CHAPTER ONE: Death
You know all those people who think of someone else when they’re dying? I feel kind of bad saying this, but I wasn’t one of them. And that’s not the worst of it. The second horrible thing that I thought when I was dying was that I hadn’t made my bed and now it would forever be untidy. Yeah, shallow, I know.
My death was terrible, well; deaths really couldn’t be good, could they? That’s against the point, but what I’m trying to say is that I just couldn’t have gone like some old geezer in his sleep, no, my throat just had to spray that sticky crimson liquid and stain the wooden floor. I’ve heard blood stains are hard to get rid of; I hope they are – just to spite my murderer. That’s mean, I know, but hey, I’m dead and all I can do is hope. I probably have no right to call poor Celeste a murderer. God knows, he only slipped on that soap on the ground.
The soap I had thrown at him.
Maybe it was because that I had been the reason of my own death that neither heaven nor hell had accepted me. Maybe it was tricky to decide if it was suicide or murder. I would’ve had a hard time trying to choose, that’s for sure. However, since God has lived for so goddamned long, you’d think he’d have gone through a situation like this already. But no.
I'm not Christian, though it’s probably bad to think that as I float here in the sky, arms folded behind my head, watching the stars and waiting for judgment. And yet, I couldn’t care less. Maybe this was it, maybe I was meant to just be a ghost and stay around to haunt Celeste.
Celeste.
My best mate. The very thought of him made me smile. He’d always been teased because of his absurdly girly name. And to shame, I had been one of them, at first. I hoped he knew that I was sorry for everything that I had done to him.
Including that time that Killer tried to rape him and I had nearly let him. Yeah, those were good times. Thinking back, had I ever done anything good? I have to actually think hard to try and discover one good act that I’ve ever done. I used to . . . poison rodents?
Yeah, that had to be a plus. That had to be. Truly, because if it wasn’t . . . I involuntarily swallowed, the sides of my throat suddenly sticking together. And I really didn’t have a throat; it was slashed basically in half - still red and swollen. It was almost funny, I wasn't even alive and here I was sweating and being all nervous and everything, even still feeling that tingling feeling of blood trickling down onto my shirt.
I feel kind of sorry for Celeste. He’s at the police station now, hands cuffed and stuck behind his back, being violently questioned. I’d heard the voice of a policeman I knew well. We had met more than once or twice.
Hell, we saw each other every time I got caught robbing the local store . . . which had to be, at the very least, every day. I think I regret some of my life’s decisions. And the thing I think I’ll regret the most is not making my bed. Rest assured there’s a very good reason why I desperately wanted to make my bed, no, make that a very, very good reason.
Stashed just under the top plain blue sheet on my bed was ZOO weekly. I stole it only a day ago and had been . . . pleasantly enjoying the very nice pictures inside; well, that had been last night.
Now, my body was probably in one of those beds at the hospital. I think it could’ve been the morgue, but I hadn’t exactly followed the ambulance. I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I think I had it pretty right about now.
I’d hate to see my mother’s expression when they came to her door, asking if they could search my room for evidence. And then they’ll find the porn, in my bed, under my bed, in the cupboards and saved onto my computer.
I took a deep breath, kind of hard when your throat’s been sliced in half, and yet I managed. I had to get to that ZOO magazine before the police decided to get to my house and unlock the triple locks on my doors. Iron will set in, and I was off.
The good thing about being dead, if there was such a thing as a good thing, was the fact that I could fly. I had always been one of those little boys who had looked up to figures like Superman and Spiderman and countless others, though they hadn’t had any movies made lately.
And now, well, I could fly.
It somehow lost of little bit of its excitement and adrenaline rush, as, well, I was, you know, dead. Yeah, kind of a downer, hey? I was drifting along when suddenly something sprung out from underneath me grabbing at my feet.
And I’m a kind of ghost thing, so the bloody thing holding onto me could only be one of two things. And since it wasn't coming from above I took a guess, kicked at it and flew higher. Then I looked down.
Underneath me, grinning like the devil himself, and maybe he could’ve been, was this red flaming lanky handsome man. Now, I’m not gay, but I have to admit that this dude was goddamned good looking. Now wonder why people chose hell.
I felt sorry for all those homosexuals who had been lured in. Bloody cheats, those devils. It was safe to say that since this red guy was from hell he probably couldn’t abide the open sun.
And incidentally I was flying directly above him blocking the blinding light from reaching him. I drastically changed direction and the goddamned - seriously, if he was a demon God would’ve damned him - demon swiftly followed me. I swore under my breath, the fact that I was panting was a little beyond me.
Wasn’t I dead?
Seriously, they really just don’t tell you this stuff in school, do they? There should be like this lecture, and a lecturer who comes to your school once a year, like a Sex Education Teacher, and tells you about what happens when you die.
Because apparently, when you die you can still breath, feel pain and have consciousness. And that basically meant all religions were wrong. I felt a strong dislike for every person on this earth; even the ones that were atheists, because no doubt they believed in Darwin’s theory and not in heaven and hell.
I have half a mind just to come back to life and tell them they’re ALL wrong. JUST to do that, I was pretty much happy dying again after that . . . also to get rid of all the porn in my room.
The man was still following me. I let out an exasperated sigh, then something happened which I really didn’t understand, I began to run out of energy and slowly I was dropping out of they sky.
It was like I was running on baked beans and now I was out of gas. Then my energy level rapidly dropped, and I fell. As I hit the floor, and felt the impact hit me as if I were alive, I hated being dead. It all seemed too . . . stupid.
And I was stupid.
And if it were stupid to me, well, that usually meant it was smart and I just couldn’t understand it. Comprehension of the fact I understood that I knew what I was thinking about hit me. Maybe dying had actually raised my IQ. Awesome.
Being dead didn’t seem so bad now, except for the bloody demon, not literally – he wasn't covered in blood or anything, was still stalking me. He just wouldn’t get off of my tail. The fact that my tailbone was currently seated on the cement was a little bit of a new thing to me.
Because if he was on my tail . . well, that meant I had fallen on top of him. I split both my legs in half, looked down and there he was. His chest sitting firmly underneath my derriere and his head placed askew under my feet. My feet drew my attention.
Well, what I mean by they “drew my attention”, is that they made me take in a startled large gasp of breath.
I was wearing odd socks.
But not only that, well, it wasn't really that, but it was that my feet were solid. Not see-through like the rest of my body. My lips crumpled into a pout. And I shot the bleeding demon underneath me an accusatory glare.
He stared up at me from between my wide open legs. The look in his eyes made me angry, as if it were my fault for the way we had ended up. I was a little loss for what to do.
Was I dead, or not?
“Hey, I’m dead, right?” I asked the guy I still sat on.
“No, you fucking retard,” was his reply.
“Oh,” was mine.
“You’re friggin undead. Stupid.” He swore after that, I didn’t catch all of it as he rolled me off the top of him.
I raised an enquiring eyebrow at him, “Undead?”
And as I waited for his reply I held back a fit of laughter. Lol, this dude was a crack pot; literally he had lost it, thinking I was undead, of all things!
“How else do you describe your current state?” he remarked, dusting off dirt as he stood.
“Well, we’re currently having this drought.”
He snapped at me then, his eyes flaring up like a fire, “You know what I mean!”
He cast a pointed stare at my solid feet. I stared at them too. Never thought feet could have ever been this . . . unusual and interesting. If I did, I think I would’ve paid more attention to them when I was alive.
“So, you’re saying, I’m like a zombie?”
“No, you fuck. You’re undead. Do you ever listen?” he practically spat out his answer.
“Well, dad always insisted tha-”
“Well, you’re fucked up, aren’t you?” he cut me off.
I felt something writhe underneath my skin as my anger stirred, “My father’s dead.”
“Oh, well that’s nice. Now, onto more important matters at hand. Who Raised you?”
“Raised?” I let the word roll on my tongue.
“Yes, you complete idiot. Who killed you and brought you back to life?”
Celeste had killed me, but he was so not capable of apparently bringing me back to life. Well, no point in lying to this man, “I don’t know.”
“Cheh. You really are helpless and to think if I hadn’t got to you before they did, you’d be dead.”
“Aren’t I?”
“You’re UNDEAD. You fool, listen when I tell you things!” He was yelling at me now. Well, he kind of had a right to do so. I was acting like a jerk.
I froze in my frame of thoughts. I had just called myself a jerk. I had never done that before. I’m perfect! I sent the demon, well, I knew he couldn’t be one, a murderous glare. He was obviously controlling my brainwaves.
“And what’re you?” I asked, my eyes narrowed ridiculously.
“A demon.”
Shit. I had been right. I tried to edge away from him, moving my solid feet in the direction of the road. Demon took a step and was once again in front of me.
I tried to do it again and Demon repeated his step. This continued for a while, frustration growing on Demon’s face and he randomly burst out with, “Stop it! Can’t you see you’re going to get nowhere?”
“Why?”
“Undead are impossible. There should be nothing like you in existence, people fear the unknown and they know nothing about you,” he replied coldly.
“And?” I asked unnervingly, or I least I hoped it was.
He gave me this really hard glance as if he was trying to discern how stupid I was.
“You’re undead. So if they find you, you’re dead,” he finally managed to growl out.
“But it wasn’t my choice to die!”
He flicked a little lint from his ear onto me, “So, that doesn’t mean anything.”
I think this guy enjoyed pain, well, pain in others, sadistic not masochistic. Well, he was a demon; I suppose that kind of excused it. Kind of. Then he placed his hand onto my head and began to sift through my mind.
Events replayed through my mind like it was yesterday. Actually, it was yesterday.
I grinned, “So you have to wash the dishes and the dog?”
Celeste laughed a little bit nervously, “Yeah.”
A plan began to form in my mind, and my grin turned insanely evil, “What if you do both at the same time?”
“How are we going to do tha-” he stopped mid-word as comprehension dawned on his face. Suddenly he adopted the same creepy smile I imagined I had.
“Yes, let’s do that.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, B1?” I asked as I reached for the dog that was running around my feet.
Celeste reached for the soap, water and a porcelain plate, “Oh, I think I am B2.”
Then he dipped a cup into the sink and splashed it all over me, at first the shock of the hot water hit me then I reacted and ran over next to him, dog under my arm.
Together we said simultaneously as we aimed another cup of water at each other, “It’s washing time!”
I shoved the dog into the sink and our water fight began. By the time we were finish the floor was completely soaked and the dog was drenched. We were both wet from head to toe and then Celeste reached for one more object to wash.
I completely ignored him as something rested in my gaze. The cake of soap. My grin still hadn’t been wiped off yet and as I scooped the soap up and aimed at Celeste’s back it widened crazily.
Then I shouted, “Think fast!”
And I pelted the soap at his back. Celeste turned around after the soap had slammed into his back, leaving a white bubbly line as it slid down and onto the floor. His mouth was squashed into humorous anger.
Then he took a step, the object still in hand.
I watched, frozen in time, as he stepped onto the cake of soap, and it seemed as it I could see everything very slowly. Celeste’s foot hit the soap, slid smoothly off and slipped back more until it hit the wall of the sink, his balance was off and his upper body flew forward. He threw his hands in front of him to try to regain footing, but the object was still very much held tightly in his hands.
It slit my throat into two. The object had been a newly bought butcher’s knife, left alone to wash last so we wouldn’t hurt each other. I remember how we had decided on that before any of this started.
The shock in Celeste’s eyes was probably more acutely startled than my own as he realised that he had stopped falling and that the blade was stuck. His gaze had lifted to meet mine. The pain was almost unbearable. My vision was already growing black.
Blood flowed into his eyes, my blood. He had always been shorter than me, more so now I noticed it as he blinked rapidly to understand what was happening. Control of my body was rapidly disappearing. Pain numbed and dispersed into nothingness.
My hands dropped limply to my sides and my knees gave way. Celeste’s grip on the knife ripped off as he dropped with me. Panic flashed in his eyes. My world was slowly being consumed by blankness.
I could only just hear the words accompanied to Celeste’s mouth opening and the tears running down his bloodied cheeks, “Azrael! No, how . . NO!! Don’t leave me! What’ll I do? I can’t live without you! PLEASE! I’ll keep all your secrets, I’ll bail you out every time you steal a ZOO magazine! Just . . DON’T DIE!”
I could feel, more than see his hands on my neck trying to keep both halves of the wound together. He shook me back and forth, snapping my head up and down. A weak smile formed on my face. I had forgotten to make my bed and hide ZOO weekly. Finally, death caught me in its talons and dragged me away. My bed. . . . A pity . . .
The demon recoiled, his hand flying off of my head, tears were pouring down his face. I watched in frozen assessment, then something salty fell into my open mouth and I realised that I too, was crying.
I was once again at loss for words.
The demon was too. As if something had physically struck him he suddenly stood up straight, his piercing red gaze tuned on to me, “Your name is Azrael?”
My voice came out, dry and breathless, still trying to hide the racking of my body, “Yes, why?”
He shook his head in amazement, the tears still flowing freely, “They say he chooses his with amazing specific needs. And yet. . .”
He ran his gaze along me and my sobbing form.
“And yet, I have no idea with what criteria he judges by. Also how could you be --- son?”
I didn’t exactly hear what was before son, but I imagined it wasn’t very important, seeing as he was crying as well. Demon wiped away his tears with his leather gloved hand and lifted my sorry self to my feet.
“Come on. You’ll have to meet him one day. It might as well be today.” He said gazing off to the left.
There was only one person I could think of. Only ONE. I discovered then, as I attempted to say something that my mouth was too dry to speak anymore and instead I mouthed the word, “God?”
Demon let out this harsh laugh and shook his head, “No, you fool. Hades.”
I let out a large breath of air, it felt as if I couldn’t get any more back, as if, as he had spoken that the oxygen in my lungs had been knocked out with a good punch. I suddenly hated being undead.
I turned my attention to Demon, “So, why the hell am I like this?”
I gestured to my throat which was still twain in two. He shrugged as if didn’t concern him, “I'm just the messenger, maybe the person who retrieved your soul will know . . . that reminds me . . .”
He grabbed my arm and flicked a small razor from his sleeve; I was frozen in pain as he daintily dug it into my skin and carved random letters. It only went into deep enough to make blood bead to the top. The symbols he left behind looked like gibberish to me.
When he finished I withdrew my arm to gaze at it, it was still transparent-like, unlike my feet, but now resting on my forearm were the symbols, “.”
I raised an eyebrow at Demon as I prodded it with a finger, a sharp shooting of pain running up my arm. He was already walking off and was nearly out of sight. I stared at him for a second weighing the pros and cons of following him.
On the plus side I would understand why I wasn't dead, but on the negative side, well, I was going to meet Hades. I was pretty sure that meeting Hades meant I would never go to heaven.
For a moment I hesitated. Did I really want to follow this violent, red, demon into the depths of hell? I watched as his back retreated.
Then I ran after him, a smile on my face.
Yes, I finally conceded, yes I did.
Where we ended up was not what I expected, after that I think I dropped all my expectations of heaven and hell and god and Hades. Because where I found myself was titled in large flashing fluoro lights were the words, “A Good Time.”
I snuck a look from the slightly ajar door and what I saw was not something a 16 year old male like me cannot react to. Inside were several naked women flouncing up and down, their. . other body parts following as they moved.
I stood there my mouth open, entranced, when all of the sudden someone walked through me. It felt kind of weird, you know when you stay still for a while and your leg goes numb, you know that it’s a part of yourself, but you can’t move it.
Well, it felt like that, but it was the opposite. I knew it wasn’t me and I couldn’t move, because as I reached forwards at the same time the man decided to rudely step through me, my hands had slipped through the door.
I hated being undead. A lot more than I had hated it before.
Fortunately, the interruption of the man walking through me had shocked me into switching off all other bodily functions and I stared down at my pants, willing for there to be nothing . . . defined there.
Thankfully, there wasn’t and I let out a sigh in relief. Goddamn the demon for leading me here. I suddenly wondered if he had been leading me on the whole time.
Then he appeared in front of me, his eyes flaring red and his golden hair somehow fanning out even though there wasn’t a gust of wind around at all, and he grabbed my arm.
A thought occurred to me, how could he see me and touch me, when that man and all other solid things couldn’t? And as I thought that his grip on me slipped straight through.
Once again I felt that cold numbing sensation in my arm. I was wordless. Was my physical composition changing because of my beliefs? Demon made another bid to snatch my arm and I imagined him taking a hold of it.
His hand tightened firmly onto my skin, his nails digging into the under of my forearm, once again drawing blood. Then he dragged me through the strip club, me, the guy who couldn’t keep his eyes off the jumping women.
One slid up and down a pole, her tongue protruding from her mouth with one finger resting on her shiny lips. I suddenly imagined what she could do with that mouth. . .
As I was lugged through the crowd my gaze rested solely upon that one woman, I was, I guess, entranced and awed by her. Also, well . . . well, the other thing goes without saying. And I could feel it burning, literally.
Finally, and thankfully, I lost her in the flood of people throwing money at her and I turned my attention to the rather questionable bulge in my pants. I bit my lip and a brilliant thought struck me like a brick.
If I imagined that I could be untouchable and I was, did that also mean I could imagine that my . . . bulge was gone and it would be?
I closed my eyes tight and squashed my face into concentration. I envisioned my pants completely flat and that . . . particular feeling to go away. Suddenly, I realised that I was no longer being dragged.
I opened my eyes wide, my head still titled down to see if my predicament had disappeared, it had. That had to be one of the pros about being undead, but the fact that if anyone found out about me, well, that kind of outweighed it. If they found out about me, apparently I was dead.
Demon was gesturing wildly for me to be silent, a single finger positioned in front of his mouth making a horribly loud shushing noise. To me shushes are really against the point of silence. It’s like the people who really didn’t want to be quiet, but were, did that so they could make noise as well.
Well, at least that was what I thought.
My drastic change of surroundings confounded me. I could’ve sworn that I had been in a strip club only seconds beforehand and now, well, I was, well . . . in what I only could describe as hell.
Flames flared and curled around us, making it muggily hot and dangerous. The ground, which I currently rested upon, was like dried molten lava and the sky . . . it was black and looked endless, like some sort of chasm, except, it was up and not down.
My gaze instantly flicked over to the person resting on a large throne, made out of what appeared to be bones and skulls bound tightly together by veins and muscles.
I hazarded a guess that this person was most likely Hades.
Hades was impressive to say the least. Not what I thought the devil would look like. But as I said beforehand I had dropped all expectations of everything, yet . . . that didn’t stop me from being shocked out of my skull.
Well, if I had a skull at that moment. Though as I imagined that I could be scared out of my skull, it was most likely that I could be literally hanging out of my skull. Hades had this grin on his face; a satisfied grin. Like the cat that got the cream.
His eyes were two glowing charcoal pieces and his skin was shiny, crimson looking very much akin to blood. Two ebony white horns twisted out of his skull, contrasting with his skin colour. A forked tail swung from behind him and rested on the side of his throne was Hades’ weapon; a pronged triton to possibly poke people to death. Or eat them.
Other than those few things that were abnormal, Hades looked pretty normal. Actually Hades looked very normal and familiar. My mouth dropped open as I realised why he looked familiar; and who he was.
The word I managed to sputter out was, “G-gra-grand-granddad?”
Hades/Granddad laughed, “Been a while, hey Azzie?”
I think my mouth dropped wide enough for several fists to fit inside it, “What are you doing in hell?”
My voice was a lot higher then I had intended it to be, bordering on shrill. Hades/Granddad raised an eyebrow, “Well, Azzie, I rule here now.”
“How the hell do you rule here?” I imagined I sounded exactly like my mother when she asked me why the dishes weren’t washed. You couldn’t shake off nagging genes like that.
Hades’ smile widened to show little pointed teeth protruding from his mouth, “Well, I’m the evilest of the evil here.”
Demon chose to speak up then. I resented the fact that he had stayed silent, that little ass wiping good looking demon. He began to lecture me on the finer points of hell government, “The eviler you are, the higher your rank becomes. As your granddad was a very nasty man, he arrived already at a remarkable high position. It was only a matter of time before he recycled the old Hades and sent him back off to Earth.”
That lone remark had all kinds of wrong in it. Granddad hadn’t been that evil, even though he used to spank me for looking at him . . . well, okay maybe he deserved to be Hades. The second part of what Demon had said hit me.
“Granddad recycled the old Hades’?” incredulousness crept into my voice like an assassin crept in for a kill.
Demon nodded, “Indeed.” The hidden message behind that that only I heard was, “You idiot.”
I looked over to Hades for confirmation, he nodded so slightly it was as if he head had only twitched, but I could tell by that smile on his face, the one that was very akin to a lecherous old man who had found a naked lady at his house, that it wasn’t only a tic.
I turned to Demon, “And who the hell are you?”
He stared at me, resentment burning deep within, “I’m Drake.”
“Drake the Demon. Yes, that is fitting.” I muttered to myself.
“What?” he looked up at me, alarmed.
I smiled a little, “Oh, nothing.”
Hades snatched the spot light once again, “Now, what I’m interested in, is you Azzie, not Drake.”
I could tell that Drake did not like that comment. No, judging by that horrible sneer to his mouth, it was very clear that Drake hated that comment. Hades continued, “How come you’re alive?”
I shrugged, I mean, how was I supposed to know that? That was like asking me what size bra Marilyn Monroe wore. Even though it was interesting, I had absolutely no idea. I said as such, my reply made Hades smile.
He lifted one of his black, lifeless eyes to look at me and I looked back, not at all disconcerted, though I was concerned he might start spanking me any second. Those memories always lingered. I shuddered at the thought.
Hades began, “Azzie, I want you to work for me.”
My mouth once again flew open, it could’ve been a potential fly trap, “What?”
“You,” he pointed at me with a clawed hand, “work,” he mimed a little shovelling, “for,” he held up four fingers, “me,” he finished with a satisfied point at himself.
I stared at him in incomprehension. My gaze switched over to Drake. Drake’s golden hair appeared to be letting off steam. I don’t think he was very happy with this offer. Well, maybe he would’ve been happy with this offer if it had been offered to him and not me, but since Drake was already working under Hades . .
Hades rolled his eyes, as if he were annoyed by me, and I took some satisfaction in the fact that he was. He repeated his question. I took a deep breath and thought, I think I heard Drake mutter under his breath, “This is going to take a while.”
It was about as clear as crystals that this was a bad idea. But something in my fingers were just itching for me to say yes. As if fate wanted, no, needed me to do this. And maybe it did. I snapped to Hades, “I’ll do it.”
He nodded and blew at me. At first I didn’t know how to react, then I felt as if I had been insulted or offended. Anger buckled inside my stomach, but I held still. His breath iced around me, frozen in a sphere like fashion. My tummy did a back flip as I felt a shift in balance and then I was consumed by darkness.
Then suddenly I was back in the strip club. Drake hovering around my shoulder and people still cheering pole-girl on. I decidedly ignored her this time. I wouldn’t embarrass myself now. It was hard to follow through with what I had told myself and my eyes kept on straying to the moans and oohs and ahhs over the other side.
Drake cast me a shrewd, harsh glare and stormed off. I stood there, at a loss for what to do. Then I realised something. My fingers were still tingling. I looked down at them. My fingertips and nails were solid. I gazed back down at my feet.
My left eye twitched as I registered something.
Both my feet and my legs up to my knees were solid. It felt a little awkward to have solid feet and solid fingers, as if they were weighing my body down. They probably were, seeing as I was see-through when I wanted to be. I let out a breathy sigh.
A man turned towards me in confusion and looked about, most likely looking for the person who had let out such a loud noise and disturbed him. Then as if something had hit him he turned away and started yelling.
I paused and wondered what had set him off.
Then I realised what he had been looking at last. My feet and lower legs. Maybe . . . maybe being solid meant that I had lost my whole invisibility. I momentarily pondered over what exactly the man had seen. The thought of him seeing two dismembered legs was more than amusing.
Then as people began to approach me and my solid legs, it didn’t seem so funny. Someone decided to walk up and poke one. To my surprise they poked the very top, were the solid part was still connected to see through part.
Their finger slipped into my leg and it felt extremely odd. Then the person began to scream at the top of his lungs, “DEAD BODY!”
He extracted his finger, which was covered in my blood, blood I owned, and ran for his life. I stood there feeling extremely confused. If I was slowly getting more solid, what did that mean about my real body?
I could only assume one thing. If I was undead and my body was not here, but was at a hospital and my body was slowly appearing here. Well . . . I ran as well, hearing my feet clop against the floor again was like a relief. I hadn’t noticed how the silence in my walking had annoyed me until now.
I headed towards the hospital because that, by my reasoning’s, it could only mean one thing. If my body was appearing where I was, that meant my body was disappearing from where I wasn't.
Luckily I knew my way around downtown. Well, it really isn’t downtown perse, but it is the lowest level of society you can reach, and so people usually call it downtown while it really was about in the centre of the city.
I lived in downtown. Now, don’t you go all high and mighty and start looking down on my like you’re all superior. I would’ve lived in uptown, except my mother was too poor to afford life’s luxuries like a safe neighbourhood. And don’t go bad-mouthing my mother either, she’s awesome.
After a while I ended up at the downtown hospital/morgue. Strange thing was they were the same place. Pessimistic people, always thinking that the people they treated or performed surgery on would die.
The majority of them did, so I guess they had right to cut back on expenses and just join up with a morgue. Unfortunately, as always, my timing was crap, to say the least, and just as I curved around the block to sprint down that 100m stretch towards the glass automatic sliding doors, something horrible person flipped a sign at the front and locked them.
“Closed.”
I suddenly hated all laws and rules. If there weren’t any people wouldn’t be tempted to break them, now would they? Trying to regain breath, I rested my hands on my legs and was hunched slightly over. I was still attempting to get my head around the fact that I was undead.
I mean, what exactly did that entail? That I could feel pain and run out of energy and, yet be dead? I wish that I had some extra time to question my granddad . . . well, maybe I should start calling him Hades; granddad might be a little disrespectful.
When I was thoroughly less exhausted I rubbed my hands up and down my cheeks, nearly giving myself something close to a carpet burn. Then something occurred to me. They couldn’t close a hospital, ever, I mean it was like one of the only things they just couldn’t close.
I began to look for the sign which indicated emergency accidents. It was thankfully only a few hundred metres away, situated around the other half of the building. I followed the signs, until I came to this large ominous door looming evilly in front of me.
Suddenly I didn’t even want to step into hospital anymore. Seriously that door put me off doing anything else. As I slumped onto the ground, out of breath and energy, I spied something which tingled with familiarity.
Symbols were carved into the doors, “”
I stared at it for a while. Actually for a long while. I just couldn’t believe that those symbols were everywhere. But they had to be, because if they weren’t that meant only one thing. Either it was they were everywhere or that Drake had purposely made sure I couldn’t get back to my own body.
This meant he had to have gotten here before me. I suddenly missed flying. I pondered over the fact why I couldn’t fly anymore. I guess what they say is true, you don’t realise what you have until you lose it.
Well, what they say is true about flying, I’m not too sure about anything else. Sitting there on the ground, staring at those symbols which made my heart race out of my body I realised something.
I was hungry.
Well, not really, not that hunger you get when you haven’t eaten. No, I was hungry for information. That fact that I could be peckish about facts, meant that my IQ had unquestionably been raised. I mean, seriously, I had never been interested in anything other than things juvenile delinquents did.
I was a juvenile delinquent, so the sudden appetite for data was such a surprise. It basically shocked my whole system into hyper drive. Seriously, if you knew what I meant you’d really want me to take it back.
I think I’ll tell you anyway.
My blood started pumping at furious rates, spraying the door with my blood through my unhealed throat. I was pretty sure every vein in my body had popped out looking very disgusting and non-desirable. The slightest gust of wind was like a hurricane, knocking my mind off balance until I registered that it was only a small breeze. Smell, I’d rather not go into details about smell, let’s just say that the aroma of undead blood didn’t make people hungry.
My eyes, though watering, drew in every detail, every nick in the door, every notch, when finally I saw what I had been searching for. What I had been searching for wasn’t apparent until I had found it, AKA I had absolutely no idea what I had been doing when I had been staring so intently at the bloody terrifying door.
A large X appeared in my extra-hyped eyesight. And I reached for it, fear coiling in my stomach like a snake, wriggling around. Bile, I felt it rise but it gurgled down the open part of my throat staining my shirt brown, and rather unusually orange. Seriously, I hadn’t even eaten carrots, why was vomit always orange?
Well, mine was anyway.
My mouth twisted into a total squashed look of disgust, but then as I leaned in, I put my finger directly on the X, the awful terror that had crept up on me disappeared in that exact instance. I stared at my finger and the door.
The first thought that popped into my head was; awesome.
Taking my finger off of the door, the symbols now had disappeared and so had the X. My lust for information was gone and so was erratic heart beat. I let out a breath of air, I hadn’t even known I had held.
Then I reached for the door and attempted to pull it open, it didn’t budge. Letting out a frustrated yell, I began to tug on it with all my strength. It moaned and creaked but it wouldn’t budge.
I wondered if Drake had put another symbol thing on the door. Frantically I searched for it, until I finally found something important worth noting. There was a sign on the door, a sign normal people wouldn’t miss.
“Push.”
Goddamnit, I swore under my breath and pushed the door open with such force, that I heard one of the hinges snap. Inwardly I mocked the people who had made such dodgy doors as I headed towards the morgue. I turned around to look at it for a second and watched in amazement as the remnants of the symbols appeared once again. Fear wisped by me and I ran for my life, once again.
I knew my way around the hospital. And that was thanks to Celeste, he had inadvertently ended up here one way or another. Poor guy, just too goddamned nice, I swear.
It took only a matter of seconds to end up at the morgue. I’m pretty sure you all know what morgues look like. Exactly like in all those horror movies and TV series. Cold, clean and dark. I stared at all the drawers stuck on top of each other in columns and rows built into the wall, they were all labelled differently. There was only one which caught my eye.
“John Doe - Unclaimed.”
Steadily ignoring the “un-claimed” label, I wondered, wasn’t that the name they gave to bodies they couldn’t identify? I tip-toed over, seriously, I didn’t want to disturb the dead. I wondered momentarily if when I annoyed myself, that meant that I was disturbing the dead.
Shaking my head I attempted to pull the drawer open, but of course it was still latched closed. The daunting environment was messing with my common sense, well, if I had any.
I clicked open the latch and gripped the handle. Taking a deep breath to ready myself I twisted and pulled. The drawer slipped out like a fish in wet hands. The first thing I noticed was that there wasn’t any feet or legs up to the knees. The second thing was the smell.
It was safe to say that undead blood while in hyper-drive smelt better than the body in front of me. I stared at it and got a rather nice glimpse of me naked. As they had somehow thought it better to remove my clothes for some reason, my body was covered, well, really wrapped in a white sheet.
My body’s skin was pallid and goose-flesh white. I held back the urge to vomit as I gazed over my body. My body’s finger tips were missing and I could see the bone and flesh exactly where they stopped as if they had been severed.
I took a deep swallow, closed my eyes and counted to 10 then opened them and continued to look. My body’s eyes weren’t closed and their dull steel blue gaze stared up blankly into nothingness. I suddenly missed the way they had been before, they had been baby blue when they had stared back at me in a mirror. Now, it was my body’s throat that had caught my attention.
The morgue worker’s must've sewed it up, because now at least it looked as pale as the rest of my body and was closed. I stared at their handy work, bending over to get a closer look. Yeah, I could just see the stitches. Nice, at least when they buried my body Celeste wouldn’t feel so guilty about what he had done. If they ever got to bury it.
Because if I knew Celeste, and I did, he would take the burden of my death upon himself and blame himself until eternity ended. Of this I was sure.
My body’s usually handsome face was dull of colour and life and my lips were deathly blue. As I gazed at myself I suddenly realised that for once in my life I looked as though I was at rest, as if I could finally sleep without the knife under my pillow.
In death, my jaw line was strong, but not too pronounced and my nose sat there looking very good looking indeed. If it hadn’t been myself, I would’ve gone so far as to say that I looked like a dead angel.
My blonde hair had lost its shine, its curly bobs encompassing my head looked flat and so far from their usual bouncy selves that had never wanted to sit still. Not anymore, they just sat there, as if, well, as if they were dead.
And they were.
Tears formed into the corner of my eyes as I fell towards my body. I was dead, that was it. In that second I accepted the situation as it was. I wasn’t dead, I was undead. And being undead was meant to be impossible, so therefore I was impossible. Yet people said nothing was impossible, so was I nothing?
As I fell onto my body thinking these thoughts a strange feeling crept up through me as if a bug had gotten under my skin was crawling through my veins. Tears swam down my face as I suddenly realised the throbbing pain in my throat had disappeared.
For a while now I had ignored that very pain, the pain that I knew had killed me, but as I acknowledged that I was undead the body underneath my sobbing form split into a million pieces. Of which flew into me. Pieces rose from a bin nearby, probably the organs they had removed and joined the fray. They entered through my skin, piercing every pore and taking root. Sharp pains covered my entire self.
And as sudden as my tear fits, I was once again whole. My body was no longer lying on the drawer, no, my body was once again me. I lifted a hand to stare at it. I was solid once again.
I waved it around and poked it. It was no trick, I was a whole human being. There had to be some catch to this. There had to be, it wasn’t like I was human again for no reason, it wasn’t possible. If I knew anything about being undead, and I didn’t, nothing happened for any reason.
I hysterically span around the room, knocking things over, splaying the room with utensils used for autopsies and basically making a mess of things. I suddenly realised what was happening, as my blood began to race.
It was that feeling.
Hunger.
I was hungry for knowledge. This time thankfully no blood spurted out my throat as it was now sewn closed. But my thoughts flickered through my head, 1000 per second. Heart rate increased to the beat of tango and my breath came and went faster then light.
My eyes were now searching the cold, clean and dark room. Searching for something that would satisfy its need, its lust. My teeth gritted as my gaze rested upon something lying askewer on the floor. A report.
A report labelled, “John Doe.”
Hyper-me dissipated as I reached for it, confusion etched into my frown. I slowly stood and picked it up. A voice sounded behind me, “OI! What’re you doing here?”
Then I turned to him. It looked like a doctor. He was wearing a white coat and had these really thick glasses propped up on his nose.
His whole face turned white and his eyes went the size of saucepans, magnified even more so by his oversized glasses. The poor guy, must’ve been the morgue director who had been looking after me. He probably had been the one who had stitched up my throat. Must’ve been the shock of his life to see a dead person walking.
I choked on laughter as I walked by his frozen form. Smiling, I all but bobbed out of that morgue, a little tag still attached to my big toe, stating my time of death. It suddenly occurred to me that I was naked.
The morgue worker’s eyes followed me, still as a statue. Then he crumpled into the floor. I raised an eyebrow at his fainted form, then continued to walk. I had never been so happy to have a real body back and not one I could will into being untouchable.
Heading towards the exit I passed a patient’s room. A pair of clothes sat folded neatly on a chair next to the sleeping teenager. He looked about my age and my size judging by his form under the sheet, but I couldn’t tell exactly what he looked like in the dark.
An idea formed in my mind, as I looked down at my own naked body. I snuck in towards the chair and the folded clothes, reached towards it and just about had it when a hand snaked up and latched onto my wrist.
“What’re you doing, thief?”
That voice, I knew that voice. I thought back, it seemed like forever since I had heard it. The teenager sat up in his bed, eyes muck-filled and still sleep ridden. I think we both registered the same thing at the very same time. Both our eyes widened.
“Azrael?” he asked, his voice trembling.
I stared into his deep, dark eyes and my mouth dropped open, “Celeste?”
.
*nervous laugh* I actually did lol in my mind when you asked that. Eheh . . 
