Dare to Die

3. Don't Talk To Me Or My Dead Self Again

Hisato

The smell of waffles is probably not what you smell in the afterlife.

Or is it?

Do you get hit by a ray of blinding bright yellow light and feel the softness beneath your skin? Do you hear voices? Faint melodies of music? Come and Get Your Love by Redbone?

I thought I wasn't dead, so what am I doing in heaven?

"Oh my god, you're up. Can you talk back to me? Move your hands? Can you feel anything?"

Nope, I'm pretty sure you don't hear Farah's squeaky voice in heaven.

I jolted up trying to take in the the wide room I was in; the long recliners lying everywhere, the huge LED TVs that cost more than my whole existence. And, of course, Farah's horrible bird-nest of a hair.

Words couldn't even form in my mouth. I had to take in a lot of breaths to regain all my consciousness. "Why—why am I here?"

She widened here eyes, as if she'd just seen the heavens open from above.

"Gosh, stop looking at me like this." I tried to take in the surroundings again. None other than Farah's mini castle. "Did you—did you just kidnap me? Why am I lying on your couch? I don't understand. Is this some sort of life glitch? It has to be. What did you do? Is this some of your weird magic shit? I swear if you—"

Farah placed her hands on my lips as I kept mumbling my questions, trying to make her listen. "Shut up, would you? You're just making it worse for the both of us. Calm down for a minute."

She dropped her palm from my mouth and I started gulping for air before I could yell out my next question. "What the fuck's going on?"

Before she could even reply, I waved my hands right in front me again, then I tried pushing them through her.

"Ow!" She yelled

Well, now we know I'm not a ghost.

She held both of my hands down. "Can you stop doing weird shit for one moment?"

I sighed, and she moved to grab a plate of waffles drowned in Nutella and stabbed it with a fork. The table right in front of me was a whole sight of every type of food that could give you diabetes. She literally just saw me die and come back alive and she's eating waffles and listening to Redbone like this happens on the regular.

Meet Farah.

A stared at the plate of waffles right in front of me then back at her, furrowing my eyes. She motioned her head towards the plate.

We didn't say anything for a minute before the awkward silence had to be broken

"Why'd you do it?"

"Why were you there?"

We both stared at each other then looked away, not knowing how to answer the questions we both blurted out.

"You didn't die."

I grabbed the fork and stabbed it into a waffle. Might as well play along and be chill. "No, I'm dead alright. I'm already in purgatory."