Learning To Live

Chapter 16

My mind was on fire. I could not stay still. My fingers shook and mixed emotions flooded my mind. I was supposed to save him. I was supposed to win. It was supposed to be like the movies where the hero rushes in and saves the person who needed saving. I was supposed to be the hero while Han was supposed to be the one that needed saving. But this was no movie. This was reality and everyone knows that reality was a lot different than the movies. I guess that i had just wanted my own story and not just a generic life like everybody else has. I wanted to be special. But i just was not special. There was nothing unique about me at all. I was just like everyone else in this world. I did not stand out. Not at all.

Everything i had tried to do was gone. The thing that i had wanted the most was never going to happen. Han was never going to live another day. His life had come to a point which made him no longer want to live anymore. I still wish that i had been able to do something to help him. Instead, i was sitting in a forest thinking about what my life had come to. Maybe Han just thought that it would be better to die rather than to live. Maybe he would be better off dead. I thought about who in the afterlife would guide him to the crossing. Would he cross the bridge or become a wandering soul? Only time would tell. Hopefully, he crossed but people can be desperate and make bad decisions. I just hoped that he would make the right choice.

There was nothing left to do. It was final. I had failed. I had failed at life. Then i had failed at death. And finally, i had failed at the one job that i had been assigned. I was a failure at everything. Did i even want to go back to the afterlife now? Could i face everybody? Could i face Kayla after all of this? Would i even have the courage and heart to go back. But i had to go back. I did not want to turn into a wandering soul. Even souls that had already crossed into the afterlife were able to become wandering souls. If their purpose in the land of the living was no longer valid, then their souls rotted because of their wandering in the wrong world.

There was one other reason to go back also. I was hurt. I needed to be able to touch things to help the pain in feet stop. I also needed to report what had happened back to Mr. Emerson. How long it felt since i had left the afterlife. It had only been two or three days since then but it felt like an entire lifetime. Like many lifetimes had gone by in the span of these few days. Time seemed to be passing by too fast. It just slipped away from my grasp and kept on passing. I could not stop it from moving, from continuing on its endless journey. There was nothing i could possibly do to change anything.

I wandered around for a bit by flying. I never once saw the wandering soul in my vision that was lasered onto the ground below me. What had happened to it? Did it just disappear from the face of the earth? How could it have left so quickly? Wanderers can not fly but it still could have chased after me. Wandering souls were actually very fast runners. But it had not chased after me. Why? Why had it stopped the chase? I did fly out of the forest but if the wandering souls had really wanted to, it could have gotten to me before i had taken off. It could have pulled me back into its clutches. But it had not. There was something strange about the fact that it did not go after me that i could not quite figure out. This was no coincidence.

By now, it had been quickly darkening. The sky was giving its last light as the sun sank behind the earth. Sunsets were my favorite. They perfectly preserved the beauty that they would be brought again at the next sunrise. The last sunset that i had seen was before everything crazy had happened. I was about to find Han then. If only i had not been captured, he would never have died. I would have succeeded and gone home victorious. I would have won. I would have made something of my dead life here. But i did not. I lost and failed in my mission.

I would not let this defeat me though. I would complete my next mission. That is, if i am ever assigned another mission after failing this particular one. I hope so. Would they trust me again after this one? Would they just put me off for so long that i would forget about it? Would never having another mission be my punishment for failing my very first mission? How could they do that though? After all, it was only my first mission. They can not make it too hard for me. Maybe i just had to be trained better. I only went to training for two days anyway. I think that i just needed more information before i could properly accomplish my goal in a mission.

I pushed those thoughts out of my head and picked out a spot in the forest nearby. I had just been enjoying lying around since i would no longer be able to do it once i was back in the afterlife again. I laughed while the wind blew my hair back, away from my face. Despite failing my mission, flying just made everything better. It was a great way to just clear your head. It was like taking a shower after a hard day of working outside or hot soup when you are sick. It felt amazing. I made sure to pick a spot for opening the gateway that was far away from where i had been kept by that wandering soul.

I landed near one spot where there was a slight break between the trees that controlled the whole forest. I sighed. I had to go back and who knows when i would return back here again. It was sad but i knew that i had to go through with it anyway despite the protesting inside of my head. The good thing was that i was going to be able to touch things without my hand going through them in the afterlife.

I probably should begin now since it was dark out. There was no telling if the wandering soul was around. Although, once i was in the gateway between the two worlds, the wanderer would not be able to follow since they could not get in portals. At the very least, they can not create them. The doorway would close after i stepped in the gateway anyway. There was no way that the wandering soul would have found me anyway. I started to focus my thoughts on opening the portal. I put every ounce of whatever may have been inside of me into making the energy required to open the doorway between worlds.