Elle

The Other Side

It was a funny thing Elle observed how one could sit in the very heart of paradise and still feel a burning hate deep in your chest, a deep pain that never went away, people thought the dead felt no pain, that was all she had felt for one hundred and forty-six years.

The humiliating torture of falling in love with someone who lied and deceived her ultimately betraying her had lingered on, she'd thought she'd done it, she'd thought she had achieved what she'd ached for a chance to feel the sun on her face again, to let the cold gentle drops of rain freeze her cheeks as they descended from the sky like round orbs of liquid.

The chance to run through a meadow the high grass tickling her legs without care for propriety, to set her feet again into water and feel the freshness echo through her, to feel the air pass through her lungs as she breathed in the freshness all around her, to feel her heart beat faster, to feel something other than hate and revenge.

The chance to begin to live where once she had failed so badly, she deserved something after the badness she had gotten inflicted on her if Carmilla could get a happy ever after, why couldn't she?

She thought she'd have her revenge, neither had occurred she'd been betrayed again.

Still, the knowledge that Carmilla got to carry on happily with her life, and she was gone, it stung a lot, stung like a thorn that had burrowed under her skin and refused to leave.

Soft footsteps came into her ear, so soft they were nearly invisible a soft glow appeared in the corner of her vision, a bright yellow and white light that cast with it a gentle heat as though it were a solar flare.

It carried with it a sweet lavender smell like her father's garden at their home before her mother had died and the garden had become too painful for her father to tend to, the sight of the vibrant flowers had driven him to tears many times.

"Ah excellent, I've been looking for you everywhere you are supposed to report to the reception area when you first arrive." A soft lullaby voice said holding a small handheld device in his palm.

"Excuse me, I'm a little busy being dead can you just go and bother someone else?" Elle bit out angrily, why couldn't she ever get what she wanted?

The owner of the voice came into view the light around them dimmed out and there stood a man in a white suit, long blond hair ran down his back like a long flowing yellow river of silk. Whiskey amber colored eyes raised to take her in, running over the black of her gown. "I didn't know they still did the whole mourning thing when someone died."

" Are you trying to be funny? "

"Well, I try but never get any callbacks for rebookings, sadly I think I'm going to have to call my mother and tell her she was right, comedy is not a career, anyway, as I was saying I've been looking for you, I've already sent the other girls back down but you are the very last on my list."

Elle's brows furrowed in confusion. "What are you talking about?" Her perfect English accent grew more intense.

"My list, whenever someone arrives here their name is added to my list, it's my job to guide them in the afterlife."

Elle scoffed. "To have an afterlife doesn't a person also needed to have had a life."

" Not usually, my meaning is Ms. Sheridan is that your name is on my list but with a side note. "

"What is the side note?" She sighed exhaustedly. 

" Well it's written here by the goddess Inanna herself, you are not scheduled to remain here. " He looked back over his notes. "Yes, Ms. Elle Sheridan I'm sorry but you must leave."