Ashley
I never meant to die. Five simple, but fatal, mistakes led up to my death.
I remember my death-day clearly. It was a Monday, May second to be exact. I was riding my baby blue Beach Cruiser to Starbucks to pick up Mom’s daily latte. She couldn’t survive a day with out one, and today she needed one much more than usual because of a migraine. That was one of the first mistakes I made, going alone. I should have told Dad to come with me. Anyways, I walked into the store, my iPod at full blast. Mistake number two, music at maximum volume. I saw two men, with ski masks on their heads and guns in their hands. I froze, like a deer in headlights. I had only witnessed an armed robbery on the news, and never dreamed it would happen here. The two men saw me, and smirked. The hunters were going in for the kill. In the store, people were screaming, but I couldn’t hear a thing. My mind blanked out any sound other than my knocking knees and racing heart. The man who was slightly taller walked over to me, his gun in hand. I turned to run, but it was too late. Mistake three, not running as soon as I entered the shop. He wrapped his hands around my neck, and squeezed. I tried to force air into my lungs, but he had closed off my airway. I struggled, yet another stupid mistake. He squeezed harder and placed the gun against my head. I was turning purple, and tried desperately to kick his shins. Fifth mistake. He pulled the trigger and I was dead. My inner soul lost its connection to the rest of my body and released itself. I looked at my body and saw it sprawled out on the floor. Blood was pouring everywhere, and if I were alive I would’ve barfed. The men grabbed my limp body, as well as the money in the cash register. I followed them, wondering what they would do to my remaining flesh.
They ended up stuffing my body in the high branches of a tree by Starbucks. It was quite stupid of them. The tree trimmers would come to trim the bushy oak, and then find it. These men were idiots, and that was basically one of the only things I was sure of at the moment.
* * *
I watched my family carefully over the next week, and they were very distraught when I never came back from Starbucks. They put up ‘missing’ signs for me, sent out search parties, paid for ads in the paper, and did everything they possibly could to find me. It was depressing, and kind of pathetic. But I loved them for it. They honestly wanted me back. I wanted to talk to them so badly, but I restrained myself.
I was by the tree when the gardeners came. They made their rounds, trimming trees and what not, and started clipping my tree. When they reached the top branches, I could see a man’s face pale. “Pedro? Come up here a second,” he called down shakily. Pedro climbed up the ladder and his expression mirrored the man’s. He quietly said, “I believe we’ve found Ashley’s body.”
I zoomed to my family’s house at top speed. Being a ghost has a few advantages. You never get hungry, thirsty, or tire. I could run forever and not feel a thing. In a few minutes time I was at our house. My adoptive sister and father crowded around my mother, trying desperately to comfort her. They had gotten the call. I wanted to tell them how I had died, and what had happened, and that everything was okay. I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. There was something forcing my mouth to remain closed, an imaginary hand covering my mouth. I struggled and tried to pry my jaw open, trying desperately to get rid of the mysterious hand covering my mouth. I relaxed, and the hand slipped away. It couldn’t have been a ghost, I thought. Or maybe.... No. It couldn’t be an angel. I am definitely losing my mind. It was just an illusion.
After my mom calmed down enough to speak, she told my father and sister what the men had seen. My sister started to cry softly, and my dad’s eyes started to tear up. They hugged each other as though it was the only thing left that would hold them together. I wanted to join in the hug and tell them that everything was okay, even when it wasn’t. Instead, I just stood there, watching them. After they departed their embrace, I decided to leave. Maybe the police had figured something out.
I lingered around the house for a few more moments before going back to my tree. Several cop cars had pulled up, and were investigating the area again. They analyzed my rotten corpse, and determined the obvious: that I had been murdered, I was strangled before death, and that a person using a gun killed me. I sighed. What good were police in a time like this? I couldn’t tell my family what happened, and all the police could figure out were the simplicities. I would have to take matter into my own hands.
I rushed over to my tree, which had grown to become my home. Maybe it was because my body was like a magnet to my soul, and I liked to be around where they last put it. I sat in the highest of its branches and wondered what I should do. I could not speak the truth because of that mysterious substance I had begun to call The Hand. That invisible thing troubled me. What is it? Why did it stop me? Will it stop me again? I remember thinking. I sat there for a while, thinking and wondering what I should do. At that very moment, a plan struck me. I knew exactly what I would do, but the risks were big and were hard to work around. But it was the only way to save myself from existing on this earth as a ghost forever.
