Chapter 1
A sound like footsteps slowly came into my consciousness. I flinched every time the heels clicked down on the floor.
Click. Click. Click.
I looked over to see Vada doing the same. It was the first noise we'd heard in a long time. It seemed to reverberate in my head.
Click. Click. Click.
And then it stopped. Vada and I stood up on sore, wobbly legs. Neither of us said anything. It would have been pointless. In this dark void there is no air and once you have exhaled the last of the air that remained in your lungs through death, that was it. No more sound would ever escape your mouth. Vada and I instinctively move closer to each other and link arms, cowering together from what ever may be lurking just out of eye shot.
And then we hear a shaky voice call out, "Hello? Can someone help me?"
I would have screamed if I had had the air in my lungs. But I didn't, so I couldn't. I was trembling now so much that my knees buckled underneath me. My weight pulled Vada down with me and we made a hollow thump as we hit the ground.
"Who's there?" There's that shaky voice again.
Click. Click.
There were more footsteps and then a lot of shuffling, as if they were turning around in a circle to look all around them. Vada tugged me to my feet by my elbow and began moving toward the shuffling. I struggled and pulled back as hard as I could on her but she was determined to get to the bottom of the strange voice and footsteps. A cold glare from Vada forced me to follow morosely behind her.
After just a few moments of walking I began to make out a dull orange glow off if the distance.
Click.
"Hello?"
Click. Click.
As we got closer I began to make out the shape of a person completely immersed in the orange light that was steadily fading away.
"Who are you?" The voice was close to tears. Vada suddenly let go of my elbow and dashed forward toward the voice, who proceeded to scream. Not a second after they both tumbled to the floor, a second scream joined the first. A pillar of light shot down from above engulfing the voice and Vada in bright white light. Instinctively, I rushed forward into the light after Vada. She was all I had left. What was I supposed to do with her gone?
As I entered the light I found something green under my feet. It was hard while it was soft at the same time. It was cool and moist. It was even just a little bit pointy but crushed easily and painlessly underneath my feet. Grass. The pillar of light was larger than I thought. Vada was on the other side of the circle of light, just as awestruck as I was. The person was staring between Vada and me in astonishment.
To my left there was something very large. I walked closer with my arm outstretched until my fingertips brushed the rough surface. I looked up at the green growing out of it above me. It wasn't grass. It was all the wrong shape and not nearly as thick. A tree. I looked at the ground below my feet. The grass was a different color here. Not much different. It was darker and cooler. I was in a shadow. Looking back out I saw Vada slowly wandering toward me but she was looking straight up. I walked to her side and traced her line of vision to the bright, shining ball in the sky. It was warm and hurt to stare at. The sun.
Vada and I both shot each other worried glances at the same time. She was clutching her chest and my hands were moving in to clutch my own. An uncomfortable pressure had been there since entering the shaft of light but now it was becoming painful, unbearably so. It was now that I noticed the body that the voice had come from was standing with us. I stared at her, begging her with my eyes to help us.
"Breathe!" She shouted at me like it was obvious but I hadn't taken a breath in what felt like years. I stared in confusion at the girl for a second when I heard a gasp come from Vada. She was bent over with her hands on her knees gasping for breath. I was shocked that there was anything at all for her to breathe but a sickening flare in my chest forced me to fall to my knees on the ground. Now the pain was so great that I was sure I couldn't breathe even if I tried. Someone thumped me hard on the back and my lungs inflated with air. I heard a whooshing sound as the air went in and out in great amounts. Vada was breathing more normally now, more like how we did when we were still alive. I matched my breathing to hers so I wouldn't faint. I stared up at the sky, shocked, that I would even think I could faint. You need a heartbeat for that and a heartbeat was one living thing that I was still missing.
"I have to pee." I choked out of a dry, raspy throat. The girl looked shocked but Vada nodded in vigorous agreement.
"Well, where do you normally go?" The girl asked.
"We normally don't." Vada rasped. Vada cleared her throat trying to make it easier to speak but failed.
Water! It was suddenly falling down all around us, spreading out and darkening and dampening everything. Vada and I tilted out heads back and let the drops fall into our mouths. We drank for a long time as the strange girl looked on in amusement from the protection of the tree. Finally she interrupted us with a quiet throat clearing. Vada and I reluctantly joined her under the tree keeping close to each other incase this strange human decided to... To what? We were dead. There was nothing she could do to us.
After a long moment of silence, the girl spoke. "Cassandra? Vada?"
I took a step back, distancing myself from the strange girl but Vada nodded.
"Are you dead, too, then?" I looked at Vada in shock. What was she doing? How could she be so calm that this girl knew our names from when we were alive? When you died and came here, where ever "here" is, you lost everything that humans found important. Vada and I have never known how we got to keep each other. Maybe that was just to keep us from going insane.
"Cassie." Vada was looking at me peculiarly. "You know her." What? I can't know her. I'm dead and have been for some time. "Look at her." Vada persisted for I had looked down at the grass beneath us and then at the rain that was really more of a sprinkle now. I struggled to pull my gaze back to the girl but looked at Vada instead.
"No. I don't know her. And neither do you." I snapped, harsher that I had meant for it to be. Vada stayed calm and averted her attention from me to the girl.
"You're dead and you were her best friend. She knows you but she doesn't want you dead. So she thinks if she doesn't try to remember then it's not true." And then to me "But it's not true! She's dead!" I flinched back from the sharpness of the blade in her voice.
"Vada. Don't-" The girl protested feebly.
"What? You don't think she ahs a right to know that you're dead? That we're all dead?" Vada was angry now. I could feel her shutting us out as the quiet seconds passed.
"I know we're dead. I know she' dead. I just don't know her. I never knew her." I said meekly even though I knew Vada was done. The girl looked almost hurt. "I'm Cassandra." I said putting as much joy and happiness as I could into my words even though I could feel my face still crumbled in disappointment. "It's been so long since Vada and I have seen anyone else." Vada snorted beside me.
"Well maybe you shut down when we died but I didn't." Vada walked to the other side of the tree and sat down. I didn't make a move to follow her so neither did the strange girl.
"Annette." She smiled and took my hand. We shook hands awkwardly then looked around the circle of light for something to talk about. I noticed that it was steadily getting brighter. "Oh my God." I breathed. I may be dead but human expressions never seem to fade.
"What?" Annette asked, hopeful.
"There are walls. All around," I gasped. Vada looked at me curiously to see what I was up too. Annette glanced at her, clearly questioning my sanity. I was now running toward the other side of the circle of light, my eyes locked on something up above me. I smacked into a wall of dirt and fell backward onto the ground. Vada and Annette finally understood what I meant. They were frantically searching the walls for any break, for a way out. I sat and stared dumbly at the wall.
Vada ran to me and started pulling on my arm. "Cassie! Get up! Help us, Cassie!" I couldn't move. Vada and Annette stood in the middle with their backs to each other turning slowly in a circle to see if there was anything they missed.
The circle of light was so beautiful before with its sunshine and grass and trees seemed to be a terrible catacomb now. It was fitting. Catacombs hold dead people and this place, no matter happy pretty, had essentially become our catacomb, our final resting place. We weren't going to get out. My mind was almost overwhelmed with panic when I noticed something different with the walls.
I scooted closer to them and let my finger tips brush against the dirt walls. My fingers came back with something on them. It was brown, like dirt, but darker, and wet. Was it blood? Could the walls possibly be bleeding? But it was grainy. It couldn't be blood. It was mud. Looking at the walls now, I could see small trickles of water seeping out, becoming larger and more numerous. I screamed, even though I knew I couldn't drown if I was already dead. Vada and Annette began pulling on my arms, away from the wall and closer to the center.
"We're going to drown!" I started screaming over and over again. The fear had overwhelmed my mind and I was no longer I control of myself. I felt my legs collapse from underneath me. I curled up into the fetal position and began sobbing.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Vada covered her ears and closed her eyes tightly. She nudged me with her toe until I looked up at her. "Go climb the tree." When I didn't move she crouched down in front of me, putting her face in mine. "Get your ass up that tree, Cassandra. Now."
Annette grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. She pushed me up onto the first limb of the tree until I started to climb on my own. The limbs were thick all the way up and my head was soon above the highest leaves.
"Can't you go any higher?" Annette asked, worried.
"I'm at the very top. What more do you want?" I snapped. I stuck my hand in the mud wall to my left. When the mud was almost to my elbows, my knuckles hit hard against stone. I grabbed on to it and stuck in a foot and my other arm, finding a handhold and foothold quickly. "We can climb out!" I cried down to Annette and Vada gleefully. Maybe we wouldn't have to die after all.
I started the slow climb to the top without looking down at the rising water, knowing that if I did I would freak out again and fall backward onto Annette and Vada.
"Cassie, you have to climb faster!" Vada was panicked. The water must have reached her. I almost went back for her then but knew that there was nothing I would be able to do. Instead, I quickened my pace. The top didn't seem to be getting closer, but it was a long way up.
Suddenly, water was pouring in from the top. I screamed as I saw it coming for us. I don't know why I chose her name to scream but I did. I screamed for Annette, only, I called her Annie. The water swirled around me and choked my lungs. I couldn't breathe. I was going to die- again.
As the water churned and thrashed I found someone, Annette or Vada. We reached out to each other and held on to each other as the water pulled us deeper until we found the other. The three of us had a death grip on each other- no pun intended.
The last thing I remembered thinking was remembering Annette. My Annie. My best friend, in life or death. And then I died again, for the second time in my short life.
Author's Note- (i think...?) Anyways, obviously I cannot separate my story into paragraphs. So if someone could help me I would really appreciate it! Yeah, so this is pretty much my cry for help and you'll be seeing it on all of my chapters until I get help so if it annoys you, I'm sorry but you should help me (even if it's finding someone who can help me). OK then, thanks, I think.