"Good Morning, it's a beautiful day to be dead"

I know what you guys are going to say, "Wow Ariel, you're dead, that's so cool! Can I die too?" and just no! you can't! Well.. I guess you can but you shouldn't unless you have a crazy wish to have to deal with what I have to deal with, that is running from one place to another in the city of New York under a time limit to do errands that you will get little pay for… Fine, I guess some of you already do that but you don't also have to deal with… Let's just leave it in that you wouldn't want to die and end up where I ended up in.

It all started one afternoon after getting out of my job at Express. Even though I'm only 16 years old I have a full time job. I know what you should be thinking, "shouldn't you be in school or studying or something?" I already graduated from high school, thank you very much, and I need money if I ever want to move out from my aunt's place, which is my personal purgatory ever since my parents died. That's the reason why I dedicated myself on graduating early and also to being able to buy my own clothes, food and Internet since the only thing she provides me is a room that I get to keep as long as I do all shores of the house. Before leaving she was giving me her daily speech about not leaving the house dressed like a queer. I was dressed in ripped slim blue jeans, black military combat boots, crimson Polo shirt under a ripped blue Jean jacket and my long black hair was made in a bun letting some strands fall on a side of my face to cover my left eye. I was born with eye heterochromia,my left eye is hazel green and my right is deep blue, my classmates would compare me to David Bowie because of that even though David Bowie wasn't really eye heterochromatic. Moving on to what you might be already wondering, I'm biologically a female, but sometimes I am a male, other times I'm a female. So sometimes I'm a she other times I'm a he, it's complicated, point is I'm gender fluid. I took my Nightmare Before Christmas bookbag (don't judge me) with my job uniform inside and stepped out. I could had actually put on my uniform in the first place but that wouldn't had allowed me to enjoy seeing my aunt freaking about my clothing. I closed the door behind me and across my street there was the neighbor's kid heading to school with a friend that couldn't have been older than 9 years old, he was smiling and laughing. He also had the date and time 4/17/2016 17:36 above his head. That was today. Today that kid would die in a car accident while crossing the street. I headed to my bus stop.

Today at work things went quite smoothly, which is a nice break from the usual customers from The Bronx or tourists that come only to flirt with the personal. One day one guy came and asked me for help to pick a jacket. After we decided on one I asked if there was anything else I could help; which he responded "I'm also lookin' for a cute girl." grinned at me and leaned closer. I took a step backward and responded that I was a male at the moment but could try tomorrow or a few days later when I'm a girl and if there was anything else clothe related that I could help him with. He took a step back aghast and obviously disappointed and asked me if this was a joke and if its was being recorded. I glanced and smiled at the security camera and he followed my stare and his expression changed to horror and ran out the door. Yep, your average day in the city. When I'm a guy I usually enjoy to embarrass and cause a bit of suffering and confusion to those randoms that come and throw me a Romeo and Juliet out of nowhere. When I'm a girl, I usually smile first and proceed to do the same thing, usually with a little more suffering. Stepping out of my job I was immediately bulldozed by two guys rushing to a nearby store around the street and fell on my back and hit the back of my head.

-"Are you okay?" the guy who crashed into me asked extending his hand.

I was dizzy from the fall, I could see he was dressed like he was ready to go camping out in the Himalayas, he was wearing a zipped navy green leather jacket which underneath it he appeared to be wearing another sweater, khaki pants and timbs hiking boots (you aren't from New York if you have a pair of Timbs). He had a white scarf around his neck, and was also wearing a cotton ski mask that covered half his face and winter hat, making his ocean blue eyes the only part of his face visible. He was noticeable taller than me. The fact that we were just at the beginning of fall at a temperature of 68 degrees only served to make his appearance more bizarre. I reached out nevertheless.

-"Yeah, just a scratch," I said while he pulled me up, I noticed that despite he was wearing clothes to being able to enjoy Russia's Winter Olympic games he was wearing only one gloves. When he let me go I stumbled trying to regain my balance.

-"Wow, easy, you hit your head in quite the bad angle. Apologies for my associate Nuriel here, he can get a little absent of his surroundings when listening to music." The other guy said, while gazing at his "associate" hat, which I just noticed had two protruding ends of earbuds on its sides. The contrast of his attire with his partner's was staggering. This one's wardrobe consisted of a black dress jacket over a midnight blue shirt, black dress pants and shoes. He appeared to have a lanky, yet muscular body, short deep brown hair and mesmerizing turquoise eyes. He had a strong jawline and a straight nose. Despite all this, he didn't look younger than 18 years old, we were both around the same height.

-"It's fine, really." would I had been a female and not having a hell of a headache at the moment I probably would have had the desire to stay and talk a little longer, instead I turned and started toward the opposite side of the street to leave-

-"Wait, Ariel" the man in the suit called

I slowed down to a slump for a fraction of a second. Here in NYC you meet people hundreds of people everyday, this is especially true when you work at a customer service job, so it isn't that weird when someone you don't immediately recognize randomly calls your name and/or salutes you. I didn't really had the energy (nor the willingness) to deal with someone I might've forgotten at the moment so I tried to continue walking until he called my name again. I turned trying to pull a smile which probably came out nervous and said "Sorry, who are you?". Yeah that was smooth.

-"You will know soon enough, for the present moment I ask of you to please take this." he took out a small pouch from the pocket of his jacket, and threw it at me which I instinctively grabbed, opened and found rocks and crystals of different shape and color inside. I recognized some of them from my mom's secret room, she used to keep an altar with a cup full of them, she said they provided protection and kept negative energies away. I used to believe her, until the fire happened. Too much for providing protection.

-"Why are you giving me this?" I said still looking at the crystals and pulling my hand to my scalp. The pain was starting to settle in.

-"Just a little aid. I have the inkling that they'll come in handy… for ordeals to come", he said this with such absolutely in his voice that made my stomach sink. I was about to say something when both men turned and rushed moving through mobs of people toward the end of the street. As they disappeared and my mind started to clear from the pain of my head I noticed something I didn't before. I couldn't see the date nor cause of death of neither of the two.

Fine, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Ever since I have memory I've been able to see people's date and time of death above their head. When I was young I didn't knew what it meant, when I told my parents about it and what said above their heads, they slapped me and grounded me for the day. I never brought the topic to them since then. My mom, however, began making me wear an onyx bracelet which I was prohibited to take off, and making some rituals or stuff in her altar room to protect me. Nevertheless I continued living my life ordinarily or at least as normal it can be looking at numbers and words floating slightly above people's head and having a witch mom. I thought it the numbers would eventually go away as I grew up, which it didn't. In fact as I grew older they became more visible whereas before they appeared to me as ghostly white which I had to stretch my eyes to see, by the time I was 11 years old they were solid blue. For the cause of death, however, I actually had to want to see it. I had to focus on the numbers and induce myself a slight headache for being able to see what the person would die from. Also I was unable to see my own date or cause of death. When I looked at myself in the mirror I had no numbers nor words floating above my head, while I could still see other people's standing besides me. Photographs and portraits didn't either mine or other's though. All this only served to reinforce even more my belief that I was subconsciously making all this random information. It was 4 years ago, after the accident that took both of my parents I came to understand what the numbers meant. Some of you may think "Aw, poor Ariel, how sad." Others of you might be thinking "Well, at least you got superpowers, do something for the world!" I have tried, multiple times. After the accident I started to obsess over those who had numbers relatively close to the present. I tried warning everybody who I came across with death looming over them, even stalking them to try to prevent the cause of death. However, despite my best efforts, I always failed. Either, they would shrug off my warning, I would get interrupted or blocked when trying to come in between them and their death or worse case I would be the reason why the cause of death came to occur in the first place; if I had never warned them he wouldn't had tripped and stabbed himself in the heart trying to hide the kitchen utilities of his house, or if I hadn't insisted on walking her home she wouldn't had get hitted in the head by a rock aimed at me by some guy I rejected earlier that day. No matter what I did, people always ended up dying, that's why I didn't even bothered to approach the kid earlier this morning. I came to accept that death is certain and unavoidable. Same as taxes. Except if you're Trump.

I put the poach that the stranger gave me in my bookbag and headed towards upstate 1 train station. Before going underground I checked my phone for any notifications or messages. My friend Kiara texted me to meet up with him and Jake at the Black Jack bar in Union Square.