Hi. This story might seem a little strange at first, but roll with it. I have a pretty solid plan of how I want this to play out.

"De-rek!"

He woke up with a start and there was hacking. Lots and lots of hacking. His own hacking, of course.

It was dark, but he could feel the material of what he was hacking up. They were hairy and circular… like cotton swabs. This went on for a good minute or two—the hacking—until he was pretty positive all what had been stuffed down his throat was now out.

He tried to sit up, but his head thumped against the ceiling. The ceiling? Last time he checked, the ceiling was a lot taller than… 3 inches?

He felt around himself and noticed that he was in a closed box, just long enough for him to lay down with his legs straight. And hey—was it harder to breathe than usual? His breathing sped up, which, frankly, wasn't helping with the seemingly lesser amount of oxygen.

He pushed his hands up against the "ceiling" and was braced with bright, fluorescent lights. It was then that he noticed the unnaturally cold temperature around him. It wasn't painfully cold, though. It was almost as if he had reached a homeostasis that matched the temperature. Somehow, he could still feel the breeze.

He squinted hard, unable to see anything for a few seconds. But then he could make out the tiles on the ceiling. The real ceiling.

He shot up and looked around himself, his breathing heavy.

Coffins. Coffins everywhere.

"Heh," he breathed. He started laughing, his lifeless eyes jumping around the room at each coffin. Were they real? Was this some kind of prank? He looked down and noticed he was in a coffin as well. The laughing didn't stop. "Very funny!" he said, but he made a jump when his voice came out extremely hoarse… and up! comes another cotton swab. It landed on the bottom of the coffin. It was covered in brown and red liquid.

Thoroughly disgusted, he placed his arms on the side of the coffin to lift himself out, but one of his arms gave out with a loud cracking sound. He looked towards his arm. It was pale and deformed, bent at the elbow like it got run over. He laughed again, sliding himself out of the coffin and landing onto the floor. He engorged himself in a nice "rofl moment", rolling around on his back. His laughs weren't exactly laughs, though, more like breathy attempts at laughs.

He paused, his ears picking up noise from outside the door at the left side of the room. They think they can prank me like this… Probably some stupid Casey prank. But then again, it's a little too realistic to be something of her creation. Who did I piss off bad enough for them to do something this sick? Well. I'll turn their prank right around.

He grabbed various items around him that looked nonessential and that could easily disappear without notice and piled them into "his" casket. Then, he hid behind one of the cabinets nearby. All of this was done in a rush, and thankfully, he was able to finish the tasks just in the nick of time.

He watched through a small gap between the cabinet's shelves and the various items placed thereupon at the people that entered, a two people party. For the next couple of minutes, they looked around the room for something he couldn't exactly place. He supposed they were in search of a specific casket. And of course, not like he had expected anything else, they ended up positioning themselves around his casket, each taking a position on one end.

"Man, it's cold in here," one, a woman in her early twenties, said.

"Yeah, you get used to it," said the other.

Each casket was placed on a table with wheels on each leg, something that allowed for easy navigation of each corpse. The two strangers began wheeling his casket out of the room using said device. He waited until they exited the room (loudly, as the door appeared very heavy, large, and metal) before making his leave. He didn't know exactly where he was headed. Perhaps to watch this prank fail miserably for the prankster (he hoped it was Casey, merely so he could foil it). Or perhaps to wipe this… this makeup off of himself. He resolved to do both.

His plans were momentarily halted when he grew fed up with this irritating sound. Some friction was being created onto the floor, and it sounded like a paper. He looked towards his feet and noticed a small paper attached to his big toe by a string. He crouched down to get a better look. It was blank on the side it was placed, but he used the fingers (albeit their blue and pale nature) on his good arm to flip it around. There we go.

It read:

NAME OF DECEASED: Derek Venturi

AGE: 18

DATE OF DEATH: 12/14

PLACE OF DEATH: Intersection between Pines and Lakewood

CAUSE OF DEATH: Automobile collision

—

Derek stared at his face in the mirror. He looked human enough; He had two eyes, a nose, a mouth, both ears intact, that identifiable bush of hair, and… shoulders? However, such normalities in no way detracted from the glaringly obvious issues at hand: his skin was overall pale in color, his eyes were sunken in, there was a large gash across his right cheek (from which no blood was excreting, suspiciously), and, lest we forget, he had a disturbingly contorted arm. There was another cut that started at the middle of his neck and disappeared into the suit he was dressed in, but he didn't bother viewing it. In conclusion: He looked… dead.

Good thing he hadn't passed anyone on the way to the washroom.

Derek chuckled. The kid that did this has some mad make up skills. He had to give them that.

Naturally, he turned on the faucet and began scrubbing at his face, his skin, in an attempt to remove the… makeup. Derek was satisfied with the amount of scrubbing he had done, had reached his "that should do it" point, but when he looked back in the mirror, nothing had changed. His skin looked slightly more hydrated, but other than that, zilch. Nada. Nothing.

He spent the next ten minutes furiously scrubbing his face, rolling up his sleeves, scrubbing his arms, scrubbing his face again. But still, it appeared that the "makeup" did not want to budge, which could only mean one thing: it wasn't makeup.

But that simply couldn't be.

Then, another male walked into the washroom, a phone to his ear. He was chatting away with the person on the other line. "Martha, I'm telling you, it will be fine. Johnson came here the other week with his boys, and, darlin', you better believe—"

He and Derek made eye contact through the reflection in the mirror. Derek smiled at the man and tried to act casual. This interaction? Casual. Nothing but casual. Never has Derek ever experienced anything this casual. It could never not be casual. That's what it was. Right. Casual.

And the man was screaming, and Derek was screaming, and the man dropped his phone, and Derek dropped a finger, and the man was out of there.

Derek turned around and stared at the swinging door until it had come to a complete stop. Silence engulfed the bathroom, allowing Derek to hear that Martha was still on the line sounding very concerned.

"Marco, hello? Hellooooooo?" There was a pause. Then, more concerned, "Is everything okay?"

Derek walked over and picked up the phone, hitting "end call" so that he could be in silence once more with just his thoughts. He inadvertently had found himself in QUITE the pickle. His family couldn't see him like this.

No one could.

—

Derek attended his own funeral service. He figured it was the only sensible next move given his situation. His pickle.

Somehow, the turn out wasn't some big mystery. It wasn't something he needed to see. Everyone always wonders, ponders, "When I die, who will be at my funeral? Who will cry?" But Derek was unsurprised by the results, disappointed even. His friends—Sam, Ralph, Emily—were there. His family—Edwin, Marti, Casey—was there. His random relatives. He even anticipated the various people from high school that admired him, the nerdy girls, the hot chicks, the guys that wanted to be him to be there. And they were. His funeral was pretty bumpin'.

Furthermore, they just had to choose one of his least favorite photos as his, he supposed, "memory photo". He wondered who picked it out. Probably Casey.

He was having a closed-casket funeral. Such is a blessing since, well, he wasn't actually in there.

Not to worry, Derek was in excellent disguise: a hooded jacket with the hood pulled over his head. It was black, too. Super casual. Just the way Derek liked it.

He listened to the eulogies people made for him. Sam shared one. His Dad. Nora—"I was just getting to know him.","Even though he sometimes took things too far, he always made things right in the end.", and "He died my son.". And then there was Casey. He was sure she spent hours, days, pining over what to say for his eulogy. She went up to the podium with a stack of notecards, the "Casey Way".

"You know, you never really realize the impact people have on you until they're gone." People nodded. "Such was the case with Derek. Now, Derek always got on my nerves. Which I'm sure you all know. But… I like to believe Derek's teasing was all light-hearted in nature."

Derek started chuckling, in response to which some people turned their heads in disgust.

As Casey continued speaking—hers was the longest of all—Derek began wondering how he died.

Was he really believing this whole charade? He was. Casey was no actress.

For some reason, he simply couldn't recall what happened. His last memory was going to bed. His memory didn't go any farther than that. "Automobile collision" echoed in his head. But he knew it had to be something bad, something accidental, based off his bodily state. "Automobile collision" echoed in his head. Derek was numb to it all; He wasn't even scared.

"Automobile collision" echoed in his head.

—

Derek spent the next, shall we say, week or so, living on the streets. He had left after the service, not bothering to watch the burial. He didn't need to, didn't want to. He just went on his merry way, watching as his friends, relatives, and acquaintances headed over to the burial grounds. He payed closer attention to his family (and his forced-upon family) than the others, taking note of each of their expressions. Edwin was looking at the ground. Marti was in Dad's arms, her arms around his neck, probably crying. Lizzie and Casey were standing close to each other, both with tear-stained cheeks. Nora was not far from them, currently crying.

Derek looked away. He was surprised at the effect this was having on everyone. He was sure it was better that he was gone. They should be happy.

Derek had developed a sort of system to live by as he nomadically spent his time alongside the other homeless: he'd wake up, steal some money from Remy's begging-for-change stash and use it on food, smokes, and booze (no one asked for ID. The whole hood thing veered people away), and slept on the side streets. He didn't know what else to do. He was hideous and alone. How did Casey live like this?

He chuckled.

He went along with this routine for the same week mentioned earlier. On one particular day, however, his routine was interrupted, and his future was laid out and scribbled on an obelisk of sorts, setting his course in stone.

The day pans out like this:

He was being his usual homeless self, sleeping on the sidelines. He had finished his daily bottle of beer and was feeling rather tired. He was having his usual dream, the one where he is fighting with Casey over who gets the car on their visit back home from college. Casey wants to go to the library to study, and Derek has a date. They fight back and forth until his father intervenes and demands Derek take Casey to the library before going on his date. A strict curfew of 10:30 P.M. is set in place, at which time Derek must come pick Casey up from the library and head home. Casey, of course, is satisfied with this decision, but Derek is fuming. Not getting laid tonight, he supposes. They get in the car and begin fighting like usual, over something stupid.

"I don't see why I couldn't drive on the way there. This is ludicrous."

"Casey, Casey, Casey. You know I am the better driver. Plus, I don't even know what "ludicrous" means, so you just sound crazy."

"You say that like it's a good thing." She huffs and looks out the window, seemingly done. But of course she isn't. "I just would feel a lot safer if I could drive. I don't see why you need to hold up thatstupid pride of yours and drive me there. I can drive myself, thank you very much."

"I reluctantly concede that that is true, however, I have to get to this date at a certain time, and with your snail speed, who knows what time we will get there. At the earliest… tomorrow."

"Ugh, Der-ek! Slow down! This is exactly what I mean. We're probably going to get pulled over, and you'll get to that date even later."

Derek says nothing in return, only speeds up further. Casey grows visibly tense at this, and he always tries to get himself to slow down, to stop, he knows this can't be good, he knows what's coming, but he's not in control. What happens has to happen. Every single time.

And there's headlights, and it's not Derek's fault, not Derek's fault, not Derek's fault. They make eye contact before impact, but as it's happening, Derek knows Casey will be okay. She's not in the line of fire, but he is, and he knows he deserves it. So it's OK.

And then his dream always ends with "Der-ek!" and he wakes up, sweaty and cranky. But not this time.

This time, Casey and Derek just leave their house before he wakes up. He woke up to giggling. Girlish giggling. The type of giggling he hadn't heard in a while ("a while" being one week. Whew. A long while).

His eyes shot open, and he could see three unfamiliar girls squatting near him, their underwear visible underneath their skirts. This pleased him. But he was confused, confused because he wasn't in his best state, he knew it, accepted it, he was no longer the stallion he once was, so why were these girls giggling over him?

"He's awake!" they whispered, sharing a few glances with each other. The one in the middle, a blonde, waved.

"Hi," she said. "Why are you sleeping here, on the street? Do you need a ride home?"

"U-uh," Derek said, sitting up. It was then that he noticed his hood was down, and he raced to put it back on but the blonde stopped him.

"Don't put the hood on. You look better without it."

Derek smiled at her, but he was screaming on the inside. Not because he was flattered by the compliment, but because he was so confused by what was happening. Looked better, looked better… Was she blind?

"Are you okay?" he found himself saying before he could stop himself. He didn't regret it, though. It seemed like a perfectly valid question.

The blonde raised her eyebrows and quickly glanced at her friends. "Strange. I thought that's what I was asking you," she said.

Derek sighed and looked towards the windows at the store behind him, searching for his reflection. He awaited an unpleasant sight to behold him, but instead he found himself looking back at… himself. He had the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the bushy hair, just like last time. However, this time, he didn't look dead; he looked very much alive. And… gorgeous.

He was beautiful again.

"Um, so did you need a ride?"

"Sure, but not to my house," he said, getting up and following them to their car.

By the way, that's not a morgue at the beginning. It's another thing, I don't know if it has a name. But it's after they put people into coffins and place them in a "fridge". Also, in case you were wondering, I read somewhere that they put cotton swabs (or similar substances) into their esophagus to stop them from expelling anything. Felt I should add it into the story for realism, even though it's kind of gross, haha.

Sorry if it's confusing. This will be a multi-chapter. The reason Derek looks normal again is because he's "healed". I don't really want to accidentally spoil anything so if you have any questions feel free to ask. Thanks for reading.