Afterlife

Chapter Nine

Confusion riddled Harmony's every thought like a disease, spreading farther and farther. One minute she was in the afterlife talking to Death and the next she was at the bottom of her stairs with Shoca squeezing the air from her lungs.

"What happened?" Harmony asked, her voice sounding distant in her own ears.

Shoca pulled away from her enough to look at her, his eyes still watering. "I came in and you were laying at the bottom of the stairs, completely dead."

She remembered falling, but that had been weeks ago. "What day is it?"

Shoca frowned at her. "It's Sunday...."

He was examining her neck as her eyes found the clock on the PVR and it read two minutes past one. It had been one o'clock when she died. Had she gone back in time? There was no way only two minutes could have passed, she had been in the afterlife for much longer. But looking at Shoca, he was wearing the same clothes she had last seen him in and there was a box of pizza sitting on the floor behind him. When she looked into Death's holographic Earth and saw Shoca, he had been riding his bike with a box strapped to the back. It was the pizza box. Had no time at all passed?

"I don't understand..."

"You don't understand," Shoca said, "I came in and you were crumpled on the floor with your neck at a strange angle. I shifted you and then crack," he cracked his knuckles here for emphasis, "it snapped back into place and you woke up."

Harmony ran a hand over her neck and turned her head left and right; it was a little tender but otherwise felt fine. She broke it in the fall, so how could it have snapped into place on its own? Did someone bring her back to life?

"I don't get it," she said. "Did you do CPR?"

Shoca shook his head, leaning in closer to examine her neck some more. "I only touched you to shift you, but you were definitely dead, your eyes were open and everything."

"Did you check my pulse?"

"Yea, I couldn't find one. That's when your head went to the side and your neck snapped back into place and you blinked."

Harmony shivered, it sounded grotesque. Shoca wiped at his eyes then got behind her to haul her to her feet. He threw her arm around his shoulders to help her over to the couch. She was gently placed onto the cushion and Shoca went to retrieve her crutches from the bottom of the stairs.

"How is that even possible...?"

Shoca sat next to her and placed the pizza box on the coffee table in front of them, his expression serious. "I don't know, Harm, maybe you weren't actually dead. There's been cases of people appearing dead but then get up and walk around."

Harmony gave a snort. "What cases?"

"I saw it on some historic channel," Shoca shrugged, still watching her neck.

"Shoca," she sighed, "stop staring."

He leaned in closer. "Are you sure you're ok? I really thought.. I thought..." he couldn't finish his sentence, his hands fisted in his lap and jaw clenched.

"Shoca..."

He shook his head and jumped up again, pacing in front of her. "You were dead! I mean I thought you were, and you were just lying there completely still. I didn't know what to do."

Harmony stood, keeping her weight on her good foot and wrapped her arms around Shoca; his shoulders were tense and the muscles in his neck were like tight cords. She tried to set aside her own confusion. If no time had passed, then Alice wouldn't even be aware of what had happened. She preferred to keep it that way.