[Posted by Ted H]
Fission Mailed on NaNoWriMo word count. Not surprising, but the whole point of this year was to get back in the saddle and fire up a new project. I'm gonna see how much mileage I can get out of LG while still finding time to continue my 3rd Blake novel.
And I'm starting a new side blog that has nothing to do with writing...Advertising on the side (or wherever here there's room) coming soon.
Also a friend of mine is trying to start an epic of his own. Should I give him space here to get the writing out into the world? YOU BET YOUR ASS I WILL!
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[Little Ghost - Automatic Doors]
“That’s not me!” Kristina bellowed as she collapsed to the ground, grabbing both arms and sobbing to herself, but no tears flowed. “Kristina,” the man tried to address her, but she wasn’t having any of it. “That’s not me!” she repeated “Look at her! That can’t be me!” She wasn’t sure she could muster any other words from her mouth. She wanted to say something else to make her case, but the same three words came to mind every time. “That’s not me!” she reiterated.
The man put his hands up and backed to the wall away from both Kristina and her body. “Whenever you’re ready to get over your shock and move this conversation along,” he said as he folded his arms and leaned back. Kristina stayed where she was on the ground, eyes frozen open and unable to look away from the body. She hoped it would wake up, silently begged for it to get up.
Time passed. Hours, maybe days. Perhaps weeks. Time no longer had meaning for Kristina. All she could do was look to her own body-no! Not her own body. That imposter was not her. She wanted this fake to wake up so she could demand to know why she did her face up to look so similar. She wasn’t going anywhere until she got answers. And if that man was waiting for her to cooperate with whatever game he was playing, then Kristina was going to make sure he would wait every second possible.
The door swung open and a young man in scrubs shuffled in with a stack of folders in one hand and a coffee in the other. He was browsing a paper on top of the folders in his hand until he noticed the body on the table and tilted his head at it. He hastily looked around the room, seeing neither Kristina nor the man, and stuffed his folder stack under his coffee arm and used his free hand to replace the sheet over the corpse’s face. He then placed the folders on the nearby desk and headed back out the door, taking a quick moment before he left to look around the room one more time with an uncomfortable look on his face.
“He couldn’t see me either,” Kristina remarked.
“Can’t be surprising to yet at this point,” the man responded.
“He didn’t see you either,” Kristina said, finally looking at something that wasn’t her own body or someone interacting with it.
“Well, I can be unseen when I want to be. Makes my job easier.”
A new worry flooded Kristina’s mind. “What are you?” she finally asked.
“Oh, you’re finally curious about me as opposed to yourself?” the man said with a hint of sarcasm. He walked over to her in what appeared to be a rehearsed introduction. “I am a Reaper,” he said and was about to add more to that, but Kristina wasn’t interested. She was already bolting back out the door, much to the surprise of the man who obviously wasn’t prepared for that as his protest of “Oh, c’mon!” followed her as she ran.
She could barely wrap her mind around the concept that she might, MIGHT be dead, but the idea that the man was a reaper was something she was not ready to test. She sprinted through the door, this time thinking nothing about how she could phase right through it, and down the hall and back for the elevators. She wasn’t sure if the elevator was on her floor, and her attempt to hit the call button resulted in her finger phasing right through the wall, so instead she headed for the stairwell.
Phasing through another door and she headed up, the only direction available. Her breathing was frantic, made worse by the notion that she probably didn’t even need to breathe, plus the fact that this was the most she’s ever run in a long time and not only was she not winded in the slightest, but there wasn’t a bead of sweat from the effort. She used to sweat just watching other people run, and the fact that she now had unlimited stamina at the cost of her life was yet another nagging contributor to her current full-blown freak out.
She was running too much to stop and read the signs for the exit, not that her mind was in any condition to try that, not with a reaper running around looking for her. After getting more than a little lost and running in circles at times on what she was sure was the ground floor, a realization hit her. She didn’t have to play by the rules of a physical world. She picked a direction and started walking right through the walls until, sure enough, she walked right out and into the main lobby.
Judging by the darkness outside the glass doors, it was still night out, and the lobby was quiet save for the receptionist at the desk playing around with her cell phone. Kristina walked right up to the desk and got right in the woman’s face. Not a hint of notice until she suddenly looked up from the phone and her eyes darted around the lobby. Kristina was taken aback but pleasantly surprised. “Can you see me? At all?” she asked, but the woman said nothing as she quizzically looked around before shrugging and returning to her phone.
Kristina sighed then resumed her escape by walking for the door. The automatic sensor triggered and the doors slid open, letting in the warm summer breeze. The receptionist glanced up briefly but otherwise didn’t react. Kristina stepped back and let the doors slide shut. The sensor noticed her, and the first actual interaction with the world around her excited her more than it should, and definitely calmed her frazzled mind a little. Then an idea popped into mind.
She stepped forward again and triggered the doors. The receptionist again looked up, this time with a bit of concern in her eyes. A sly smile crept across Kristina’s face as she stepped back and let the doors start to slide close again before jumping forward again and making the doors fly back open. The receptionist dropped her phone and bolted up in her seat. “Hello?” she meekly asked.
As entertaining as this was becoming, Kristina had to refocus on her escape. With the doors still open, she dashed out into the world, vowing never to step foot in another hospital ever again. Relief swept through her when she instantly recognized where she was. The name of the hospital eluded her, but the building itself was something she had driven passed countless times. She had her bearings, and was now confident she could get home.
“Took a minute, eh?” an all too familiar voice sounded from the shadows “That’s ok, took me a while to navigate that maze my first time too.”
“No!” Kristina shouted as she spun around, looking wildly for where the man was.
“Calm down!” the man said with his hands raised as he approached from where he had ducked by the entrance “Listen, I’m not the bad scary Reaper like you know from your culture.”
“Oh, so you’re the cheery fun-loving kind I’ve never heard of before,” Kristina responded sarcastically while keeping her distance.
“Look, let’s just...Start over, ok? Hi, Kristina, my name’s Bob.”
“Bob...” Kristina responded while remaining skeptical and distance.
“Yes,” Bob responded “You died, unfortunately, and I’m very sorry. And now you’re running around as a spirit. It’s my job to help you move on beyond this plane of existence.
“What do you mean?”
“No, it’s good news. There are two options, and they don’t send me for people going to Hell.”
“How can I trust you?”
“Well, if you were slated for Hell, there’d be no need to explain things to you. You’d already be on your way down.”
The logic seemed sound to Kristina, but it didn’t comfort her. Bob confirming her death, however needless in light of all previous evidence, was the straw that broke the camel's back for her. She aimlessly walked towards the curb and took a seat and placed her head in her hands. Bob stood silently behind her while she collected her thoughts.
“I don’t wanna die,” she said in such a whisper she wondered if Bob even heard her.
“I don’t make those calls,” Bob responded.
“Whose call is it?” Kristina demanded.
“Yours,” Bob said after a moment “Free will. Humans decide their own fate. When that fate leads to ones demise, us Reapers are called in to collect the soul and usher it to its ultimate fate.”
“You knew I was going to die?”
“I got the notification after you were already dying.”
“Who notifies you?”
“Now we’re talking about things beyond your understanding, even if you weren’t reeling from tonight’s events.”
Kristina sighed, wanting to cry but no tears fell. “Can I just go back into my body?” she whined “I’ll go back in there and we can skip this whole reaping thing!”
“Doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid,” Bob explained “But you’re in the bargaining phase, so I won’t hold it against you.”
“This isn’t a joke!” Kristina yelled. Bob stayed silent at that. Kristina buried her face in her hands again and a sad wail escaped her throat.
“This is a lot, I understand,” Bob said as he walked out in front “But the good news is, you won’t care in another minute.” He then looked to the sky and nodded. A ray of light descended to the ground from the overcast sky and Kristina stood up in awe of it. “It’s cliché, I know,” Bob said “But we surveyed the idea and most people find comfort in it.”
“Heaven?” Kristina asked.
“Yup,” Bob said with a nod “The big guy likes to call up the important souls himself, but it’s up to the little guys like me to assist the rest upstairs.”
“So, you’re an angel,” Kristina reasoned.
“Eh...” Bob shrugged “Reapers are a form of angel, maybe, but not really.”
“Have you been to Heaven?”
“No, but it’s my retirement package when my time as Reaper comes to an end.”
“How does that work?”
“Hey, don’t worry about me. Go on, get out of here,”
“Oh, sorry,” Kristina said, turning back to regard the ray of light. It was a stark contrast to the night around it, and it gave off a welcoming energy that convinced Kristina that Bob wasn't lying about where it led.
“Kinda cancels out the traumatic car accident, eh?” Bob said as Kristina stepped towards the ground where the light covered. Kristina chuckled as she recalled the car accident for the last time in her mind. Before she took another step, something sprung to mind and she stopped and looked back to Bob. “What about Ryan?” she asked.
“Who?” Bob asked.
“Ryan. He was in the car with me. Shouldn’t he be a ghost running around too?”
“Well, if he died, yeah.”
“He’s not dead?”
“Probably not, but who cares?”
“That’s not fucking fair!”
Bob was taken aback by her tone. Confused, he shook his head and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he reiterated.
“He was driving,” Kristina said as she stormed back to Bob and glared up at him. “He got us into that accident. HE was the one drinking. HE is the one who got me killed!”
“It doesn’t matter!” Bob argued back.
Kristina looked back towards the hospital. She knew somewhere inside was Ryan, assuming he was brought in the same as her. Bob was saying something, but she wasn’t hearing him. She took off back for the hospital. “What are you doing?” Bob yelled “Just step into the light!” Kristina stole a look behind her and saw Bob looking up to the sky as the light faded and everything fell back into darkness. She ran towards the automatic doors as they opened, the receptionist jumping in her chair, and back into the hospital.
