Flower Meanings:
Black Rose: death, farewell, rejuvenation, rebirth
Coraline remembered dying very well.
She was trotting along the street, heading back home from a long day of classes at university, trying to untangle her headphones without taking them out of her hoodie pocket, and was so involved in that, that she didn't even notice a screech from behind her, before being hit from behind.
She blacked out for a moment, before coming to, face down on the concrete, in agony. Her breath came out in rattling, hissing spurts (probably a punctured lung, at the least), as she tried to turn herself around to see what had hit her, and then there was kind of a wet popcrackcrunch from her lower body, and oh, she could move a lot easier, and oh god, was that blood? Fuck. She didn't know, she thought one of her eyeballs had burst from being dragged across the ground. It was either blood or whatever fluid was in eyes dripping down her face, and she doubted it was blood. She could feel wind hitting the inside of her socket so that was probably a good indicator.
Cora flopped down on her back, too shocked to try and remain propped up, and recalled joking about being hit by a car a lot, but could it have come at a worse time? Only a semester before graduation, instead of during finals two years ago, when she really needed it? Talk about timing. Jeeze. Hopefully she could live through this, if only to sue the everloving shit out of the person that hit her. Goodbye student debts and hellloooooo savings.
The thought crossed her mind of why she wasn't panicking, but she remembered very well what adrenaline did to the brain. She had been a 911 operator for a short while, and she had people literally try to make small talk before going, 'oh yeah, and I also have a minor case of stab-itis, do you think you could send someone over?'
Blearily, she thought she saw someone leaning over her and shouting, but if she was honest, her hearing and sight were so fucked at this point there could have been Nicholas II, last Tzar of Russia leaning over her, singing the national anthem, and she wouldn't have registered it at all.
Needless to say, Coraline was dying.
She found she wasn't actually that sad about it, if only because it meant she dodged a lifetime of paying off student loans and working only to retire in world that was not kind to girls or old women. Though she would be sad at not being able to play her favourite series anymore, or update her fanfictions. God, there's a thought. A whole bunch of people out there, with no fucking idea she died, only the realization that she had stopped writing altogether.
Oh well, it's not like she'd be able to think about it once she died, anyway. That is, assuming she didn't go to some sort of afterlife, and just ceased to exist.
She hoped so. Fuck the afterlife. Oblivion before eternity. She didn't want to have to go to whatever purgatory or hell was there, if any religions were actually right about what happens after you die, and deal with all the smug believers of said religion saying 'I told you so' for eternity.
While she had been lying on the ground, not only had someone called the police, but also an ambulance, whose EMTs were actually picking her up and putting her on a stretcher. Cora tried to say something along the lines of 'it's okay, don't bother. I'm going to die.' but all that would come out of her was a sort of gurgling croak, as she hacked up blood, then immediately after, passed out.
When Cora woke up, she knew she was dead.
The fact that she wasn't in a hospital, was, of course, a good indicator, but the fact that really made it sink in was that she was surrounded by thousands of glowing white birds.
At least, she thought they were birds. They were glowing, so for all she knew they could be a new species of butterfly. They chirped, though.
But after all, she was dead, and no one knows what happened after death, so in all reality, there could be pink and purple spotted hippos waiting to appear. Or maybe the great spaghetti monster.
In any case, the birds appeared to have noticed her presence, as they had stopped amassing in the center of the room she was in, and seemed to be watching her, and waiting for something.
As she watched them, one broke off from one of the larger masses, and fluttered towards her, seeming hesitant, until she stretched out her hand in a beckoning way, and smiled in a way she thought was welcoming. It fluttered onto her hand, and at once, she had the overwhelming feeling of being judged, her entire self taken apart and examined under a microscope for any flaws or imperfections.
She supposed she must have passed whatever test she was undergoing, because after a couple of seconds, the judging feeling went away, replaced with a sort of approval.
As this was happening, the glowing butterfly-bird never left the palm of her hand, but as soon as the judgement was passed, it fluttered off of her hand, and landed on the tip of her nose.
Smiling, she went cross-eyed looking at it, and giggled when it tickled her nose with its fluttering. All of a sudden, she noticed all of the other butterfly-birds moving closer.
Almost as if her noticing them was a sort of signal, she was swarmed by them, all seemly clamoring to land on their own patch of skin. Honestly, she felt like Jake Sully from that one scene in 'Avatar'. Hopefully this would end as well for her as it did for him, though she could make do without the genocide and war.
Laughing, she tried not to dislodge or crush any of the glowing creatures as she maneuvered herself to sit down, holding her arms up and away from her sides to avoid any casualties. Dead or not, Cora wasn't a dickhead.
Chuckling, she looked down, "So what now? I seem to have passed your test, so does that mean I stay with you, or do I go somewhere else now?"
No answer.
Worth a try, at lea-
im absolutely useless at updating and magi was calling me. Sorry to all 3 people waiting for updates on my other fics