Life after Death

Chapter Four

"Hey, Hezekiah. Welcome to the Nexus."

Chance Dalton was swimming in my pool and looking as stunning as he was back when he was alive. "How are you here in the Nexus?" I found myself asking out loud.

Chance smiled widely, blue eyes glimmering in the sunlight as he grabbed a towel that appeared out of nowhere. "I was wondering the same thing about you," he replied. "What did you do to end up in here and not in either of the two other places? With you coming from a strongly religious family, I figured that you'd ended up in heaven with your relatives and all."

"Well, I guess you can say that neither God nor Satan believed that I was meant for either of their domains," I replied, keeping my voice steady as the athletic jock motioned me to sit with him near the shaded patio area. "That, and let's just say that I wasn't meant to be born at all in the first place."

"Wait, what?" Chance exclaimed, his face warping into confusion. "How's that?"

I took a deep breath before giving him the abridged version of my arrival in Limbo and how I died. "In a way, I should've seen it coming with the gypsy telling me that I had no lifeline or use in the world," I finished. "But being shot by Mom and Dad was a bit too much if I'm being honest."

"Damn," the jock hissed. "I always liked your parents. They seemed so..."

"Lavish?"

"No, they seemed so real and candid."

I snorted. "Yeah, when it comes down to me being unwanted in their lives. Dad said that I was worth more to the family dead than alive when the time came to give me the axe. But what about you, Dalton? How did you get here?"

Chance looked down. "Same fate that you got stuck with, but I was killed off by dear old Dad," he explained. "Only my family wasn't religious as yours was and they often wished that I wasn't born. At least they got their wish."

I shook my head. "No wonder that you didn't want me to meet your parents," I replied. "I always thought that they'd be proud of you being the star swimmer at Eastlake High."

He looked at me with bitter remorse on his face. "As if," he spat. "The Daltons always valued football and none of the men in the family saw another sport like it. In my home, it was always talks of me going pro one day. They hadn't forgiven me for joining the swim team, my mother giving me looks of pity while my sisters accused me of being gay for joining their sport. In a way, it's ironic for them to say that since I was a closeted pansexual."

That's a kick in the gut that I didn't expect. "Wow," I said. "But now that you're here, what are you going to do?"

Chance shrugged his shoulders. "Just be grateful that I'm here in the Nexus," he commented. "And anyway, I came here because I didn't expect to see you here since my place is next door to yours. So consider me your new neighbor."

"What do you know about that?" I deadpanned, granting him a small smile. "How long have you been here in the Nexus?"

"Four months. Since coming here, I've been taking a look at my family's life if I wasn't born while making new friends here. Speaking of which, they've been hoping to get a good look at you. I gotta warn you, though, that all Nexus residents love newcomers since we're either unwanted in heaven or hell, wished that we weren't born by our friends and families, or a mixture of both."

I nodded, though I wasn't too keen on meeting new people since Dad thought that I was too much of a mouse to be seen by his clientele or any one of my family's social circles. But since I was here, I might as well make nice with everyone. "I'll give it some thought," I said.

"Great," he replied, grinning widely before he stood up with his towel around his waist. "I'm going to head home and change, but come by later and see my place. I'll bring some people who want to see you."

"Looking forward to it. See ya."

I watched him go, his athletic glory filling me with a certain aura that had me unbalanced since we were in school together.

I hated to see him go.

Chance.

Cumulative word-count so dar: 3,874 words.

Looks like Chance Dalton has quite a backstory, fine folks! And I thought that Hezekiah had it bad with his parents! Yikes! Speaking of which, we'll take a look at the Chamblee family in the land of the living while God and Lucifer/Satan talk about Hezekiah and his new life in the Nexus in the next chapter. Stay tuned!

Dedication: NobblerWobbler. Song: "Oh, Maker" by Janelle Monae.

Vote.
Comment.
Share.
Follow.
Add.
FAN!