I don’t know how long it took for my consciousness to awaken, but when it does, I find myself in a waiting room and everything is white. The walls, the floor, even the chairs. I have no trouble distinguishing everything because somehow, they’re all different shades of the exact same blinding white.

I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I’m not sure it’s meant to.

Despite being unconscious before, when I wake, I’m standing. My feet are clumsy at first, like I’d just jumped on a trampoline for hours and now I’m on solid ground again. Except not Earth ground. Walking is like I’m trudging through quicksand. The gravity here is different. Intense. I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Where exactly is this place?

I squint and blink like a billion times before my eyes get used to the light and whiteness of it all. Not that I can really call it ‘light’ as I don’t see any lightbulbs anywhere. No windows either. Just a bunch of chairs and stuff. So where is the light coming from?

I stagger and prop myself up with the nearest wall. It’s strange. There’s a weird texture to these walls, like the rough stucco siding found on some homes. Laying my hand on the faint ridges gives my hair static. All my hairs stand on end. Well, the strands not coated in blood. I can’t put my finger on it, pardon the pun, but something feels off about these walls.

Sitting down in the nearest chair I know instantly that this isn’t real, or at least not Earth, because the chairs are comfortable. Waiting room chairs are never comfortable. Trust me, a nurse’s daughter would know. But somehow it is real. I died and now I’m… here.

I look at myself. I’m still wearing the same clothes. No white gown or halo. No red horns and tail. I lost my sweater at some point and my skinny jeans have a huge tear in them, and not the fashionable kind, and that pisses me off because I just bought them last week.

René would have found a way to make them work, but I’m not like him at all. Chayla would wear them without caring, but I’m not like her either. So great, the jeans are trash now.

Then I laugh at how ridiculous that is, being mad about my jeans when I’m dead. I mean, I know I’m dead. My Stuff-Mart uniform shirt is soaked with blood. My blood. It’s sticking to my skin. I pull the cloth from my chest; it sticks for a moment and then releases with a sickening pop and stare at it. Nobody could ever survive this sort of thing.

My waist long hair was in a loose braid and now it’s a bloody, stringy, mess. I don’t know where the ponytail went, so I can’t fix it or get it out of my face. I think that was my last elastic, too. Ugh. I feel disgusting. I just want a long bath, or at least a sink, but I don’t see any bathrooms.

My throat clenches and my eyes get moist and I know I’m going to cry. I wipe my eyes roughly and swallow hard, which feels gross when you have a hole in your throat, because I don’t want to cry. I hate crying. I haven’t full-on cried in years. Not since I was ten and finally accepted that Dad really abandoned us and wasn’t coming back.

But losing my father isn’t the same as losing my life. My soul. It’s a strange sensation, grieving for myself. No one should have to be awake to feel this. Even grieving for other people is hard. I almost didn’t let myself cry at all when Grandad died last year, and I had my mom and my friends there. Even then only a few eye raindrops managed to escape.

But when it’s you, and you’re awake, and dead, and alone, and aware of it all? That shouldn’t be allowed. This isn’t right at all. The dead shouldn’t have to grieve.

I can sense it, even though I’m trying to ignore it, that something is gone inside me. Something I didn’t even notice was there until now. There’s a hollowness at my core. It feels sort of like when you’re super tired and hungry at the same time.

A new desire is in there too, a need to fill myself. A hunger, I guess. But for what? My soul is gone. My spirit left, just like David said. Yet, despite everything I guess I should be happy, because I’m finally getting my legit movie moment.

My life is passing by my eyes, just not in the way they show it on television. All these images are shifting through my mind. First day of Kindergarten when the fighting started. All the times we moved, with Dad and without him, in a disjointed order. The last time I saw Dad’s face, how he didn’t look any different, but he didn’t look like himself. The day I met Chayla and Jordan, my best friends. Fire, smoke, and screams.

I’m glad when that last one passes by quickly. But despite my discomfort, they continue.

The good the bad, the past the now, they’re all blending together more than they usually do. There’s no chronology to any of it. For some reason I even remember my parents’ last fight, but it’s fuzzy and the words are drowned out by a strange white-noise. I can’t focus on it, so my memories move on.

I recall something else, an incident I had forgotten. This one fills my mind, crystal clear. It’s all I can see. That time when I was six and I fell into the cougar pit at the zoo. Everyone was screaming but the cat just stared at me unblinking with its amber eyes, so much like my own, until Mom somehow pulled me out.

The cat had a black stripe. It was the Calgary Zoo. That was…the cat from my dreams. Wasn’t it? It chose not to attack me then, and it chose not to attack me this morning. At least I feel like it wasn’t going to attack me, despite how ridiculous that sounds. Did it recognize my scent after all those years? Or was something else going on, even back then?

Despite this memory being the longest and clearest of them so far, it still feels like a part is missing. This is what I was trying to remember while looking at that photograph on the news this morning. I’m certain.

I know this is important for some reason, but I can’t focus on anything and the memory eventually passes just like the others. I know there’s more to it, but I can’t hold onto anything.

Grieving for myself is harder than I ever thought it would be. Not that I ever thought I’d someday be grieving for myself. That bastard said he could save me… But in all fairness…even if I did somehow, by some half-assed Stupid Boy miracle of miracles, make it back, would it even be the same? How could it be? Monsters murdered me. And the only way to go back would be to become a monster myself. Nothing will ever be the same.

I sniffle back some more weakness look around for a distraction. My breath is getting too fast for me to keep up with. My breathing techniques aren’t working. This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening. I don’t want to be dead. This isn’t fair…

But I am dead. It’s game over.

My emotions betray me again and come close to bubbling over, but I focus on my surroundings like I taught myself to do on that densely foggy day in grade three. The first day I woke up and only my mother was downstairs.

The kitchen had never looked so big. And my mother had never looked so small.

Shit, okay. Focus. The chairs around me line a square area with two long hallways adjacent to it. Argh. I should not have looked because the hallways are strange. They don’t end. There’s no bend or dead end in the distance. The halls just keep going for as far as I can see from here. It makes me dizzy the longer I look.

Let’s look someplace else then.

Uh, there are doors in the halls too. White ones of course. I just know on the other side of one of them some otherworldly creature is going to come out and call my name. I’ll go into their office, they’ll sit me down, and then list all the reasons I’m going to hell.

‘Congratulations Kara, you are officially dead. Welcome to…um.’ This place is obviously a heaven sorting area. Or a Taoist soul relocation center. An atheist consciousness incineration plant? I don’t know, I’ll call it Limbo. My mom and I don’t really go to church these days. Not that we ever really did.

I mean, the whole idea that there could be gods out there was kinda quashed when the Bubble Burst. Most religions ended because magic became a reality, and the ideals clashed. There’s always hold outs, of course, like my crazy old Gran. Dad’s mom. She’d make us go to Church growing up. Even though her own husband didn’t really wanna go. I never understood why someone great and normal like Grandad married Grandma.

Well, anyway, I don’t really believe in that stuff, but I guess it’s hard not to be superstitious when you were essentially brainwashed as a child.

My Granny’s voice fills my head. “If you and Dana don’t start visitin’ Jesus’ house then you’ll be roomin’ with the devil in the afterlife, dearie.” She sounds like the witch from Snow White and smells like mothballs and Dutch cheese. She always disliked mom and me, and the feeling is pretty mutual. She called us abominations for some reason.

She was probably right, though. I probably am going to hell. Or whatever the equivalent in reality is.

Oh god, but what if she is right? What if I am going to hell? I haven’t been to church since Christmas when I was what, eight? Nine? Oh god, I’m doomed. I start to shake a little. And not the shake you get when you’re cold, it’s the one when you’re about to faint.

I’m about to start crying for real when someone scares the shit out of me.

“Um, hey.”

I scream and fall out of my chair. Someone just spoke. It’s only then that I notice I’m not alone in the room. It’s not just me. Another dead person just appeared in the left hallway.

“Sorry! Sorry…I didn’t mean to scare you, but you seemed kind of scared already, so…”

Get a grip, Kara. I’m becoming such a spaz. “No, I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be here.”

My own voice startles me. There’s no echo to it or projection, yet we can still hear each other fine. What is up with the atmosphere here? Also, on further inspection, he’s not really a ‘kid.’ He has a jersey on. I recognize it as from one of the center town Junior High Schools, but I can’t remember its name.

“Well, I don’t think we’re supposed to want to be here.” He laughs quietly then coughs and looks away. I just nod. “Uh, cause this is for the dead, after all.” Then he visibly stiffens. “You-you are dead, right? You’re not a-a spectre?”

“…I am dead.” Definitely dead. What a stupid question.

Oh wait, is it? Are there spectres? Can they come here? I end up freezing too.

He relaxes at my answer and I slowly do too. “Yours was rough, eh? I’m lucky, mine was quick.”

“My…your…what?”

“Your death.” He points at my shirt and walks over. I look down at it again. You can’t even see the logo or the original colors anymore. It’s been dyed red, and I can feel a bunch of half dried, crusty blood on my neck. And every time I breathe I can feel air entering and leaving the massive hole in my neck. Gross. I’m so gross right now.

“My death? It was quick. Didn’t even know I was dead for sure till I got here.” He waves around at the room like I hadn’t noticed it before and then gives me a pitying look. “Yours wasn’t quick, was it?”

For some reason the obvious gruesome nature of it all makes me defensive. “I barely felt it.” I snap at him and sit back down, staying on my side of the room, and fold my arms across my chest. Like that could somehow hide the blood.

I don’t feel like telling the guy I’d been too preoccupied with trying to understand the inexplicable to feel much of anything. It’s not like he’d believe me, anyway. Fangs? Claws? Promises of salvation…I’d sound like a crazy person. Ah, unless he’s one of them then he might believe most of it. Do Sapiens and Mutants even go to the same afterlife? But even then, the whole salvation thing would still be sketchy considering we’re in Limbo, so that was obviously a bust.

I can’t tell if he’s a Shifter or not yet, because there seems to be a strong block on my Sensing abilities. Or maybe those are gone cause I’m dead. Or dead people don’t have Spiritual Energy? Who fucking cares anymore. What difference does it make what he is? We’re both dead people.

“Sorry.” He looks at his feet and I feel bad.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath- still surprised I can breathe at all. “Its fine, I guess I was in shock,” at all the impossible things going on, “so I just didn’t feel much pain.” Not a total lie. The pain ebbed after a while.

“What happened to you?”

It’s impossible to stay mad at him with those sad puppy eyes of his. “Uh…wolf attack.” Again, not a total lie. I was attacked and there was a wolf present. At the end. At which point I’m not entirely certain I wasn’t delusional. I’m not even sure I’m not delusional now... But still. “Um, what about you? How’d you snuff it?”

He laughs again. More confidently this time. He has a cute, lopsided grin. That and the dark eyes and long, dark lashes make him look more like a lost puppy than a dead boy. His eyes remind me of Jordan’s, except his are even darker, and shiny. Pure black. I miss those eyes.

I’ll probably never see them again.

I’ll never see any of them again.

“Not as interesting.” He points to his forehead. “Bullet.”

Glad for the distraction, it’s then I notice the small round hole above his eyebrows and the dried trickle of blood than ran down from it.

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. There was going to be an important swim meet this weekend. Scouts were going to be there, and my dad was going to show up and everything…” He trails off. “Not-not that it really matters to anyone else or anything-”

Believe me kid, I know how special it would be for an absent father to show up to a game. My deadbeat fucker didn’t even stick around long enough to ever attend one of mine. To be fair I got into soccer and self defence as a coping mechanism when he was already long gone. Not that absolves him or anything. It was also to help control my anger issues, according to mom. Wonder where I got those from. Che.

“I think I heard about that.” I interrupt his pity party, as well as my own. Nothing like death to make someone sentimental. “There was something about that swim meet on the news this morning…” right as I left for work.

He smiles. “Yeah, it does get a lot of attention.”

“So you go to the River Heights School.” Now I remember. “That’s a pretty fancy place, isn’t it?”

Now he looks embarrassed. “Yeah, well, it’s not all that. I’m more excited for high school. Or I was anyway.”

I’m surprised. He seems normal for someone from center town. I already figured him out. I might not be able to tell for sure if he’s a Shifter, but after some basic interaction any doubt can be alleviated. My instincts still exist even if my Sensitivity doesn’t. I can even tell he’s an Uptown Shifter, not one of the lower class Lower Ashvale ones.

That may be why I was so rude at first, honestly. I’m not used to being the rude one when interacting with these people. Maybe they’re not all bad, maybe I’ve just been meeting the duds. I warm up a little bit. Or maybe he’s a weirdo black sheep. Eh, either way. Not like I can lose anything else. My life is already gone.

“Well, take it from me, High School isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either.” The kid looks more comfortable now and sits down with a chair between us. He’s being considerate but it’s not necessary at this point. “Really though, do you know who did it?” I leave my seat to sit next to him. I just now notice my steps don’t echo here, either. Weird.

“It was a friend. Well, I thought he was a friend.”

“Oh my god, are you serious?” What? How did a kid his age even get a gun? They’re just children. I thought he got mugged or something. What the fuck?

“We both wanted to get into the same college eventually, and there was a summer apprenticeship opportunity through one of the scouts, and I was considered the favourite…and yeah.”

His speech pattern resembles bullet points, but it’s cute.

“That’s horrible. He killed you for an apprenticeship?”

“Uh well, there was a little more to it than that. Our dads are… rivals too. So I don’t know if that was all. He just said I had to stop interfering. But I don’t know what he meant, really.” He sighs. “It’s not like there aren’t other opportunities. He didn’t even need the scholarship. So there must’a been somethin’ else.” He shrugs.

Jeez. Sounds complicated. I decide to change the subject. “So, do you know where we are exactly?”

“Well, not exactly but it looks a lot like, it should be the…” He trails off. “Uh, shouldn’t you already- well, if you don’t know then the information board should-”

“Wait, information board?”

He points to the left hallway, the one he had come from. “Yeah, it’s on the side there. It tells you all sorts of stuff. Like how you’re dead, and you’ll be seen by your spirit advisor, and- hey wait up!”

I’m already running over to it. He scrambles after me.

It’s like he said. The frame is as white as the wall, so I didn’t notice it before. There’s a bulletin board covered in papers. It reminds me of my Wall of Conspiracy.

Oh fuck. Now that I’m dead are people gonna find that?

Wait why am I worried? I’m dead. Nothing matters anymore.

Anyway, one of the pure white papers catches my eye.

“Oh look, they’ve added your information to it now.” The kid is oddly excited about it all.

Welcome to Death,

Rodney James Romano

March 24, 2008 – October 1, 2021

T.O.D: 11:54 AM

Causation: Mutant Murder – Unsolved

and

Kara Rosemary Lowe

December 31, 2006 – October 1, 2021

T.O.D: 1:02 PM

Causation: Shifter Casualty – Undesirable Outcome

Please do not be alarmed. Please wait patiently for your spirit advisor.

We will be with you shortly.

LIMBO GROUP “Your death is our business.”