Lucky Decade

3

Chapter Three: Darkness and Awakening

Present...

Stella's eyes split open and she found herself in the darkness again. She searched around in oblivion as the familiar coldness brushed against her skin. The same coldness that spurred a feeling of hopelessness in her. It was the darkness again. The blinding darkness in which she saw the face of Death. She was back again to that place. The space the living could not visit. The home of the creature she now knew as Death. She was in the place called the limbo.

Stella's eyes drifted from side to side as a swirl of uncanny tingles filled her stomach. The coldness. The white clothes. The thickness of the dark. She trekked forward and her legs slammed into an object. She traced the object with the tips of her fingers and it was a chair. It was happening again. A deja vu. She took her seat and a table appeared before her. Faint footsteps neared her and the humanlike creature she had come to know as Death appeared before her. The terror in her never seemed to dissipate.

'I mean, could anyone ever get used to seeing Death?' He took his seat at the other end of the table. His aura was darker than ever and sparked unknown tingles inside the pit of Stella's stomach.

Stella sat there in astonishment reminiscing her previous encounter with Death. She saw the face of Death. As scared as she was, she was also disappointed. And muttered inaudibly to herself.

'Why am I here again? Death made such a fuse about the candles and it giving me life. Yet I am here again. I can't believe this. There are scammers everywhere even in the spiritual realm.'

As if Death heard her thoughts, he called out, his voice husky, "You little creature".

Death laughed and continued: "Stella..." he began. He snapped his finger and they were back in the room. In the white room where Stella lit up the candles—the special dimension where Stella was promised life.

"Stella" Death repeated and continued. "First, you should know that you are alive if you appeared here a second time. I'm not someone who sits around chattering with tiny humans. I find no pleasure in that" Death groaned.

'I am alive. I am alive. I am alive' the words kept playing in Stella's head.

"Yes, you are alive" Death blunted out.

Stella's eyes widened as she stared in the direction of Death 'Death can hear my thoughts. That is fucking creepy'

"As I was saying, you're alive. You are here because you have to know what you have gotten yourself into" he paused and for a split second Stella saw his face. A devilish grin on his lips. And his eyes burning hot with fire.

"Little creature," Death called out and for a moment Stella's chest exploded from the tremor. He cleared his throat and continued to speak to her.

"First, lucky decade makes you live again as you already know, but it doesn't end there. It's not that easy. It puts your soul into the body of someone who just died but it doesn't end there either. You have to own the body or lose it"

"What do you mean by that?" Stella asked.

"That's for you to figure out. I doubt you will survive it but still, I am rooting for you, Stella"

"I've given you a gift—the bells. When death is near, the bells will ring for the next thirty days. It is nice talking to a human again after a decade. Till we meet again, Stella Menns."

Death snapped his fingers and the warmth returned. The warmth Stella had learned to cherish. It was back—the warmth of life.

***