Resurrection

“How did you die?” the little girl asked.
I gave her a sideways glance, a smile dancing across my lips.
“Car accident. Very slow death. I’ve been in a coma for a few months. A coma is-“
“I know what a coma is. I’ve been through it all. Yours included.” she interrupted, swinging her feet. She was five, maybe six, years old. However, I could tell she was much older. Her hair was striking, streaked with every natural hair color on the top but, she compared herself to a butterfly, the underneath was every other color imaginable.
It was currently in a braid running down her back and resting on her thighs. Her face was round, cheeks red and skin pale as the moon. She looked and was sized like a very average 6 year old, probably from the US.
“Wrong. I’m not from your world, I just like the look of your people.” she chimed, smirking.
Her eyes were often a brown color, but she, just like the rest of her appearance, had the ability to change most of her herself. Everything except her age was up to her; she just couldn’t make herself appear older than now.
“I lost todays bet with Life. So she gets to be dark and I get to be light. Which seems a bit backward since I’m Death but oh well! I hope I win tomorrow. I love the beauty of colors. Losing isn’t bad, but it’s bland. Blank. And I can’t really decorate yet, so…whatever.” she said, taking a deep breath after such a long paragraph.
I laughed, tipping my head at her. “Okay, okay. So is this death? No heaven? No hell?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I mean, you’re an atheist and this place is based on belief. So…yea, there is no Heaven, no Hell, and no God. Just waiting for my lousy, and late, sister.” she said, shrugging.
“Sounds like me. Except I’m pretty sure people evolved on their own, evolution and all that jazz. You…I don’t know what you are. Or why I’m here when I should be seeing my life flash before my eyes as my brain fires off every ounce of energy for the next 7 minutes or so.” I said, frowning and letting out a sigh. She made me sort of question everything.
“Don’t try too hard. I’d imagine in the next life you’ll be different.” she said, smiling.
“Yea, probably. I’ll be binary and all the stuff.” I said, jokingly.
“Humans are very strange, and that coming from me! I mean, what is the problem with people not feeling comfortable with others being happy in their own skin?” she mused, rolling her now gray eyes.
“It’s considered abnormal. Still, I don’t know. I haven’t exactly been inside their heads.” I said, shrugging. I wasn’t particularly interested in the people who thought being anything other than straight and binary in your gender was abnormal and that “abnormal” person was broken. I wasn’t broken.
There was an extremely long pause, the girls eyes focused on the ground.
“How did you really die?” she said, lifting her face, her eyes almost black now, iris and pupils wider than before. It looked like she was wearing sclera contacts.
“…Does it actually matter?” I asked, sighing. Was I such a bad liar anyone could catch me in the act?
“Lying is the absolute opposite of learning and that seriously makes me mad. I put trust in people that they tell me the truth. You just snapped it right in half.” she snarled, leaning forward.
Her fingertips brushed my temples and the white world we were in turned very dark very suddenly. The new rooms light came from a few flickering candles, but I knew that wet, gushing sound from movies.
There was a man standing in front of a bed, hovering over the body of a dead, and now mutilated, woman. The room was covered in blood, chunks of…organs strewn about. In the man’s hand was the heart of the woman, but his left hand was tucking a knife into his pocket. With the heart in his hand, he turned and left the eviscerated woman in her bed, passing right through me. Bile was rising fast in my through, the scene horrendous and only imagined about by the worst kind of people.
In the corner was the little girl, holding the hand of the, absolutely healthy looking, victim. The woman looked horrified, but the scene cut abruptly as the woman opened her mouth…
I was thrown, violently, back into the white room, gagging and dry heaving as I knelt on the floor, hands pressed against my mouth.
“How did you actually die?” the girl said, calm ,staring at me with eyes so pale they looked translucent. I gasped for air, tears streaming down my cheeks. My jacket, baggy and normally very flowy, was sticking to my wrists and sides. I frowned, lifting my hands from my face and pressing them against the bare floor. When I pulled my hand away from the white floor, a bloody print was left behind.
“How. Did. You. Die?” she spat, breathy heavy and fast. She was extremely mad.
“Sounds like you already know. Do I have to spell it out for you?” I spat back, sarcastic. It was probably a really bad idea to be sarcastic with this girl, but it was my defense mechanism.
“Do you know who Genghis Khan is?” she asked, walking towards me slowly, like she had all the time in the world.
I scrambled back, because I didn’t want to watch such a brutal murder all over again, except probably a million times worse. She kept coming anyway, hand raised and bare feet slapping towards me with menace in the stride.
“I killed myself!” I screamed while her fingers still a few inches from my nose. Her eyes went from pale back to a warm brown color. She backed off and sat down. Tables and chairs were invisible and untouchable unless she magically found one, so I didn’t really surprise me now that she was sitting on air.
“Thank you. You hid it really well under those long sleeves. Still, people who kill themselves can’t hide their wounds. Self-inflicted wounds can’t be hidden.” she said, watching the blood drip to the floor off my sleeves. I frowned and let out a quiet sigh.
“I cut up my wrists and sides with a kitchen knife. Brand new. Parents brought it back from their last trip to Japan. It was more of a novelty thing, but still sharp as hell.” I said, touching my side. I had cut as deep as I possibly could without it being a stab wound. I probably hit an artery on my left, because I had just started gushing blood. Everything got really cold and dark after a while, I didn’t even realize I was dead till I woke up here.
“Why?” she said. Crossing her arms and frowning with sadness in those brown eyes.
“I’m going to assume you know what schizophrenia is.” I said, to which she answered with a nod.
“I was diagnosed at 16 with childhood-onset schizophrenia. It destroyed my parents, but since then its only gotten worse. I see things pretty often but I can’t feel anything. I’ve been completely apathetic about the world since I was 14. I couldn’t cry at my grandmother’s funeral, and I laugh when my parents beg me with tears in their eyes to take my pills, but I’m not happy so I’m not sure why I’m laughing.” I said, frowning as I squeezed my fingers.
“That’s…tough. Extremely tough. I’ve had a lot of schizophrenics come through, but only a handful so young.” She murmured. I knew her “handful” was a lot more than five, so I nodded.
“It isn’t exactly common.” I said, running a bloody hand through my hair. Her fingers touched my shoulder, but nothing happened so I sank into the touch.
“Life is coming. You’ll be reborn, be it in the next or last century or age. I hope you do better then.” She said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small black girl skipping out of the light from somewhere to my left. Her curly black hair was up in a frizzy halo, her skin the color of dark chocolate and her eyes the same dark brown as exotic coffee. Her small, pale palm was held out to me.
“Come on. You’re next life awaits you!” she said, all cheerful smiles and bouncing hair.
I glanced nervously between Life and Death, sweating. I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to stay here with Death. What if my next life was harder? Could I handle that?
“Go. Life has set up the best she can. That’s pretty good, all things considered.” Death said, throwing me a wink. She tossed me to my feet with nothing more than a sway of her hand. I stumbled along with Life, walking into a darkness that terrified me.
“Spoiler! You’re going to be a queen. One who becomes great and rules a loving country!” she said, smiling at me, her smile that of the essence of happiness. Life was extremely beautiful, and it struck me as odd. Life on earth was tough, the hardest thing a person could go through. Why exactly was she so beautiful if she was the toughest thing I’d ever experience?
It’s the answerless question, because she took that moment to push me off the edge of an intense blackness, kind of like a black hole in the middle of a gray room.
Then I fell into it, too surprised to even make a noise.
And then everything ended.