Chapter 1

I was walking. That's all I remembered from the beginning. I was walking without a care in the world, my body moving on its own as my mind tried its best to catch up. The world, as my eyes focused around me, was similar and yet completely different from how I figured it should be. It was nothing major, of course. Just a little too green here, a little bland there. It was very easy to chalk it up to a bad night's rest. Because I had to have slept and done something before I started walking, right? I didn't just start walking and never stopped. That's crazy. Ridiculous. Completely not possible. The laws of life wouldn't accept it. No one can just start walking and never stop forever, right? Of course not. So what had happened to me before I started walking? What had I done? Where had I been and who had I met? I couldn't remember any of it, but a part of me didn't find it that bad. If I couldn't remember it then it must have not been that important to me. I'm sure I would've remembered if it was. Right?

"What's your name?" someone asked me suddenly, and I looked over at the red-haired girl that was now walking beside me on the endless road I was following. She had soft brown eyes and looked completely harmless.

"I don't know." I answered, shrugging. It didn't matter much. This seemed to bother the girl a little.

"Just think. What's your name? I know you can remember it. Just try." she said, and I did. I tried my best, digging through the blankness that was my mind before I plucked a name out of it that seemed to fit.

" Steele. Emma Steele." I murmured, the name seeming like a ravish title I was giving myself.

The girl smiled brightly and nodded as if that was what she had wanted from me. "It's nice to meet you,Emma. My name is Liz. No last name."

"Why not?" I asked, a little curious. That was a strange emotion. It felt like a shoe I had lost that I had loved and had finally found.

"I just never got around to picking one out for myself." she shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. And I guessed it didn't.

"Am I dead?" I asked, looking at the space around us that looked the exact same as all the rest we had passed by already. The thought didn't really bother me that much like I thought it should, but I guess it was just because I couldn't really remember anything before this. This endless walking towards something I couldn't see no matter how far I looked in any direction.

"Yes. But it's okay. You're not alone here." she nodded sympathetically, and I looked at her in curiosity.

"But aren't you dead as well?"

"Me? Oh, well, I guess so. But I'm not a Ghost. I'm a Shade."

"What's a Shade?"

"A Ghost that can fight and Travel and vanish. I've just got more experience at being a Ghost than you since you're so new. But when you get more experienced you could become a Shade as well."

"How many of us are there?" I asked, noticing how alone we were. There was no one and nothing anywhere, so there couldn't be very many…

"Millions. Every time someone dies they come here and then when they die here they are sent back to start again. Death isn't really the end of life. It's more like a turn in the path."

"A turn in the path?" I thought aloud, and stopped walking as a fork in the dirt path I was walking on appeared ahead. One direction seemed to lead to some bright, warm light that promised safety and happiness. The other path seemed to lead to a path very similar to the one I had been walking all this time, only I could see little animals and people on it. I followed the red-haired girl, Liz, down the path without the light and warmth; the path that led to others. The path that would hopefully be able to lead to someone or somewhere that could answer my questions. Like what had happened to me before I started walking. How did I die? Was it painful? Was I alone when it happened or surrounded by friends and family? Did I have any regrets?


Okay then... Chapter one is completed, and feedback will result in a chapter two and so on... First story posted so please, be honest. I don't need things sugar-coated, but I do have a sweet-tooth. ^_^;