Throne of the Fallen

Where the Lost Ones Go (Emily POV)

     I suddenly woke up, as if from a deep sleep. All I could see was black, darkness all around me. I reached up to feel my face. Something cold and hard was covering it. I frantically felt it over, then I heard it. A voice.

     "Do not be afraid. You are safe."

      My hands dropped to my side. "Hello? Who's there? Where am I?"

     "You are safe, Emily.", the voice responded.

     I looked around to see if I could find where the voice was coming from. "Where are you? More importantly, where am I?"

     "I am both everywhere, and nowhere. You are where the lost ones go."

     "Enough of your cryptic answers, I want an answer! Where am I?!" I could feel tears welling in my eyes.

     "You are dead, Emily. You remember, don't you?"

     "That's..............that's impossible! If I died, why am I here?" 

     "To face the consequences of your actions. You took your own life. Do you know the grief you have caused others?"

     "But no one cared about me, no one cares!" I clenched my fists by my side, yelling into the void.

     "You wouldn't say that if you saw the aftermath of your suicide. Your father blames himself. The girls from your class think it's their fault. The boy who rejected your love feels responsible. Everyone is carrying this burden, the burden you left them with. For your selfish actions, you will spend eternity bringing grief to all who encounter you."

     "Wait, no! What does that mean?" I stood there in the darkness, waiting for a response. But the voice went silent. " It wasn't my fault! I had no other choice! I had no other-"

     Suddenly, I was standing on a familiar sidewalk. I was back to the real world. People walked past me as if I wasn't even there. "Help me! Please! Help me! You have to help me!" I began calling out to every passerby. "You, in the red baseball hat! Please help me!" The man in the baseball hat just kept walking, completely unfazed. I suddenly caught a glance of myself in the reflection of the store window. I stared in disbelief and walked closer.

     At first, everything was normal, I was wearing the last outfit I was in, my black knee-length dress, vans, my blonde hair in a side braid, and the necklace my mother gave me. Everything was as I left it. Except on my face, a deer skull rested on my head, covering the upper portion of my face. From my back, a pair of wings sprouted from my back, almost like devil wings. I grabbed at the skull in horror and tried to pull it off. After trying to get it off my face for a little while, I collapsed on the sidewalk and sobbed, defeated. "IT WASN'T MY FAULT!"