After Life

It’s been two weeks since I died.

The night that it happened, I felt nothing. I woke up in bed, perhaps a bit dizzier than usual – but it was a warm summer evening, and I’d gone to sleep with a stomach ache, so I thought nothing of it. I stumbled to my kitchen to pour a glass of water. My dog, Teddy, didn’t react as I walked past him, a bit unusual, but not alarming.

I’d made it to the cupboard when someone cleared their throat. I paused, startled. But I was just hearing things, I must have been. My sister was away for the weekend, there was no one else in the house. So I reached upwards, opened the cupboard and picked up a glass.

‘Hello.’

‘Fuck!’ I jumped, dropping the glass on the floor. Eyes wide, I froze, staring straight ahead of myself. There’s someone in the house. Shit, shit, shit!

There was a low sigh, exasperation. ‘Will you turn around already?’ the voice said.

I could hear Teddy’s footsteps padding through the hallway, alerted by the smash of glass against the tiled floor. I didn’t want him to hurt himself, or for this stranger to lash out and injure my baby. I turned around, finally.

But there was no one there.

Teddy sniffed around the glass. I bent down to stroke him, but he didn’t react. I couldn’t feel his fur against my hand. ‘Teddy?’ I whispered, but there was nothing, no head tilt, no tail wag. He sneezed as my hand grazed across his nose, but he didn’t sniff or lick me in greeting as he usually would.

‘He can’t see you,’ the voice said.

A figure had appeared beside me, cloaked from head to toe in a black fabric that billowed, though there was no breeze. A hood was pulled over his head, shadowing his face into obscurity. From his flowing sleeves I could see two long, spindly hands, with nails long and sharp. ‘Don’t scream again, please. This is taking far longer than it should.’

I stood straight, made myself taller, a defensive measure. ‘Who are you?’ I asked, with my best attempt at an authoritative voice. ‘Why are you here? How did you get in here?’

I saw pearls of teeth appear through the shadows, a smile. Or a smirk; he was clearly amused. ‘Why, I’m the angel of death, and I’m here to reap your soul!’

I must have looked scared, and rightfully so, because he began to cackle.

‘No, no, I’m just joking with you.’ He leaned against the countertop, a lazy stature, at absolute ease with my growing fear. ‘I mean, I am an angel of death, sort of. But we don’t do that ‘soul reaping’ nonsense.’

‘Okay…’ From my perspective, this man was completely insane. Whether drunk or on some sort of hallucinogen, to me he seemed nothing more than some costumed psychopath. I pat my thighs looking for my phone, but I’d left it upstairs. I’d have to make a run for it. I backed away slowly.

‘Take your time to take it all in,’ he said, ‘I know it’s quite a shock.’

I slowly nodded my head, ‘Yes, er… quite surprising, really.’ I had paced enough to put some distance between the two of us, and bolted for the door.

‘Of course, any questions you may have – hey! Oh, for god's sake.’

My socks slid on the tiles, but I kept running, pounding up the stairs. I slammed my body into my bedroom door, tumbling forwards to where my phone lay on the nightstand, and began to dial 999.

‘The police? Really?’

‘Fuck!’ I whipped around to find him standing behind me, a looming giant. He must have followed me, but I hadn’t heard a thing. My calm façade fell away and left me standing in front of this man – this thing – utterly vulnerable.

‘I’m sorry, really, I am. I won’t call them, just, please,’ my voice cracked, ‘please don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything, I’ll give you money, food, whatever you want.’ I was begging but I was desperate. I just wanted to call my sister, have her at home with me, and cry into her arms.

He paused. ‘Oh,’ he said, and he began to laugh again, ‘you don’t know, do you?’

‘Know what?’ I wanted to scream it out of confusion, out of fear, but all I could manage was a weak murmur.

‘You’re Grace Everden, correct?’

I nodded.

’23 years old, daughter of Tiffany and Samuel, born on the 18th of May 1998?’

Again, I nodded.

‘Right, well, Grace – and I really need you to pay attention to this – I’m not here to kill you, because you’re already dead.’

I stared at him. ‘I’m…dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I’m alive?’ I was standing in front of him. I had all my memories, I could touch things in my house, I could walk around. But Teddy didn’t recognise me, didn’t seem to think I was even there.

‘See, now, this is why I told you to listen. You’re not alive. You’re dead. You’re a ghost.’

‘It’s just a bit hard to believe,’ I said, truthfully.

‘You’re going to have to start believing because there’s no going back now. I’m here to escort you onto the next part of your journey.’

‘And you actually are an angel of death, not just a psychopath?’

‘In the technical sense, yes.’

‘I didn’t think you’d look so…’ I tried to find the right words, ‘stereotypical?’

He looked down at his robes. ‘It usually helps with the convincing. You’re definitely a first for impressions. You thought I was a robber or something?’

‘Well…er…’ I felt like an idiot. How embarrassing, to think the reaper was here to steal my TV. And then it dawned on me. I’m dead. How could I be dead? I’d had a normal day, a relaxed day, the picture of perfect health, young and spry.

‘So what happens now?’

‘I take you to a purgatory of sorts. Think of it like a hotel – you’ll stay there until it’s decided where you’ll go. Everything will be explained once we arrive. Shall we?’ He held out a robed arm.

‘Before we go,’ I hesitated, but curiosity pushed me to ask, ‘can you tell me how I died?’

‘Chocolate cake.’

‘Chocolate cake?’

‘The file said it was some sort of poison. Someone wanted to get you, I suppose. Don’t worry, you’ll find the details out quite soon. Now, we really do need to go. You’re not my only death of the evening, dear.’

I took his arm, and with a flash we were transported elsewhere, a thousand questions swimming through my head, the most prevalent being, ‘who the hell dies eating chocolate cake?’

*

And so here I was, awaiting the decision. He wasn’t joking when he said it was like a hotel. I was assigned my own room inside of a grand building, archaic in design but refreshingly modern inside. I was allowed to go wherever I pleased so long as I didn’t leave the building. I spent a lot of time thinking.

It had been revealed that someone had indeed poisoned my food supply, specifically on the weekend I was on my own, but they hadn’t told me who, and they didn’t know why. It was a sort of council that I had to discuss the matter with. I hadn’t the slightest idea that death would be so formal.

I had requested a month in the human world, and they were sorting out the paperwork. I had to go back, for my own peace of mind. I had to find who had killed me.