The End of the Beginning

The date is engraved on my soul. January 19. The day everything shattered into a thousand pieces around me and I could only sit and watch.

It was a brisk winter day, the wind cool on my face as I walked, my eyes looking around everywhere. I specifically remember looking at the leaves. They were brown in the midafternoon January sun, and the trees, though withered, looked like they would revive any second. There was definitely a feeling of spring.

Then the stranger hidden in the trees took aim. To this day, I have no idea what made them do it. There was a crack, and I thought, what’s that, and the bullet hit me in the stomach a little below my rib cage. My thought as I hit the ground, my favorite blue jacket being stained by mud, my hair flying up, the blood gushing from my wound, was why?.

A mom strolling with her two kids found me lying there, dying. She screamed, and one of the kids said, “Mommy- why’s she so purple?”

I realized that my jacket, being blue, made the blood look purple. I was dimly aware that she was calling the police, frantically trying to get help. My vision turned white as waves of pain rolled from my stomach. Blood flowed freely and stained the ground around me in an ever growing pool. My phone vibrated in my pocket, but I couldn’t check it.

Then my eyelids closed, and I couldn’t see or hear at all.

A few moments later, they opened. I was in a weird place, which seemed to be made of clouds and really annoying bright light. It reminded me of Alfheim, a Norse mythological realm that was for elves, made of air and light. Whatever this place was, I hated it.

I found that I was in pain, and I really, really wanted to go back. I had so much to do before I died.

College. High school. Mum. Dad. Oh, god, Alectrona. What would she say? What would my aunts and uncles say? My parents…

I was dead. Irrevocably, unchangeably dead. And that was not okay.

“Let me out!” I screamed. No sign of life showed. I repeated the statement once, twice, three times. Nothing. I was alone.

I don’t know how much time passed. I started reflecting on what I wanted to do with my life, and how that had vanished in a blink.

I wanted to go to college, that was only a year away. St. Augustine University had accepted me, and I was thrilled to go. It was my dream to become a theologist.

Mum and Dad, god, this had to hurt them. I mean, when you die, there’s not really a cosmic version of “it’s okay, sweetie, just do it again.” It’s like being sucker-punched in the gut. Especially when you die suddenly.

Which just made me want to go back even more. There was so much I needed to do. I needed to make apologies, finish arguments, everything. Hopes. Dreams.

There was a sort of nostalgia I had for being alive and living. Breathing.

Even then, I could feel a little something. Perhaps there was a sort of God or deity, but I was agnostic and had never gone to church. It was possible there was a God, an ever-existing, all-powerful being, but I’ve never seen a sign of Him.

Maybe the Greeks were right and the very greatest and most ancient things are Nyx and Chaos. You never know.

Something was by me. I could sense it, and it pulled me out of my musings. A sort of sun-like thing was by me, humanoid in shape, with legs and arms, but no ears or a sign of a face.

“Asteria Stelcandente, do you wish to go back?” it said, or rather, vibrated. It had no mouth that I could see, but it seemed to sort of shudder when it talked. It shifted from blinding white to a moderate yellow, like a white dwarf transforming.

“Yes!” I said. “Yes.”

“Very well,” it rumbled, shifting to an orange-red of the sunset. “But there are rules.”

“Why are there always rules?” I muttered.

“Because without them we would be lost to chaos,” it replied. “Deviate from any of these, and you will be permanently gone, do you understand?”

“Right,” I said.

“You cannot be touched by anyone, or their life force will be sapped,” it started. “You may not contact any past romances, and you must not tell of your dying to more than one person.”

“Those don’t make sense,” I argued.

The being turned a bright ivory and made a sort of rumbly noise, like a chuckle. I was gone a moment later, falling through the clouds.

There was a moment of blind panic, then everything went black.

#asteri #book #lgbt #lesbian #life #dying

[Not to be weird, but please, please, please give me some feedback on this. I want to know how I can make the story better, and what is even good about, if any.]