Readers: This was a Christmas gift for a friend of mine, and I loved it so much that I decided to put it up and continue! Desy, Humt, and Leo are NOT my characters, and I will not claim them as mine. All of the others though, those are mine. Thanks and Happy Reading!
I once considered being dead a blessing. You can't feel pain, at least not the physical kind – not if you are a normal sort of person. If you're REALLY bad, well, then you CAN feel pain. But I'm not bad. I died, too young to really be considered good or bad. So I was sent back above the earth, to figure out if I was really good or bad, so they could put me where I belonged for the rest of eternity. I considered this a blessing. I thought that if I could suspend my time on the earth, then maybe I could make friends and have the life I died before I could have.
What a fool I was. Being dead meant no PHYSICAL pain, they had told me that. But they did not mention the emotional pain of love and crashing heartbreak. Walking among the living meant interacting with them, for I had not the ability to fade before their eyes so they could not see me.
I had met her during my 25th winter after I turned dead. It was Christmas Eve in Central Park, and they had put up a GINORMAS Tree, decorated with lights until it almost looked like a pig stuffed full of color. The sun had just set, and the temperature had begun to drop, making people hurry faster to their destinations. The cold didn't bother me though, so I only was wearing my normal light winter jacket, sweatshirts, scarf and jeans. Some people stared at me as if I were crazy as they hurried past. I ignored them of course, and headed toward the bench that sat beneath the pig tree.
I watched as lights went on in the apartment buildings as people arrived at their holiday destinations, and an unknown feeling rose in my chest. I now know to name it yearning, but at that moment, it left me with a feeling of breathlessness that I had never once experienced before.
As I sat there, my mouth agape like a fish's, a cherry red scarf floated past me, and a girl chased after it. She was yelling at it exasperatedly to come back, and I thought what a strange thing it was to do, yelling at an inanimate object that can't hear you, nor listen to you if it could.
Without thinking, I jumped up and chased after the blasted red piece of cloth too. I was faster than the girl, who had bags and bags of presents on her arms. She slipped as I passed her, and I caught her under her arm, helping her to her feet. Her boots made a soft puff sound as I set her back on her feet. She looked longingly over my shoulder towards the scarf that was now hanging high in the branches of another tree.
Turning towards her I said:
"Here, let me go get it for you."
Her eyes lit up as I turned from her and began to climb the tree.
"Be careful!" The girl shouted up to me. I looked down, and she had moved to the base of the tree – right below me. Trying not to feel nauseated from the height, I returned to focusing on the scarf, which was only a few feet from my arm's length. Almost there …
I reached my fingertips up, grasping at the fringes …
Suddenly, I felt myself falling backward. My arms pin-wheeling, I jerk my weight forward and crash into the prickly branches of the evergreen. I shut my eyes tight and held my breath, telling myself that I was ok and that I still had to get that darned scarf.
Why was I worried, I thought as I climbed slowly back down from the tree, I was already dead, I couldn't die again. I snorted as I dropped the last few feet into the snow, handing the scarf back to the girl.
"Don't lose it again." I told her gruffly. "I might not be around to fetch it for you next time." She smiled, a smile that let up her whole face and showed off a dimple in her right cheek. It was a smile I would never forget; no matter how long I roamed this earth.
"I don't plan to." She informed me, smiling wider. Something tugged against my rib cage, and I ignored it.
"M-May I walk you home?" I asked somewhat shyly. Gosh, what had gotten into me? I always had thought of myself as the cool-headed guy that never stammered when talking to girls – especially slightly nerdy ones with glasses and wispy brown hair … and large eyes of a color I couldn't quite place…
"O-ok …?" The girl answered slowly, looking up at me with an inquiring look on her face. She turned and started walking across the park. I caught up with her and matched my stride with hers. Without saying anything, and without really knowing what I was doing, I slowly unhooked some of the bags off one of her arms and arranged them on mine. She looked at me curiously but didn't argue.
"So … What's your name?" She asked, breaking the silence.
"Humt." I answered. "Yours?"
"Arabelle Valaree Thernstorm." She said, turning to see my reaction. I let out a snort.
"Now THAT'S a mouthful. Do you ever shorten it?"
"It IS pretty long." She admitted. "But I find that it suits me."
"How so?" I never thought MY name suited me. I mean, what kind of parent names their child after a synonym to ROPE?
"Well, it's most definitely unique," she paused, and for a moment only the sound of our boots crunching the newly fallen snow could be heard. "And, well, my parents named me. It's about the only thing I have left of them …" Her smile had faded, and I watched as she looked sadly at the ground.
"My parents are dead too ..." I said softly, not looking at her. "My mom passed when I was three. It was a car accident." I didn't elaborate. I didn't need to. The look on her face said she already knew the feeling. I didn't have to say any further.
"Mine both died in a car accident too." She whispered, not looking up. I didn't say anything after that, just put one foot in front of the other.
After a while we reached a street of apartment buildings, and Arabelle stopped on the sidewalk, turning to face me.
"Well, this is my stop. I had better take those bags back. Thanks for carrying them Humt." She smiled, holding out her hand. I shook my head, smirking.
"I'll take these in for you. It's no problem." I answered, and she frowned slightly.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" She asked, confused. "It's Christmas Eve, and a random stranger is offering to carry my bags. Shouldn't you be at home with your loved ones? A girlfriend maybe? Why help me when you could be headed over to her house to spend the Holidays?"
"I-I …" My voice faltered, and I looked quickly away from her inquiring expression.
"Well?" She demanded, and my eyes found hers in the dark. Her face was shadowed, her cheekbones more prominent in the light of the street lamp that stood behind her. The stirring in my chest rose again, and I swallowed hard. Arabelle raised her eyebrows, waiting for my answer. I shook my head defiantly and took a step into the road. She sighed, exasperated, and followed, leading me diagonally down the street towards what I assumed had to be her apartment building.
Stone steps rose up out of the darkness at we approached, and Arabelle headed directly toward them. A man stood there, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his pea coat. A blue scarf was wrapped around his neck, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Ah!" He exclaimed as we drew near. "Arabelle! I was wondering when you would get here! And who is this?" He asked politely, turning to me.
"Oh this?" Arabelle asked, slightly flustered. "This is Humt. He saved my runaway scarf and has helped me carry the presents. Humt, this is my fiancé, Leonardo." She turned back to the man on the steps with a slight smile on her face. Fiancé?
"Please to meet you! You can call me Leo, everyone does." Leo descended the apartment stairs and came to stand beside Arabelle. She looked up at him, the smile that teased her lips before lit up her face, and for some reason, a sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. An awkward silence insured.
After a few long minutes, I cleared my throat and clapped my hands together.
"Well, it was nice to meet you, Arabelle," I looked at her before turning away and raising my hand in farewell, making my way down the street. "Whenever you need someone to fetch your scarf, give me a call!"
As soon as I set foot on the sidewalk across the street, something inside me snapped, and pain beyond what I thought possible for a dead man came crashing down on me like bricks. I turned my face to the sky and shouted at the top of my voice:
"I THOUGHT YOU SAID THAT BEING DEAD WOULDN'T HURT!" I then let out an anguished howl, and a part of me that stood away from the rest wondered if I was truly just a ghost, and not, maybe, something more closer resembling a demon.
"You were told that you would feel no physical pain." Came a voice at my shoulder, and I didn't look down. It was the little love-bird imp – Desarya, or Desy for short.
"Did you do this?!" I seethed at him, still not looking down at him. "You've had your bit of fun, now make it STOP!"
"You know it couldn't have been me." Desy answered. "I've had my arrows taken away for the past 500 years, and I won't get them back for ANOTHER 600. I've already told you this."
"Then find out who did this," I said in a slow deliberate voice that I knew Desy would hate, "and make. Them. Stop. This."
"That's not possible. Once you've been hit with a cupid's arrow, no amount of begging, pleading, threatening, blackmailing, or harassing can stop its power." I felt his tiny hand pat the side of my neck. "I'm sorry, buddy. I wish I could take it back, for your sake, but it's just not possible."
"I thought I couldn't get shot seeing as I am DEAD!" I growled, finally looking down at the little creature sitting on my shoulder. He sighed and hung his head.
"They made an exception for you. Since you had never experienced love of any form in life, and since you needed a way to determine your place after death, they thought it would be a good idea to give you a dash of unrequited love to see how you would handle it."
"So it was all a hoax?" I asked Desy through clenched teeth. "A fraud? It was all made up for some stupid test?"
"If you put it that way …" Desy trailed off. And red hot anger surged through my blood and roared in my ears. I was shot with an arrow because they couldn't decide where to PUT me?
"Well then, why don't they just leave me here?" I spat, turning away from the apartment building that now held the essence of my pain. "I'm in enough pain that they won't even have to have me relocated to Hades' Fiery Prison!" And while I'm here, I had thought, I could plot the slow, painful torture of the Council and all of their folly.
"Hey Desy," I murmured darkly, "I need to cash in that favor you owe me."