropped it to the floor in shock. Instead of walking around me, he’d walked through me to get to the apple. My own brother literally did not know I existed. Instantly, I realised why he’d freaked. He couldn’t see me (hence the: I’ll-just-walk-straight-through-you-thanks-very-much attitude) but he could still see the apple - which in his eyes was just floating randomly in mid-air.

 Tyler then ran from the room, after staring at the apple for a good 5 minutes. I couldn’t blame him – it’s not every day you see one of your five a day hovering above your kitchen worktop like a 2 inch tall, 2 inch wide UFO. 

I copied Tyler’s actions, and left the house. I was sure as hell not going to wait until my parents woke up, so they could walk all over me too. I ran to the first place I could think of – the small coffee shop a few streets away from my brick red city house.