"Hello again, little Sybil," the angel in front of me said, with a calm smile and pleasant voice. Why was I seeing them? Why could I hear them? Just a second ago, I was at school. How did I die?
"What happened? I wasn't doing anything, I wasn't near…how did I die?" I asked the angel.
"Yes, this time around it was rather quick. Would you like me to explain to you what happened?" they asked.
"Um…yes, please," I said. The last thing I remembered was walking along the fence bordering the playground, and then I was here. I knew I died, and I knew a vampire must have killed me, as one did in all my lives, but I didn't see any of it. I had no memory of anything happening. What happened?
"You did not want to play with the other children at recess today, so you decided to wander the playground border by the fence. That much you know, but what happened too quickly for your human brain to process was a vampire named Amos going for a stroll, who happened to walk past your elementary school. He had no plans on hunting today, but unfortunately for you, you are what the vampire community calls a 'blood singer' to him. Do you know what that is?"
I shook my head. "Never heard of it."
"To put it in simple terms," he explained. "Your blood has a much better, addictive, irresistible scent to that particular vampire, and he gave in to his impulse to drink it right away. He took you away from that school and drank enough of your blood to kill you in under three seconds. Only one child saw your disappearance, but to her, it looked as if you were there one second and gone the next, so she will not be believed if and when she gets asked about it."
It was silent for a moment while I took in this information.
"I was just a child," I whispered, my voice full of trembling anger. "Only five years old. Do those things have no morals at all?"
The angel stayed silent.
I was rarely ever killed as a young child. I was barely ever younger than a teenager. At least as a teen, my blood could actually fill those things up, but a little tiny five-year-old? Even if I was its blood singer, it shouldn't have killed me. It was once human, did it remember nothing of that time? Why would it give in to its impulses and kill a small child?
I fumed in silence for some time before the angel decided to speak once again.
"Are you ready to come back with me now? Up to heaven, where you will no longer need to deal with death and vampires and the vulgar chaos of humanity?"
They asked me this, or some variation of this, every time I died. I was always given the choice to either move on to heaven or to go back to earth. Once I went up to heaven I wouldn't be able to go back to earth, so I've never chosen to go there. I was missing something in life, and while I wasn't sure what that was, I intended to figure it out. It was just taking me an awful long time to do so.
Every single life I've had, I died knowing I was meant to have more, but I didn't know what it was. So, I kept going back. And back. And back. But I never found anything different.
"I'll go back to Earth," I said. I knew whatever I was missing was still out there, and I was determined to find it. No matter how long it took. No matter how many lives I had to go through. I would find what I was looking for, I just knew it. Or I just hoped for it.