Important note at the end of this chapter, just a heads up.

78: An Old Friend.

I came to a sudden stop as I felt something on my lips. Something so familiar and romantic, it's been ages since I felt something like this. This was such a...beautiful kiss. It felt like the kiss of true love and I didn't want it to stop. But who was my prince charming kissing me? Ryder or Lark?

I continued feeling the kissing on my lips, lingering longer and longer onto me, and I knew who it had to be.

"Ryder..." I muttered.

I felt like I was completely gone, like I was dead, standing here...just a step away from Heaven and leaving a miserable world.

Oh great. I didn't want to leave...but I'm so unhealthy. I can't... I just can't.

"Marley?" A girl's voice came through. She sounded familiar. Not Mom, but someone else. "Hey, Marley!"

"Who's—who's there?" I called out scared. "Who is this? Where are you?"

"Relax it's me, Zandra."

"Zandra?"

"Yeah. I'm up here in Heaven. You can't see me ye.t I'm still walking to the gates, just hold on a minute!" She called back. "Almost there!"

Within a couple of minutes, emerging from the bright light right in front of me, was a girl with long dark hair and wearing a white angelic dress with a gold halo, golden heel shoes with straps and angel wings on her back. "Hey, it's Marley. How's it going girl?"

"You...you look so different." I said. "So much...different."

"Yeah." She smiled.

"And...sound different."

"Well I'm not on the drugs silly!" She laughed. "Man on man Marley, I thought I'd never see you again. How's everything since I've been gone."

But I kept looking at her. She was...dead? How? When? "Zandra, how the hell are you here!?" I screamed.

"Oh, you must of been in here longer than I thought... Yeah, I died." She admitted. "When you were imagining being on a stage singing and dancing to that Sia song, that day, I died the night before." She told me.

"Um...I don't know." I said. "I'm...stuck."

"Stuck? Stuck where?" She asked me.

"Here. Where ever I am." I said.

"Oh, that stuck." She told me. "You are not stuck, you just need to turn that pretty ass of yours around and go straight down and keep walking down that way until you reach the end."

"Huh?"

"Go back around, go straight down, keep going straight and when you reach the end of the cobbler pathway just jump off the cliff." She explained. "You'll wake up."

"What!? Are you INSANE? I am NOT going back and waking up!" I yelled.

"Why not?"

"I'm sick! I'm unhealthy! I have an addiction!"

"So what? Work on it." She told me. "Marley, go back and do what I just said."

"No!" I screamed. "I can't! If I go back I'm just asking for everyone to hate me and be sad with me."

"They'll hate you for leaving them like this. They'll be sad that you died and felt like they didn't do anything to help."

"Oh, trust me, some of them did!" I yelled.

"I know that, idiot." Zandra rolled her eyes. "Come on Marley. Go wake up and see Ryder and Lark."

"If I go back... I'll be send to rehab or jail."

"Not sure how that portion of waking up will work out, but having the friend there will be a good thing." Zandra said. "I didn't get that chance Marley. I didn't have anyone to stop me from going forward to the light. I just kept going and going."

"But...well...can't I just see my Mom?" I asked her. "Please? For a few minutes."

"She can't be here right now."

"She's mad, isn't she?" I frowned.

"No, I mean she can't be here now because she's food shopping and then going to the hair salon to get her hair cut." Zandra said. "She sent me here."

"What...the...fuck?" I screamed.

"Heaven is pretty much like how it is on Earth. Except much nicer and no littering and if a paper is accidentally littered, nobody gets in trouble. It turns into a star. Stars are both made from gasses and litter. It's fucking weird as shit."

"Oh, wow." I said. "That is strange."

"Yeah. Now go turn around and go forward." She said.

"But my Mom—"

"She told me to tell you that when the time is right, she will come visit you." Zandra said. "Either by dream or something else. She loves you though."

I did miss my friends and family. "Zandra, I'm healthy now, if I go back will I go back as this?"

"No. You'll still have a craving for drugs, beer, wine and cigarettes." She said.

"Shit." I said. "I... I guess I'll go back."

"Good. Now do me a favor?" She had her hands on her hips. "Can you tell Lark that it's OK? It's not his fault that I died. I brought this flabbergasted shit on my own body."

"Um...okay?"

"Thanks. And make sure you said 'flabbergasted shit' so he knows its the truth." She said.

"Okay." I said. I was sad that I couldn't go into Heaven.

"Good. Now go." She said. "Run, Marley, run!"

I turned on heel and began running. Running away from that beautiful light and into the darkness.

This is weird. You're suppose to run away from the darkness and run into the light. Not the other way around.

I kept running and running. My halo, my wings, my warmth all died. Coldness became apart of me. I craved for cigarettes and beer bottles now. I just wanted to smoke and drink.

I got to the end of the cobbler path and there was nothing else. Literally nothing else, all black darkness. The only way to move forward is to leap off this cliff that the cobbler path lead up too. Now what?

Leap?

Was I suppose to leap?

Well, Zandra did tell me to go to the end and then leap to life, correct?

Should I really listen to a dead girl?

Well.

Here's goes nothing.

I took a few steps back, held my breathe, then ran forward and jumped off the cliff.

oooh what's going to happen now!?

Notice:

Many of you had voted for me to write 'Home Front Battle' next when I finish a couple of these stories. Just wanted to let you all know that I am still working on the progress of that story, but I do have 'Just Like Soulmates' chapters set up and all so I will be uploading Just Like Soul-Mates when I'm done with this and possible Growing Pains.