"You believed what I just said!" He laughed as if he cracked the funniest joke.
He looked at me as I took a moment to digest what he just said. Thinking for some time, I didn't quite understand how of all people, he can see me. "How can you see me?"
I inched forward, examining him. He didn't look like an angel. "You don't look quite like an angel."
"Of course, because I'm not whomever you're thinking I am. I'm just a mere soul. And you're not dead, at least not yet," he said matter-of-factly.
"Yet? So you mean I'm going to die? After telling me I'm not dead, you're saying I'm still going to die, anyway?" This is confusing. What's happening to me? I don't understand a thing. "How would you explain this!" I asked in frustration.
I was in panic. I was desperate for answers. Even just an answer to all the questions in my head is enough to get me going. "I'm dead! I'm dead!"
I am dead when I don't want to be.
Suddenly, as if he wanted to calm me down, he continued, "Everyone's going to die eventually. It's just, your time's not yet up."
He smiled a comforting smile. But at the end of the day, I'm still here and I'm dead. Eventually dead.
Nowhere lies the answer to the silent cries of my despair.
It doesn't matter, I'm going to die, after all.
Somehow, I thought to myself, I had a vision. Immaculate white background, glowing halos, clouds underneath my feet.. Heaven? Is this supposed to be the heaven people talk about when they're young and carefree?
But I am in a nearly similar environment as to when I was still alive, only quite blurred, quite a feel of being inside a transparent ball of just plain different world. But still the same in most ways.
I never once thought of even thinking about these things when I die because all along, my kind of heaven is not where I am now. Because my kind of heaven is comforting even just by hearing the word.
"Hey," I called to the only person who can see me when he was walking away as if he didn't tell me anything that got me thinking.
He didn't say anything but looked at me questioningly.
"Why is it only you?" I asked slowly, trying to weigh my chances of being answered or if he's going to give me an answer at the very least. "I mean.. You, here.."
"If you mean why I am the only person who can see you, then it's because we're the only people who are in this state; not dead but almost there."
I frowned, thinking if what he said just made sense. It doesn't make sense to me at all. Not dead but almost there...
It's weird, you know, talking to someone I just knew a while ago about such things. Life. Death. I don't even think I'm worthy to talk about it. Or if I even want to talk about it.
I've never, in my entire life, thought of these things as this. There was just one time when someone asked me but dying in a blink of an eye is real far from what I wanted.
I feigned satisfaction as if I was really okay with just what he said.
"I know what you're thinking. But anyway, I don't get it either, so don't ask further questions. I'm Tristan, by the way."
He extended his hand for a handshake. I hesitated for a moment. "And I'm Ciel."
"Don't you think we're too young?" I asked again, this time more comfortably.
"Well, who knows? Maybe you're going to live and I'll forever be stuck here. I've always been here. I don't count days anymore. I think I'll be here forever, just waiting for someone to be 'not dead but almost there.'"
"How long have you been here?"
"I just said I don't count. I don't even know." I nodded while he shrugged. "Most of my company came back alive. I am quite envious but it's better, if you only see it. It's just that, you're alone and you're never going anywhere."
"Came back alive? So you mean I have a chance?" I asked curiously.
"I don't really know. It really seems like I'm a death angel, always welcoming and sending off souls just like you. When I came here, no one bothered. Not that there were people here before me." He smiled again.. "I'm going somewhere so do whatever you want. This world is only for the two of us."
I shuddered at his last words. It would have completely been romantic if we weren't here or if we at least like each other but this time is a whole lot different story.
This is utterly stupid to think about and weird, too.
