Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.

Any characters that do not appear in the anime or manga belong to me.

Reviews are welcomed.

~Hershey

I huffed in irritation and impatiently yanked on my favourite black heels, buckling the flimsy and worn out ankle straps and hopping off of my bed. I straightened up and posed in front of my mirror, feeling tall and strangely powerful in my five inch heels. I was in need of the added extra height, after all. I was short enough as it is; 157 centimetres wasn't exactly an average height for a fully developed eighteen year old.

"Are you ready yet, Evan?" a high-pitched voice called from outside my room followed by soft footsteps through the narrow carpeted hallway. Scathingly rolling my eyes at my reflection I reached for the familiar little pencil on my desk and proceeded to draw on my black eyeliner, finally finishing off my makeup for the night.

"Yeah, yeah, hold your horses," I grumbled, placing the black pencil, which by now was nothing more than a nub, back on the table.

I stepped back from the desk, smoothed my pale hands over my outfit and twirled around to get a good look at my chosen attire. I was wearing a tight, black, long sleeved shirt, a navy blue flowing skirt that reached my mid thighs, and my previously mentioned black ankle-strap heels. It was a house party, the last one for my last year in high-school, so wearing a short skirt should be acceptable. Besides, girls my age and younger were always wearing butt-length tight skirts from brand name stores in public; what I wore was, at the very least, a small smidge decent.

I was broken from my train of thought as my self-proclaimed best friend, Angie, strolled loudly into my room. She was donning her favourite bright pink halter dress and expensive red wedge heels that she had bought at a discount price last Boxing Day. Her naturally curly locks of blond hair were currently burnt straighter than a stripper's pole, and her golden eyelashes were painted black. Angie frowned, quite predictably in my opinion, at my choice of outfit, noting the black bracelets donning my wrists and the black necklace laced around my neck.

"Your clothes are too gloomy," she scolded in a motherly tone, wagging her finger playfully at me. "And it's even worse that your hair is so dark." I narrowed my eyes at her words – though surely well intended – and clenched my fists, internally proud of my style, but I expertly hid my raging emotions beneath a cheerful smile.

"Like you can talk, Princess Peach; as far as I'm concerned, Angie, you're too damn pink," I teased back, placing hands on my hips for effect and waving off her previous statement.

I liked my black hair, personally. It reached my waist, due to countless years of growing it out, and was naturally straight. I had inherited it from my mother who had passed away when I was ten from causes that were never explained to me. I supposed it was cancer, as that seemed like the most reasonable explanation, but I'd never had it confirmed to me by anyone. I didn't really remember anything about her besides her voice, and the only images of her in my mind were replicas of the photos in the living room. My hair was one of the only things I had left of hers, since my father sold all of her jewellery and threw out her clothes when my step-mum moved in a long while ago. I currently lived with my three older brothers, since dad died a few years ago, and in her grief, my step-mum left.

"Who cares, I look good!" Angie giggled at my comment, sauntering up to my mirror and taking a good long look at her reflection. She made a range of faces at herself and posed a few times, checking all her angles just in case.

I laughed quietly at her ridiculous antics and turned to face my beloved poster collection. Strangely enough, I felt almost incomplete if I happened to leave my room without sparing them one last loving glance. I felt like they watched over me in some way. The wall behind my bed was presently covered in Bleach posters, mostly, with a few stray Naruto, Fairy Tail, Ouran, Hellsing and Soul Eater ones, and a life-sized Zack Fair cardboard cut-out signed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, and Tetsuya Nomura, the character designer for Final Fantasy VII.

"You and those posters, Evan," Angie moaned, dramatically swaying and growing obviously impatient. I snapped my head to look at her, cricking my neck in the process, and glared into her honey brown eyes with faux loathing. She stared right back into my deep green ones and slightly wrinkled her nose, unflinching from my death glare. We remained in this position for a few moments, neither one wanting to admit defeat, before the air began to sting at my eyes and I instinctively and abruptly squeezed my eyes shut.

"Okay fine, you win, let's go," I sighed, raising my arms in defeat and striding out of the room. Angie nodded happily and followed, hopping along with a bounce in her step. No matter how irritating her cheerful demeanour could get at times, she was the only person I had who bothered to put up with me. There were multiple reasons for her not to, multiple problems with me that she had shouldered off and not worried about. I was an insomniac, for one, who often stayed up for days at a time with little to no rest. I blatantly refused to take any of the ridiculous pills the doctors threw at me; it just made me feel weird, like a lab rat or a test subject. What made matters worse was that I also suffered from occasional anxiety attacks and mild bi-polar, and I got extremely grumpy when I had no sleep. In other words, I was always grumpy.

My habit of wearing dark colours and my ill-tempered attitude sent me to the bottom of the social hierarchy, and the girls at my school let me know it constantly. I wouldn't call what they did bullying, per se, but it did make my life slightly more of a mess that it already was. I could say, however, that I was a strong-willed girl, in a sense, as I never really let what they said get to me. 'Emo', and 'Freak', and 'Weirdo' didn't affect me; I didn't really see how or why they should. But despite my immunity to the hurtful words that were spat at me on a daily basis, I was still emotionally scarred, and any little thing could set me off on an hour long rant.

Despite all this Angie had loved me. She had stood up for me at my lowest times, and she had been my only true friend since primary school. Never did she care about the verbal lashings she received from merely communicating with me, and the comments people made about her for being my near polar opposite never affected her in the slightest. She waved it all off with a dazzling smile, stunning those who opposed her and stopping them from bothering her ever again, because they knew they couldn't. They knew, deep down inside, that anything they said would never get passed that thick skull and wide smile of hers. And I loved it.

Accompanied by comforting thoughts, I walked out of my empty house, locking the door behind Angie and turning to the road. I noticed her small car parked on the curb across the street and wandered over to it. It was a simple car – a birthday present from her father when she turned sixteen – but she adored it, and so did I. It was the starting point of a lot of our best stories; things we'd done a few years back that we'd only ever told to a few people, despite not really having many people to tell in the first place.

I sensed Angie following close behind me as I walked and relaxed, feeling mildly numb and at ease. This stopped, however, when something on the sidewalk caught my eye, and my defences automatically shot back up. I quickened my pace and headed for it as it stood there; a black shadow, watching, waiting, observing something. It had no definite shape, all it seemed to be was a dark blur standing next to the car, but I knew better.

"Angie, something is next to your car," I warned in an abnormally fierce and guarded tone. It was a dangerous neighbourhood that I lived in; there were plenty of robberies and kidnappings that occurred, and nobody ever knew better.

I sped up into a run as I crossed the street, moving as fast as I could in my heels and mentally preparing to fight if need be. I heard someone scream my name from behind me, most likely Angie, but mind was solely concentrated on the strange shadow. My eyes strained in the darkness to make out a feature or two, but nothing fruited from my poor attempts.

What are you doing? I thought, narrowing my eyes in curiosity at the bizarre shape. What... My eyes widened as the shadow suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing on that side of the road except for Angie's small car and a broken footpath. What are you?

A bright light blinded me from the right and a shrill scream deafened me from the back, and I turned my head slightly in shock to see two beams of light shining through the darkness. They sped towards me through the night, and the scream was suddenly accompanied by a loud horn that could belong to nothing more than a large vehicle that would almost certainly squish me to a pulp. There was nothing I could do, and barely any time to think, as the moving force neared me and numbed my senses, effectively blinding and deafening me. To be completely honest at this point, I was a little bit concerned and somewhat disappointed with what my final thought was before the truck hit.

Huh, so this is what Helen Keller feels like.

"Evangeline Heywood."

I inched my eyes open blearily and glanced around in a daze, taking in my current surroundings. I was presently floating in a colossal, white room, which blinded the ever-loving hell out of my poor, newly awoken eye sockets. There seemed to be no definite floor beneath me or solid walls surrounding me; the space seemed to stretch on forever. Regardless of the amount of room I had to roam, I began to feel slightly claustrophobic and choked in the strange room.

"Um, okay, I'm in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber," I muttered in disbelief, eyes trailing the vast white space around me. A sinking feeling developed in my stomach due to the sheer, overwhelming size of the room, dwarfing me in its impressive depths.

"You are dead, Evangeline."

"I'm...dead?" I questioned softly, my voice sounding weak and pitiful, as if I had suddenly transformed into a small child. The echoing voice had resonated from all around my being, speaking in a range of different tones and accents. It almost sounded like a group of females and males speaking in unison, kind of like a church choir. "Who...who are you?"

"I am what you might call God, in your world."

"G-God?!" I squeaked in disbelief, though I clenched my fists and tightened my jaw. Here I was all this time, announcing my atheism to the world.

"You have been chosen to be given another chance."

The voice reverberated through the air, coming from every direction, though every voice that spoke seemed to be pointed directly at me. It overwhelmed my senses, drowning out the room I was in and the thoughts playing in my head.

"Another chance? Why? I don't deserve a chance," I huffed indignantly, opening my hands and scowling at the red half-moons on my palms made by my black nails from the force applied previously.

"The choice is not yours to make, Evangeline." I snorted ungratefully and strained my neck, searching for a way out of my cage.

"To be honest, Mr Voice-person-thing, one life was more than enough for me. And call me Evan, seriously. Evangeline makes me sound so...Angie-ish." I flopped my feet about, almost as if treading water, and the feeling of floating began to make me feel sick. I came to the conclusion that looking downwards was a bad idea and straightened up abruptly, continuing my hunt for a door of some sort. The bleach-white surroundings were starting to burn my retinas, and I wondered if I would have any permanent damage.

Oh wait, I don't have to worry about my eyes anymore. I'm dead. I deadpanned, and I mentally sweat dropped as I scowled at the eternity of the white room. This whole scene was ludicrous in my eyes, completely absurd and pointless. I was taught that there be a heaven or hell after death depending on your life choices, not an endless white space ruled by a throng of voices.

"Evangeline," the voice started as I cracked my knuckles in exaggerated boredom, "the higher-ups and I have decided on this. We had hoped you would be pleased in our final decision."

"Higher-ups? Pleased? Final decision?" I squeaked, irritated beyond belief. "No. No, no, no, no, no. This is all a dream. There is no God, there are no higher-ups, and I'm not being given another chance to live, because I'm still alive. Thanks, but no thanks. I liked my life the way it was." The voice seemed to laugh quietly, and I furrowed my brows, ready to punch the nearest object, if there were any. Instead I settled for resting my hands on my hips and waiting for the voice to continue our strange conversation.

Curiouser and curiouser, I thought, mimicking memories from Disney movies that I felt fit the current situation. Although... Alice didn't die, exactly, but she was asleep and transported from her world.

"I suppose it is a bit... unorthodox, but if you so cherish your previous life, then so be it. You will retain your memories and appearance in your next life."

"I said I didn't want a new life!" I shrieked at the blank expanse before me. I grew worried at the lack of reply, and a sound akin to sand running through the cracks between fingers sounded from my right. I snapped my head to the side to observe the changes and my eyes widened in shock and fear. The white had started to colour itself, morphing and fading into walls, and the stretch of snowy vastness below me formed into cold-looking stone tiles.

"Wait! Wait no! I don't want this!" I wailed, and my green eyes widened further as I took in the changing scenery. I glared at the last bit of white left and raised my fist, shaking it. "You'll pay for this, white-space, you hear me? If we ever meet again, I promise you that I will kill you!" I felt the force of gravity start to return as my previously limp body grew heavier, and my rapid descent to the hard-looking floor sped up as the world around me started to, unfortunately, return.

"No! Mr Voice-person-thing, don't leave me here!" I cried before plummeting to the Earth below me. "I'm allergic to falling onto hard surfaces!"