Death. What happens after it? What lies beneath the surface?
Poor Arielle Daniels stumbled through dangerous hoops to figure this out. She wakes in a new place--the Void--and discovers that what waits after death are layers, dimensions, and sadly...
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Arielle wasn't sure how much time flew by as she waited for her guiding ghost to return. Lost in her thoughts, digging deep, she realized a lot of details of recent months had become blurry. All her memories of Jade seemed to fog over, and her specter-hunting trip with Stella was a bit of a haze. Her years at school were question marks and her moments spent with her mom, her brother, her dad felt like they'd happened centuries ago.
Was it because she was dead? Would she slowly lose her recollections, would they all morph into fuzzy images that didn't quite make sense? Would she forget about those she'd loved? Forget about herself?
"Hey," said a slightly familiar voice, drawing Arielle from her internal paranoia.
It was the ghost—she reappeared at last, her outline brighter than usual, similar to when she'd sucked in all the glowing energy to seize the recording device. She wore the same outfit, yet something was different about her. Her attitude, her colors, her aura—Arielle couldn't figure it out.
"Hey," said Arielle, shaking herself out of her negative thoughts. "You came back."
"Duh." The ghost scooched over to her side. "This is my home. But... you okay?"
"I'm... here, I guess?" Without noticing it, Arielle had drifted to the living room, floating next to the window. "Still... processing, as you called it."
The girl winced. "I know I keep saying this, but you will get used to it." Her voice was deeper than before, a bit strained. It was coarse, too, as if she'd smoked a few cigarettes and coughed out her lungs from the smoke. She peered out the window and sighed. "The sun will rise soon, and it won't look so terrifying out there. Maybe that'll calm you down."
Arielle spun to gaze out the window, too—and stilled at the sight of a silhouette in the glass. The ghost's silhouette.
"How are you—" she flipped to the ghost, then back to the reflection, jaw dropping. "I can see you in the glass! But I... I can't see myself? How is that possible?"
The ghost chuckled and waved at herself in the mirror, causing Arielle to skid a few inches backwards in surprise. "Another trick you develop after a while in the Void, sweetie." Her tone adopted a less croaky aspect as she leaned in and adjusted her tresses, letting the strands fall over her shoulders in greasy waves. "Took me years to see myself."
"So I... I will see myself, eventually?" Brows scrunching, Arielle approached once more and gawked at the area where she should have been able to visualize her own outline. It was an ominous feeling, to look through oneself, to not be able to envision what one looked like. Were her eyes the same color? Was her hair a mess? Would she soon be able to identify the wild crimson color of said hair? Would she always wear the clothes she'd died in? When the ghost observed her, was she a blob of sepia-toned hues, or did she appear as her usual self?
"How long have you been hovering here, kid?" The ghost turned to Arielle and rubbed her shoulder; it was an affectionate gesture, but it felt out of place for someone so detached, so usually lacking affection. "I've been gone for a little while, and you don't look so good."
