Heart wrapped in ink| Short stories

2. Land of the dead

"So how do I know what's keeping me here?"

"Well for most people it comes to them with time, but some they never remember at all" Said Maurice.
" Since you're new here you do anything you like and have fun while you're at it, you will remember eventually"

"What about Nick? Why has he been here for a long time?"

"Well Nick here is a fool, that is why" replied Maurice.

I watched Nick, he scratched the back of his head with a shy smile playing his lips.

"You get 100 years to figure out you're deepest desire. Some fortunate souls make it to afterlife or wherever without coming to the dead shed. It's not because they never had any desires but nothing strong enough to hold them back. All of us have something of that sort. At first I desperately wanted to know and leave here, so I thought the only way for that was to go back to the land of the living. So I swam through the bloody river and waited for the train".

My nose scrunched up in disgust when he mentioned he swam through blood, noticing my reaction he replied "No it isn't blood it's just water but red in colour, the bones aren't real it's like an illusion. So once I got to the train, well I never went back I got caught instead. So when you do something like this you get penalty of 10 years. I still had years so I wasn't so worried, then I tried to take the train to the afterlife, this time I was a bit successful, I got in the train I was disguised, but this little child betrayed me. The skeletons heard the rambling and threw me out, so there I lost another 10 years. Then few years back, I was running out of time and I had no idea of any unfinished business then I tried to go in to the Void, it's how the ones in the dead shed leave to the afterlife. It was a horrible decision really. I got caught in that attempt as well so there I lost 10 years" he finished.

"So you were born on 1932 that means you died in" I trailed of for a moment doing the math in my head "1950?"

He nodded as an answer.

I gasped in surprise "so you've got no more years? How long do you have?"

"A month or so? Or less than that. I don't count anymore I have given up hope" he shrugged.

I noticed a shadow cross his face, his chest was steady as a rock, his heart was dead as mine but he was crestfallen and afraid.

"Well you can't give up just like that! You have try to your best" I exclaimed.

"Well, it's not that easy" he got up to his feet and offered me his hand. "Come I'll take you somewhere"

"But whatever time you have, you need to do everything you can" I said taking his hand.

He mulled over what I said in silence, his hands in his pockets but decided not to say anything.

On our way to the place he wanted to show me, which he kept as a mystery because he didn't want to explain it, I asked him how he knew the time if the sun didnt rise or set.

He nodded to a clock at the center of circular place. It was a huge round clock that was hanging by chain from thin air, I had no idea how this place worked. Things like that made me really question myself if I was dreaming.The clock had the year and the month according to the time in the land of the living written down big enough to see from considerable distance. We passed through the pale crowd, I noticed how one lady was all drenched in water and how a drop or to would fall from her, she must've drowned to death. One man still had a knife through his heart. I was scanning through the dead people wondering how each had passed away, then my eyes met with a strange pair of eyes who had been observing me from the corner. He stared at me for a moment then averted his eyes after covering his face with his hat.

Nick and I came to stop at this odd place, that said 'Merit Bank". The building was dark brown which was almost a shade of black and it so tall I had to tilt my head all the way down to see the top. The broken wooden porch sang to the howling wind it reminded me of a scary of a house from a horror movie.

"What's a merit bank?" I voiced my thoughts as we walked in.

"This is where you can get money. It all depends on the good you've done when you were alive" .

We walked to a counter and bald old man with glasses looked at us uninterestedly.

"She is a new comer and she needs money" he said to him.

"Name?"

"Liana Montgomery" I said.

"Age?"

"Seventeen"

"You came here yesterday?" He looked at me from his glasses already knowing the answer.

I nodded.

"Wait a moment"

He typed something in a typewriter then a moment later he received a key that was made from bones.

"Follow me" he said jumping off from behind the counter and half of his body disappeared.

I yelped when I saw the man's lower half wasn't there and he was walking from his hands. But for my luck he did not hear.

We walked through a chamber and through a door to finally came to a door that had my name on it.

Inside the door was stacks of golden and bronze colored money. There so much that the small room illuminated from the little it had.

"Wow you've done a lot of good in your life" mumbled Nick.

I shrugged and gathered some money, And put it in a side bag I was given. I didn't know their values so Nick wrote them down for me on some book. On our way out he taught how each note was valued. As Nick explained, this money was going to help me figure out my deepest desire. Nick insisted on staying back as he had almost finished his own money by the time.

"I have plenty I will give you some" I offered.

He chuckled softly, "Liana, doing good here won't get you more money, only what you did in earth counts so it's fine".

I rolled my eyes at him "oh come on!Maybe you can find yours!" Nick said that money couldn't be burrowed there, but he ended up spending his own as I dragged him to the nearest place which was the theater. Apparently in the dead shed there were no cinemas instead the dead made their own plays and presented on stage like the good old days.

1st we watched the play then we were back talking to one of the actresses then next play we were as the back up dances, without a doubt ruined a part of it. It was fun, I was smiling the entire time, and the audience was honestly too dead to care. If I had been alive there was no way I would've done the things I did. Nick almost made me sing, but I sucked at singing and knowing that I didn't even try. But I had been dancing with other bunch of people I'm telling you people are much friendlier when they are dead.

I did a lot of things that day, visited these odd yet surprisingly beautiful places and somehow Nick and I both couldn't  find any greatest desires.

When we passed that clock again, my eye balls almost popped out of my sockets when I saw it. And trust me that could've actually happened because we saw this eyeless man looking for his eye he dropped.

"Three days passed?" I asked shocked.

Nick looked at me as if it was no big deal.

"I was up for three days?"

"Well you're dead remember? So you don't get tired and you don't eat or sleep"

I wasn't very surprised but it kind of felt weird. As a sick child I was always tired, didn't get to play as most kids and do what I always wanted so it was almost like I was in paradise.