Alice lead Yuna north through the trees by the hand. Every couple of minutes Yuna would stop her and press her against the trunk of a tree or lamppost to remember what her mouth tasted like. When they finally stopped, Yuna stumbled into a bench and squinted into the darkness.

A marble white structure jutted up from the ground in round geometry; it the praying fountain Alice was always at after the sun set, with that elegant dog poised at the top. Water poured out in arcs at her feet. Fireflies flitted about her nose and rested in her paws and the folds of her dress.

"It's magical," said Yuna.

Alice smiled. Yuna caught a sad glint in her eyes. "It gets better. Have a seat."

Alice escorted Yuna to a gray marble bench and guided her down. She went to the lip of the fountain, looked up at the statue, and spoke.

"Serena," she said, "I'd love if you could wake up for me. The time for truth has come and I can't do it alone."

The dog glowed, spun, and fell from its perch. Yuna shrieked and scrambled behind her bench, wide-eyed. The statue did a pirouette and, all at once, was fur and flesh, gold jewelry and large intimidating eyes. It looked to Alice and curtsied.

"What the fuck," Yuna said under her breath.

"Good evening, Miss Mayor," that statue—Serena—said. Her voice sounded like dreams. "Or should I say 'good morning?' It's so late it's early. What could you possibly want?"

Alice turned to glance at Yuna. "We owe an explanation."

Serena's eyes glistened green. "Ah, it's that time."

Alice offered her hand to Yuna. "C'mon, doll, there's something you need to hear."

Yuna climbed over the bench and approached them. Alice took her hand, firmly and with great care. Yuna looked from Alice to Serena and back again. "What?"

"Do you know why you are in this town?" Serena asked.

Yuna paused. "I took a train."

"From where?"

"I don't—I don't remember."

Serena sighed. Her gold jewelry glinted despite the sparse moonlight. "There's no easy way of saying this, so I'm just going to say it. You've passed, Yuna; you're dead."

The first cicadas of the day cried somewhere in the forest, filling the pregnant silence to burst. It took Yuna a moment to collect her thoughts. "I'm sorry?"

"You've stumbled into the wrong afterlife," Alice explained. "It… happens sometimes. That's why I'm here. You know, with all these animals."

Yuna shook her head, then began to laugh. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever head. I know things get slow around here sometimes, but this is a terrible way to entertain yourselves."

"You can't reply to your mother's letters," Serena said, unflinching.

Yuna stopped. "How do you know—"

"She's been leaving them at your headstone," continued Serena. "Letters can't leave Paradise because they can't leave the afterlife."

"But—"

"You don't hear from your father because he can't handle your passing. You came here with nothing. No luggage, no money, just the clothes on your back. The clothes you were buried in. That's not how you move to a new place."

"I—"

"Serena," Alice warned.

"You don't remember boarding the train or even what station you left from. I'm a dog who came to life from stone, and look at the rest of these animals walking around on two legs. The streams cross, sometimes; you must have died at the exact same time as an animal like Alice di—"

Flash headlights, streetlights crash cras h, broken window broken bones broken neck back, crack, Mom my head, EMT says she's—

"Serena, stop," Alice snapped. She bended down to Yuna, fainted in the grass. "Yuna? Yuna, I'm so sorry."

Yuna opened her eyes and raised herself up on her hands, gaze lost and unfocused. Alice crouched next to her, brushed a few strands of hair from her face and rubbed the space between her eyebrows until the glint in her eyes was relit. Yuna promptly burst into tears. Alice fell back on her haunches; Serena averted her gaze and waited.

The sun was beginning to rise. Serena watched the navy night ebb away to orange dawn, to red to blue as Yuna ran out of tears and Alice rubbed her back.

"You okay?" Alice asked quietly.

Serena shook her head. That's a stupid question and you know it, Miss Mayor.

"I'm not even crying because I'm—because I'm dead," Yuna hiccupped. "I mean, I am, but—I'm not going to see my family again, am I? Or my friends?"

Alice shook her head. "Probably not."

Yuna nodded after a moment. She stood, walked away from Alice and Serena towards her home and the ocean. Serena climbed back up to her perch, closed her eyes, and froze. Alice sat down, heavy, onto the fountain's lip, and wept.