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Chapter 1 Death

My name is Alex Requin, and I died today.

I'm here in a forest. The trees are bigger than any I've ever seen before, and I don't see any signs of... anything. I tried walking around for a while but now it's getting cold. I don't know what to do. I don't know what this is. I don't see anything. There are no trails, no buildings, no smoke, I can't hear cars or sirens or shouts and now I can't even see the sun.

Am I dreaming?

I've been waiting to wake up for so long, to go back to just another normal day. Her face is blurring, but I'll never forget that last sound. She tripped, or was pushed, or, I don't know, it would be so easy to blame someone for it but she just tripped. She was wearing those stupid shoes. I don't know why she bothered. Dad left years ago, and no one else had looked twice at her since, but she still wore those stupid shoes.

She tripped, but the train was coming. It didn't stop. I was already running when I heard the brakes and the crack and a bit later the screams. It was a wet sound. I don't know how I got home, but I did, somehow. I felt a rush through my body and then I just stopped thinking for a while.

I went to class the next day, and the day after that. No one cared. No one came. I don't think anyone even noticed that something was wrong. The food ran out pretty quickly. We had gone shopping that day, but she was carrying most of it when she...

It's all online, these days. I knew her code. She told me once, a long time ago, for... this, and I can't pretend I didn't use it once in a while. She probably knew, but she never brought it up. I can't think of how stupid that was, how she must have felt. It hurts too much. But I had everything I needed to take some money.

It didn't last long. I never really knew how much life cost. I went back again, and then a third time, draining it all, until there was no more coming. We never had much money, but it never mattered to her. She was always telling me that there were more important things and we had them, that we were better than that. I guess she was right. We were happy, most of the time.

I just kept trying to live like nothing was wrong, like I was in a daze. Some days I thought she might just walk through the door, or I might wake up in bed and think she was home, and that everything would be fine. I went to school. I did the work. I shopped. I ate. I even played video games and talked to friends. It was like admitting it, even to myself, would break me down. It was like denial was a bandage holding in all the blood I had.

I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't even think of doing anything.

There was only so much money.

The landlady came by first, must have knocked at the door and yelled for a good half hour, but I kept quiet and waited. She went away. She came back again and again but never used her key. The other bills were easier to ignore. They were just pieces of paper. I had a pile of them in a corner that kept getting taller, but they didn't make noise, wake me up at night.

I bought a chain for the door, and got an A in Chemistry.

I don't know how long it took. Half the time, I wasn't thinking at all. Someone else was moving my body around while I just faded in and out and watched time pass. If I was thinking, I'd have known it would all fall apart and done something, called someone, figured it out somehow. But it took me by surprise.

One day, I came home and the lights didn't work. I was almost broke. I'd been stealing food, selling what we owned; games, jewelry, anything to keep from starving. I don't know if they'd found something and traced it back here or if that bitch just really wanted her rent but not much later someone started trying to break down the door.

What could I do?

I couldn't leave. I couldn't keep going. I had nothing left. This was the first moment of acceptance and clarity I'd had in... weeks? Months? I'd go to jail or starve and freeze on the streets. There was nowhere else to go, no one to turn to. I had nothing. There were no roads leading anywhere.

But I had a balcony.

We lived on the tenth floor, and for those five seconds, I was free.

Now I'm here in clothes I wasn't wearing with a bag I didn't pack, shivering in a blanket that I don't recognize under trees I've never seen before in my life.

What do I do now?

I've been hearing something moving, coming closer, and I'm actually scared.

I can't imagine why. Didn't I want to die?

I can see it. It's some kind of animal. Grey, I think, but it's hard to tell in the dark. A dog, or a wolf, maybe? There's nowhere for me to go. I couldn't outrun it if I tried.

It's just standing over me and sniffing. I'm shaking. I can't move. I start crying and I know I shouldn't make noise but I can't stop and I'm crying for her, too, like I never could before. It moves, and now it's right beside me, lying there, waiting, keeping me warm.

I guess I won't freeze, after all.