Nearafter (D.E.A.T.H. bk. 1)

Chapter One [Ethan]

1.

ETHAN GRADY DID NOT SEE IT COMING UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE.

It streaked across the night sky like a shooting star. It moved like lightening, like a laser beam of light fired from some strange, alien contraption, moving far too fast to be any man-made thing.

He had only time enough to wonder if the thing was some product of the cosmos before it came barreling down; silent and bright. He saw the flash first, felt the hot, prickling sensation on the nape of his neck. He spun around. The thing swallowed the empty distance in a breath and tore through Ethan Grady like a mortar round from Hell.

He felt more than heard them coming, the people, thundering across the park, trickling curiously closer to his corpse like a timid parade of roaches, gathering. With mouths and eyes wide, they stared. But they were not concerned with Ethan. Not Exactly. There was something else, something behind him that held their attention.

There were gasps, hands shielding mouths and the sounds of vomiting. A lady shrieked. Her piercing cry cut through the murmur of the ever-growing crowd. Ethan slowly turned. He saw himself lying on his back in a smoldering crater, large enough to fit a small vehicle.

Dead.

He looked quite dead. But he did not feel dead. He did not feel much of anything. And yet his eyes were open, vacant, blank, staring up at the dark sky above. His skin was ashen, his shirt gone, completely incinerated upon impact. And then there was the hole in his chest; a hole so big you could probably fit an entire fist inside and push a whole arm all the way through to the other side. The skin around the hole was black and charred, with thick tendrils of grey smoke wafting up like silver serpents, hypnotically dancing to the tune of death.

He told himself that he was dreaming. A part of him believed this, but a more honest part of him knew better. Death was immediate. Death was painless. Death was sudden.

"What the hell was that thing!" someone asked, shouting. There were speculations of course, random voices, barely louder than whispers rising above the general buzz of the crowd to offer suggestions. But no one could explain what exactly had fallen from the sky, seemingly out of nowhere, to kill Ethan Grady.

Despite the distant wailing of sirens, several people were dialing nine-one-one. Excited fingers tapped at screens. Uncertain voices, still rattled with shock, spoke too loudly to Alliston City dispatch. Other, younger, less mature members of the crowd were snapping photos or very rudely recording video with their camera phones.

No one in the crowd could see Ethan, not his ghost anyway, but that did not mean that he did not feel their horrified stares. All he wanted to do was hide. Confused, embarrassed, and exposed. Somehow, he felt naked. And though the crowd could not hear him, Ethan yelled for them to go away, to leave him alone. He swiped at those who made their way too close to his body, only to see his hand pass completely through them. An uncomfortable chill rippled through his body each time, so he stopped.

All he could do then was watch as the crowd slowly but surely descended upon his body like a flock of curious vultures. Some took it upon themselves to check for a pulse. Others just wanted to get a better look at the kid that had just been sucker punched by the cosmos. But they all were the same. A nuisance. The first thing that Ethan Grady learned about death, was that anger and annoyance (among other things) did not die with the body.

Confused, he turned in circles, looking for a way out of the wave of onlookers rushing by him, rushing right through him, with their morbid curiosities leading them to the crater where his broken body would be.