How I Died

Ralph Cortez stood in front of the panel of judges. The room was circular with maple wood paneling, the chairs had high armrests made of wood and the seats were covered in velvet. The entire room was filled with elderly men and women all scrawling down at Ralph. They wore black robes with white shawls around their shoulders. Then in the center of the room was a large fellow with a long flowing beard and warm wrinkly eyes, almost Santa Clause like about his appearance.

"Hello, Ralph, your life ended a little bit earlier than expected," said the Santa look-alike as he peered on parchment paper with his half-moon spectacles.

"Yes, I suppose I died," said Ralph out loud and he felt weird saying it, he was dead and he was what appeared to be heaven.

"Now, I can send you back to earth since it appears you are not quite done. I had big plans for you Ralph and you made a poor decision. Now, you are going to tell me what happened, and remember I can tell if you are lying or not," said the old man and he looked down at Ralph.

"Okay, ummm...where to begin...I guess it all started on Tuesday. I did my regular routine, my alarm woke me up, I got dressed, ate breakfast and I ran after the bus, the bus driver likes to play a game where he sees me and then takes off and today I managed to catch it. So he stopped the bus and I got on and I sat next to my best friend Logan. Logan is very outgoing and likes to party a lot and sometimes disappears from time to time-"

"Ahh, that's right Logan, logan has a sad future unless you stay his friend, poor kid," said the Santa. "Anyways, please continue"

"Okay..umm right. So I sat down next to him and he was raving about some party that was happening this weekend and I did not want to go, but he insisted. We got off the bus and went to homeroom together. The day was pretty regular and by the time it was lunch he had convinced me to go to this party. This whole week I have been dreading it, but anywhere is fun with Logan and then some of the Advanced Placement kids were going to, so I figured I would go to this party since I would have people to talk to, it seemed that the whole school was going even the stoners," explained Ralph. "And then, the girl I liked was going with her friends too. Sarah Martin, I thought I would have a chance to impress her finally."

"Anyways, teachers over the week were really piling the school work high all week, so everyone was looking to blow off some steam and I found out that this party would be happening at Jason Mazar's house by the lake, his parents were out of town and well. Jason Mazar is kind of a party animal and Logan and he are pretty close. He's kind of a jerk, he's cheated on multiple girlfriends and he talks back to teachers with no respect-"

"Back to the story Ralph"

"Right. So I decide to make myself the designated driver. I asked for my parents honda accent and they let me borrow it as long as it comes back in one piece and me with it. So, I pick up Logan, who is already pretty hammered and I pick up this guy Lance Burner from biology and his girlfriend Stephanie something. We get there and immediately we disperse. I find Mark Jacobs, so I talk to him for a bit. I didn't drink anything since I was driving, but a few people were pushing drinks at me and I refused numerous times. Eventually, it gets a little nuts in there, girls were on tables dancing and taking off shirts. Not really my scene. I duck out and I find someone sitting on the docks. I come closer and see it is this quiet girl named Chelsea Rutherford from my Calculus class.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi back, did your friends drag you here?" I ask her and I sit down next to her.

"Yeah, I'm D.D. tonight. I am guessing you are too?" she asked me.

"Yep, this is not really my scene," I replied.

"I hate these parties, maybe I am just old and i think we could be having much more fun doing something else," she said and I nodded.

"for sure, the lake though it's a nice location," I said changing the subject.

"I dunno, I heard that it's haunted with something," she said shrugging.

I looked on the lake and the fog was rising and gliding from it and the trees were creating these dark shadows, the lake was calm and untouched, a few logs were dipping into the water. It did look a little scary I guess, but it was not terrifying until that thing happened...

"What thing Ralph?" he asked.

"Oh, well were sitting there chatting away and we both noticed there were bubbles coming closer to us, we both figured that it would be a fish or something, but it was something horrible. The bubbles inched closer and closer to our faces and out from the water emerged a strange creature, it had cat-like slit eyes and hair of a woman, but it was greasy and it clung to her skull, then it smiled and fangs had presented themselves, something like steak knives and it had this tongue that was snake-like and it hissed. The skin of this woman thing was glistening and a sickly pale green. If I touched it, it would be slimly and it was like she was mostly bones. It reached out and a webbed hand came from the lake and it pulled Chelsea's hand, she was screaming as if it really hurt and I ran to get help and I was screaming, no one in the party seemed to notice, so I broke into the shed and found a shovel, I ran back and it was gone along with Chelsea, so adrenaline kicked in and I got into the cold lake and then, I saw blood everywhere, it was starting to pool around me and when I dove down to see what was happening Chelsea had grown pale and that thing had it's fangs in her neck and draining her of blood and it seemed like Chelsea was already dead. I dropped the shovel by accident and it hit that thing, it looked up at me and it made a horrible noise, then next thing I know my neck was hurting and blood was coming from me, it was my blood, I remember seeing these red eyes and it was as if it was enjoying every moment of my pain. I tried to fight it, but I just did not have the energy or any more breath left in me and I died...I died of some weird thing, something drank my blood and I died.

"I said no lies, Ralph, the truth was that you drank pop and someone had spiked it with a rare hallucinating drug. Now, we luckily caught this all on tape and we can show you what happened...You were murdered by Chelsea. Let's take a look shall we?" said Santa Clause.

Ralph glanced at the large screen, he saw himself walk down the docks, and Chelsea and he were both staring at the water intensely, but there weren't any bubbles, then a group of kids ran past them completely naked and jumped into the water. Ralph took off his clothes and joined them, that's when he noticed it, people were screaming and Jason Mazar had a steak knife in his hand and he suddenly screamed and he stabbed Ralph in the neck, he laughed maniacally while he stabbed and blood splurted from Ralph's vein. All the kids were screaming and running out of the water, while a few had their phones out recording what was going on.

"You had it coming Ralph Cortez!" screamed Jason and he stabbed him once more and deep into the stomach and Ralph watched in horror what was happening. Jason then put his hand around his neck and started to choke him still laughing like he was a child on a playground.

Then moments later Ralph Cortez's body was face down in the water. Seconds after the ambulance were trying to save his life. Jason was arrested.

"Now, you've been dead for thirty minutes. Let's see who thinks you should still be alive," said the Santa, and numerous hands shot up in the air.

"It's decided on you go!" he raised a gavel and stomped it down hard and a noise echoed and with a flash, Ralph was on the ground breathing and a few people were clapping.

"He's alive! He's alive!" shouted someone. "he's alive, you are one lucky person!"

Logan was right beside him. "Where's Chelsea Rutherford?" Ralph asked panicked.

"Who?"

"Chelsea from Calculus!" shouted Ralph.

"Calm down, there's no one named Chelsea Rutherford," said Logan. "We've never had a Chelsea in our class"

"Wait did you say Chelsea Rutherford?" asked the EMT

"Yes, I went to school with her she drowned when she was sixteen. Tragic really," said the EMT.

"Then, who the hell was I taking to..."