Death Dancer

Chapter Three

New York is utterly amazing. I had put it down in my list of places I had wanted to travel to before I died, the irony I was only now visiting it now I had now kicked the bucket wasn't lost on me.

When Death had told me I would be living in a different city I had thought I would be living in at least the same country as before. Dagon had explained that new Suicide Dancers must now be assigned to a new country, after previous ones had attempted to contact family and friends. It made sense, I guess, but it didn't make this whole transition any easier.

Dagon seemed nice enough. As my spirit handler I hadn't known what to expect. He held himself as though he had lived a thousand years yet looked as though he was in his late thirties. His dark hair dishevelled, he joked that it was from the wind that surrounded him every time he jumped and that I should make sure to take a hair brush we me at all times or I would end up looking the same. I didn't know whether to believe him or not but made a mental note to look one out that would fit in a bag.

My flat, or apartment as it is called this side of the 'pond' was cosy. One bedroom with an open kitchen, dining room and living space. Had I been alive and working my old job as a primary school teacher, a place like this would have been 0well out of my budget. Everything was high speck and it was right in the middle of the city centre.

Dagon had left this morning after jumping me here and giving me a quick explanation.

"There is nothing too it really." He had said, lounging back on the pristine white sofa's that I had tentatively perched on.

"It will be strange the first time you feel it, but you will know what to do. The team in this city is seven now, including you. New York, San Francisco, London and Paris have the biggest teams. Stress of the city, you know."

I had only nodded along, not having lived in a city as big as this before I had yet to experience the stress he was talking about.

"If you need anything or something urgent comes up then call me. Not everyone is cut out for this job, so don't think of it as failing if you decide you would rather go off into the afterlife your soul has chosen."

He had given me a new phone, his number my only contact.

"The only rule is no romantic relationships. You can make friends, just nothing more. Understand?"

The nod that I found myself doing had been nothing more than mechanical.

"Then good luck with your first day of work." Dagon had smiled, before in a blink of an eye he had disappeared from the sofa.

Jumped. He hadn't just disappeared, he had jumped, I had to remind myself.

A tingle of excitement rose up inside me as I remembered him jumping with me here this morning. The prospect of having something akin to a real life super power was pretty insane.

To be fair, this whole thing was pretty insane. The tingling inside me was quenched by a wave of sadness that flowed over me as though a bucket of ice water had just been tipped over my head.

I was alone. I was dead. I missed my family.

Picking up a newly set up laptop, I tapped the keys until it brought me to a familiar webpage. Tentatively I searched for the name of my mother. I was met by pictures of her and I together, smiling and happy. Underneath, words of condolence, heartbreak and love at her loss.

My loss too.

I scrolled through my father's page, then my sisters and finally onto my best friend Sammy's. Each of their pages filled with words of love and support.