Futatsu no Sekai (Two Worlds)

Chapter 6: Land Beyond the Living

I got up out of the water and onto the dirt after seeing that girl's face so worried. She looked at me as if she hadn't seen me in a thousand years. Something else felt nostalgic about that. My hands began to freeze up after I got out and my skin turned to a translucent light peach. I held my arms together, trying to warm myself. 

She stopped me and said, "Woah, let's get you inside."

I don't really know why I trusted a stranger like that, but then again, she looked my age and she didn't look like she could harm me. I couldn't refuse like this. She wrapped her arm around me and guided me up the stairs to her house. She then opened the door hastily and rushed to grab me a towel from her bathroom. She sprinted down the hallway and hung the towel over my shoulders and dropped them on me. I tugged the sides of the towel to completely wrap myself in it. My hair and clothes dripped with ice cold water, wetting the wooden floor under our feet. I felt bad for making her floor wet.

"Here, sit down," she said, pointing at the ragged couch. 

I pulled the towel under my butt so I wouldn't get the couch wet. I sat down and suddenly shivered. She rushed into her kitchen, setting a kettle of water onto the stove and cracking on the fire. 

"Before we do anything with you, what's your name?" she asked.

I don't know why I should really trust her, so I hesitated, "Lien."

"I'm Nicole." 

Nicole. Something about that name always made me uneasy. Maybe because it sounded so similar to 'nickel'. 

"How old are you?" I asked. 

"15"

"Me too."

She put her weight on the counter behind her. She seemed deep in thought. She put her hand on her mouth and continued to think. She looked incredibly frustrated.

"Do you know where you are?" she finally asked. 

"Of course not," I claimed, "What is this place?"

Her eyebrows crunched inward. She sadly said, "The Land Beyond the Living. The afterlife."

I looked down at my hands, how they felt like cold fire. The thing in my chest tugged again. 

"This isn't a joke, huh? I really am gone. I didn't want to believe it," I stopped, "I didn't want to believe the last few months ever happened."

I choked on my words. The pain in my voice crept up my throat. I rested my head in my hands. She gazed at me, knowing that she had no choice but to say it. Something on her face said that she felt that way too at some point. 

"What's the last thing you remember doing?" she asked, changing the atmosphere. 

"Alive or...."

"The last thing you did."

The thing in my chest tugged harder. I began to blank out. My throat let no words escape and I didn't know what to do. Suddenly, there was another pain, in my head. I applied pressure to my temple, holding my arm and head up on my knee. 

"I don't- remember. It's all a blur!" I blurted in pain as I fell to my knees

Nicole dashed towards me, her hands clenching my shoulders. She helped me stand as I shook. 

"My head...!" I said.

As I finally stood, she asked me, "Do you remember what I said?" 

"No," I said, worried. "What did you say?" 

"I asked you if you remembered what you did last." 

I wondered why she would ask me that. I stopped to think for a moment. I caught my breath and let the pain and tugging in my chest fade. My chest tensed a bit as I began to think. Suddenly, my memories started to come back to me.