So this is a fiveshot about a dummy named Zoey who's even stupider than you thought cuz she died! For no other reason than because she sacrificed herself to stop someone else from getting killed! And you know who that someone else was? The selfish derp who'd fallen in love with her girlfriend!

Basically that's all you need to know if you've never read my PMD series before

So it's about Zoey and all of her dead friends and her angsty problems cuz angsty problems are a thing

Zoey: you make me sound depressing

Me: well maybe you are a little depressing

Zoey: -whiny seventh grader voice-

One: Island

That horrible squeaky squelching in my neck eventually went away, and with it the hot-burning pain. I'd call that a bit of a triumph, but since the reason I felt it in the first place was because I was slowly dying, this was the point of no return. I throw a fleeting glance back toward the heavy, black brokenness of the society I was leaving behind—didn't catch a glimpse of anything—and then it's gone.

So. I lift one of my paws. Stare at it. Mostly looks the same, though I guess there's a... quality to it I can't quite put into words. Surreal, kind of glowy white instead of its usual white fur. I stare intensely, wiggling each finger under tight scrutiny.

But it's not very interesting so I stop soon after. The world around me condenses with the humming of energy, and I go higher and higher as the world below me departs and the world ahead beckons. Higher, higher, higher—oh, no, I'm getting a little motion sick... oh... no...

Then for this awful split-second my eyes go down and it gets that much worse. My hands go on my mouth, but nothing comes out—and nothing tries to.

I sit there, wincing, crying very quietly, for a good bit of time, but nothing comes out, and nothing's trying to, and this feels horribly strange. I'm freaking out a little bit... My heart jumping in my chest, my mind counters with do-you-even-have-an-actual-heart-now and I actually can't handle the thought of not being alive anymore.

My whole self-sacrificing deed didn't really hit me until it was all over. My hands go over my head and I stay like that, sucking in shallow breaths that don't even supply me anymore. And I stay like that, panicking a little more than slightly, but only a little more, until I land—pouufff—on soft, spongy ground that nearly envelops me.

A hand puts itself on my forehead. I struggle, standing, shaking my dark, sleek tail, messing with a headache that I'm trying to convince myself isn't there.

Looking up. Brown fur, warm face, blue eyes. Just as real—that head on my hand—as me, and as everything else I've known thus far. He was dead for a long, long time, and the fact that this timburr is standing in front of me now nearly causes me to break off into panic all over again. It's—It's hard for me to grasp.

"Heeeeey! Zoeeeyy!" Burr's fingers go off in front of him, and that tall dork pats my head. "It's been awhile, hasn't it? Well! Looks like you're here now, and I'm here now... and I mean, that's pretty raddio, yeah? Am I right or am I right?" His mouth is in this constant smile that only worsens with intensity as he speaks in his mellow voice.

A peachy yellow hand emerges, slapping him casually across the face. "Burr! She just died! Let her take it in, would you?" And attached to that hand is a peachy girl, her limbs a comforting shade of pink—like the blush on her face. The mienfoo grimaces, pulling her hand back, as her boyfriend rolls his eyes.

"Aww, come on, Mina, it's not that big a deal is i—"

"Must I remind you which one of us was unable to stop sobbing pathetically when we were in her position?"

Burr's smile droops. He laughs awkwardly. "Hahaaaaa—Mina, you sly girl..." And then he can't look at her, his continued chuckling more resembling a wince.

His girlfriend nearly slaps him again, but her hand retracts before she makes mark. "I-It's fine—It's fine! You're fine, you big dummy!"

"I must admit that I am in claim of a rather fine bod—"

"I'm not talking about your body!"

"Yeah, but I am."

"Well I'm not!"

Another slap happens as her grin, annoyed, twists and goes slightly toxic.

Meanwhile I'm still trying to react to the fact that two very dead friends are in front of me, remembering that I am now very dead too so it only makes sense, but yet it doesn't, because I died, and never before did I really think about it. The world literally beneath us is out of our reach... and the place of ceaseless chaos has lost its grip on me. Gone. Over. Why is that so hard to understand..?

So I look up, into the casual bickering of the mates I'd known since they were alive, and I think, for a moment, I'm going to finally lose it. I just suck in another breath that I also don't need and tug on one of their arms and plow against the side of the other and I have this really bad episode of dry-heaving like sobbing and puking but nothing is happening, and then I say something like, "Burrhhhhbbuhmnng."

Mina covers her lip, trying to hide her laughter.

Burr doesn't. He just tosses his head back and what happens is what happens, but the smile is bright and warm.

"How about a song, to accommodate your voyage, Zoey? Wouldn't that be fun?"

I blink. "But... but Burr"—I take a moment to adjust to my freakishly smooth voice, like my neck wasn't split open recently—"I thought you weren't good at singing?"

"Nuhhhhh! I've gotten betterrrrrrr! Now I'm like better than everyone else! Then again I already was better than everyone else but same thing!"

"Oh, you poor, poor boy!" his girlfriend cackles, "living inside of your head, thinking, oh, I've got such a sound and creamy tune in my head, and it's gonna come out lovely!" She stops for a moment. "But I must admit that you've gotten better. And it is, I suppose, enjoyable to listen to. Sometimes."

Burr moans. "Awww! Man, I've got both of you onto me! C'mon, Zoey, I wasn't that bad, was I? Come onnnnnnnnnnn!"

The way he exaggerates his words nabs a laugh out of his girlfriend, to which, for triumph, he plucks her head into his hands and pulls her into a kiss. To which, later, she emerges giggling softly. I guess it's kind of weird that I'm casually watching my friends kiss but I mean it's also not weird, at least I think it's also not weird, and besides, knowing that even death did not do them apart is nice.

Pulling back from his girlfriend, then patting her head, Burr's clear-sky eyes size me up again. "Huh. Oh, right... we should probably let the others know that she's here. I think Emby had a few things to say to her... hah! I wonder what!"

"Ahhh, Emby. You know he hates it when we call him that, right? Why do we keep it up anyways?"

"Because, my darling Mina, because he hates it!" They're both giggling, so I'm gonna presume that he doesn't hate-to-kill hate it, although I recall... I recall... oh—oh that's right... I came up with that freakin' awful nickname for him back when I was alive... and when I pinned it on him, man, he cursed. Like a wingull. It was real violent. Hilarious, but real violent. I mean I knew he wasn't gonna do anything... but man.

I've missed Ember. Heh. The thought is weird to think about. When Mina and Burr ask me, I go off on nodding, and Burr acts sad because that means he's not gonna sing until later, but we all know he's not actually sad.

Our little trio crosses the cloudy plains, beneath the strangely luminescent sky full of crazy pinkish colors, and then further off into a little secluded area with what I think amounts for cloud-bungalows, nestled betwixt air and heavens. No wait, this is the heavens, never mind.

There's a tidy square in the midst of it, made up by a big cloud-formed fountain that actually spurts actual water. A few familiar—and even some unfamiliar—faces traverse this little area, and I'm gonna take a gander that the familiar ones I don't see are nearby. It hurts my head to look and acknowledge, or at least try to acknowledge this, but then there's Burr and Mina, a hand apiece on my shoulders, and I really want to believe it.

At the same time this awful part of me wishes against this... I mean, of course, right? I'm literally dead. It's... peaceful and everything but I'm literally dead. And... that means... no more of her. I loved her—I... honestly I still love her. She meant more than everything to me and thinking about her got to the point where it felt like every thought placed a blade in my hands, then the blade in my chest, because I really, really loved her back then.

And she wasn't dead. She was down there, with the stupid boy I'd killed myself to save. I ran into his little predicament, and it gave him a chance to kill the monster that very nearly killed him, and then I was gone not long after. I can't freaking remember what I did before I died, after the slash came down on me. I was bleeding. A lot. I remember that.

No more of her.

That thought's harder to believe than no more life.

Mina's magenta orbs watch me with concern, a little smile on her lips.

"Well, Zoey. Here it is. I think Gaurdio was already making a new little bungalow for you to live in... the clouds are surprisingly easy to construct into very strong pieces. Of course it's easy to break them too—if you put your mind to it—which is nice. It's like... living in a sandbox."

I blink, kind of smiling. "So anyways, bungalows," I observe.

"So bungalows!" agrees Burr, "indeed!"

Mina rolls her eyes. "Yes, bungalows, hooraaaaaay. So... if you'd like to go look around and meet... er, re-meet everyone, you can go do that. I think we should leave you to it."

Burr's voice hovers above my head.

"Whaaaat? We're gonna leaaaaave?"

"Burr she needs time to adjust and I'm sorry but our being around really isn't going to help her but especially—"

"Especially?"

"You, dimwit. She needs some time to herself right now... c'mon..."

Burr mumbles some complaints, but I think some part of him's absorbed whatever it was his girlfriend was getting at, because the two of them offer me little hugs and then, smiling sadly, go off. And I'm left to my own appliances. Since I'm guessing everyone knows about my death and all, it shouldn't be too hard to find who I'm looking for, so that's alright.

I first stop by Gaurdio—this big, beefy, curly-haired gurdurr dude, who is in fact plowing into the clouds like no tomorrow—though I guess, heck, there is no tomorrow cuz we're all dead—and he shows off some form of welcoming, though he was always a little more into hard work and effort than other pokemon. But it's nice, seeing him again. He died after Mina and Burr, who grew up kind of like children under him, so I'm sure it made him happy to see them again.

Turning off, I quickly plow into the hothead himself. His freakishly pink—psychic—eyes light up with a bit of anger as he rubs his head, and the pansear eventually sucks in a breath that he also doesn't need. "Zoey. I'll be damned."

"Heeeey..." I look off, blushing. "Hey, Ember... Emby... heh..."

He just shakes his head, smirking a bit. "Honestly, I didn't think you were going to do it until you did. Shame too. He probably deserved to die."

Burr and Mina hadn't mentioned a bit of him—the big, stupid derp I saved who by now may as well be with... her. I don't know what to think about that so I kind of try not to think of it.

He was close with Burr—like siblings close—and thus close to Mina and Gaurdio—she like a sibling and he a parent to him respectively.

"Welp," I mumble, in this exaggerated cheer, "the butthead lives on!"

He snorts. "Oh well... life is... a bitch, I guess. That's alright." He sort of deflates.

"Yeah..." I deflate with him.

We share this strange sort of understanding for a little while, when I finally leave and turn off into the fountain again. What comes into vision takes me a moment to divulge—everything does... but this a little longer, I think. Time—if there was still time—constraints around me as I halt, staring.

Sitting by its rim, one hand twirling in the water, there sits he. He's been dead the longest of... basically all of us. He died first—he was that monster's first victim. Before he got worse. Before he got better, too, far before then. His dark ears and yellowy face, annoyingly soft and idle, they just sway with his sitting on the fountain edge, and he just kind of smiles in his spot.

I pull in another unnecessary breath and step forward, determined to meet up with that stupid emolga, determined to ask him a few embarrassing and awkward questions. So here I come... and here I go...

Elijah.

Man, what's Elijah's story? He's probably got all the good dirt since he wasn't even in the PMD series for most of it since he was dead for the last two books

like the next people who died had a whole two of the three cuz they died at the end of the second

poor eli

poor eli

Zoey: so anyways bungalows

Burr: bungalooowwwwssssssssss