Getting out through the gate had been way easier than I thought it would be. The hollow guards rolled their eyes at me and lifted the gate high enough for me to creep under. To them, I was just another crazy scavenger, off to scrounge the Dark and its monsters—off to face death.
And death surrounded me in the form of humming blackness as the enormous gate slammed shut behind me, a morbid finality in the sound. How long had it been since I had first appeared out here in the Dark? Without a sun, days and nights seemed to be a lost concept in the afterlife. Weeks or even months might've passed for all I knew. Regardless, I was keen on leaving this miserable place. I wanted to go back home—my home—where things made sense. It didn't matter if I couldn't even remember where home was at the moment. I shuffled through sand, the crimson beam of my flashlight illuminating my immediate vicinity. Every few steps I took, something would hiss or squeal from the darkness beyond the reach of my light. I'd aim my flashlight in time to see a shadowy figure slither back into the inky, formless void.
I quickened my pace.
Grains of sand kicked up my wake, and the incessant wind carried them away. I ran through the desert like a wild animal; erratic, instinctual. Some innate compulsion drove me deeper and deeper into the Dark. I glanced over my shoulder at the distant, receding silhouette of After and said my silent goodbyes to Webb and Vale and the other red blade-wielding weirdos of After. It'd been...interesting, but I certainly hoped I'd never see them all again.
Something flapped through the air above me, and I jumped at the sudden cawing of a crow. I froze in my tracks until the unseen crow faded from earshot.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, drowning out the wind.
I felt so alive.
I shut my eyes and tried to summon that feeling in my chest again when I'd last called for the Light.
Something shrieked a few feet away from me. This time, it wasn't a crow. My muscles tensed. Ice stung my veins. A visceral sensation that I didn't miss, but that was so innately human, swallowed me, threatening to paralyze me.
Fear.
I swiveled my head to aim my light. A flash of eye shine disappeared into the dark with a hiss.
I ran again, succumbing to my fear despite how much I fought against it. I stifled the memory of claws raking flesh and coldness seeping from my body instead of blood. I had to get out of here.
Faster. Faster.
Scurrying footsteps chased me. I willed my legs faster and kept sifting through the void inside me, searching for a spark of Light. It had to be there somewhere...
I cried out when something brushed against me, making me drop my flashlight. I kept on running, blind.
Faster. Faster. Faster!
The sound of hissing reverberated in my skull. I searched my soul like I was a drowning person desperately clawing for the water's surface. In my head, I screamed for the Light, willing it to appear before me. That warmth filled my chest.
Then light filled my vision—beautiful, blinding white Light.
The shadow squealed again. A fingered limb reached from behind me over my shoulder. Its broken fingernails scraped against my face, almost caressing it.
With a scream, I threw myself into the whiteness I'd summoned.
I fell into a hallway.
I stood there in that confined space while my eyes adjusted and my pulse slowed to a stop altogether. Except for the brilliant portal I stepped from, it was dark. Not as dark as...the Dark. Just a comforting dimness. I clicked my flashlight off, hoping to save the lux crystal charging it. With suspended breath, I tip-toed across the floorboards, my booted feet making no sound. The silence I swam in remained unbroken.
I only let out a gasp when I passed a mirror mounted on the wall. No one stared back at me from inside it. I had no reflection. I grimaced and turned away from the mirror. I was in someone's apartment, a living room. None of the furniture matched, all having been reclaimed from garage sales or street curbs. Wilting floral arrangements and cards expressing condolences covered everything. Dusty nicknacks and photos of happy Korean family members watched me from shelves amongst a collection of little porcelain frogs that I couldn't help smiling at. All the minute details...It was all so familiar in a way that made my chest ache.
I wandered along, tracing a finger along the spines of old books lining the shelves. That's right. Reading in the dark had been a bad habit of mine, and one I had frequently suffered for. I felt a ghost of a headache coming on.
A lone portrait on an end table across the room caught my eye. I froze, finally piecing together where I'd found myself.
I'd made it. I was home.
Wisps of other memories rose from the clutter in my brain like a fog after a heavy rain. I had always wanted to have a collection of photos of Dominic and me in all the places we planned to travel together, like the couples in cheesy movies always had. But only that single framed portrait sat on the table. A layer of dust and shed white rose petals coated it. I reached for that photo but scowled when my fingers phased right through it. I knelt before it to get a better look instead. A tiny and admittedly nerdy-looking teen girl grinned from the picture, her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, revealing eyes almost completely shut from the girth of her smile.
Me.
While I stared at the portrait, I touched a hand to my own face that I could not see. My fingers brushed along skin I couldn't feel. In the scrawny girl's arms, she clung to a tall and handsome young man. His one-sided smirk made my heart beat even faster. And there was that dimple of his.
That was—
"Skye," a breathy voice said.
I spun around with a gasp. There was that boy from the photo; come to life before me. "Dominic," I whispered.
Dominic's stiff posture slackened, and with a choked sob he stumbled forward in the dark living room toward me. "Oh, my god. Skye!"
We met in the middle of what was once our shared home, but there came no collision. His arms tried to wrap around my small body, and I tried to bury my face in my boyfriend's chest. But I phased right through him. Blue eyes wide, he held out his palm to me. I reached out to it. My fingers disappeared into his flesh.
"I—you..." he stammered. "What's happening?"
I took in a shaking breath and stared into Dominic's face. He looked so tired. Not like how I remembered him. His brown hair was a lifeless mess. His pale face was now slightly sunken in under pronounced cheekbones. Dark shadows rested under his blue eyes. Over his shoulder, I caught sight of one card displayed on a nearby end table.
In loving memory of Skye Rhee, it read in delicate cursive text. Gone too soon.
"I'm really just a ghost, aren't I?" I breathed, my face falling. I was nothing. Empty. Hollow. Deceased.
Dominic moved his body closer to mine, ignoring how we phased into each other. He kept his arms around me, and I nestled into the space within, pretending—keeping up this charade of normalcy. I'd always been so safe in his arms. Dominic had been my protector, the one person I'd always relied on. But now, I struggled to feel...anything inside me.
"You've been de—" he said into my ear. His voice broke. He exhaled a white cloud as he spoke, and his body shivered in my presence. "Gone. It's been days." Oh god, I could hear the tears in his cracking voice. I didn't think I'd ever seen Dominic cry before.
Somewhere in the apartment, a clock ticked. My mind raced. Days? It had been days? Had I really been lost in the Dark that long before Vale found me? I shut my eyes and extinguished memories of monsters and the feeling of bursting through sand with grit in my throat, smothering my screams; my arrival into the world of death.
No. No, no. I didn't want to think about that. I didn't want to think about After, and the Dark, and hollows, and the fact that I was freaking dead. I just wanted to nestle into my boyfriend as I'd always done and keep on pretending that everything was okay—that it was all a dream. I wanted this. I craved this. I tossed all thoughts of After and my untimely death into the pile of kindling in my head. My heart, fickle thing that it was recently, threw itself against my ribs. Warmth pulsed through my incorporeal self with each beat.
Sobs choked Dominic's voice as he whispered into my hair, "Oh god, Skye. We buried you. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to tell your parents. I..." His words dissolved into heaves. "I kept wishing you'd come back, and now..."
And now I was back. And I had no intention of leaving. I could stay here, right? A ghost in the living world? It could work...
No tears stung my eyes, however. I sighed into his neck, desiring nothing more than to shut my eyes and be lulled by the steady rhythm of my phantom heartbeat. Despite myself, I smiled. Yet movement behind Dominic's shoulder caught my attention. Behind him was the glass door to the balcony. We could always see the twinkling lights of Tacoma, Washington, through the window at night. That view from so many stories up was the reason I had convinced Dominic to rent this place.
But now, an opaque tarp covered the door instead, fluttering in the night breeze. My smile faded. My pulse silenced.
In my head, I heard the echoes of a crash. Then a scream.
Broken glass littered my brain amongst the kindling. I hoped I wasn't making a fire hazard in there.
I shivered along with Dominic in the dark living room. "Dominic," I whispered, my voice trembling. I didn't tear my eyes away from that rattling tarp. "What happened to me?"
How did I die?
His arms wrapped around me tighter, phasing into my body. His teeth were chattering. "I-it was an accident—" he began. His words lingered in the air like ghosts.
Something dribbled on me then, viscous and ice-cold. I touched my fingers to the spots of black fluid that dappled my face. A hiss arose from somewhere in the room above Dominic and me, the entwined human and ghost.
I spun away from the broken door in time to see a flash of too many white teeth in the darkness above our heads. Black drool dangled free from shriveled lips. Then spindly black arms with too many joints unwound from its twisted and mangled form, and reached out for Dominic and me. One of the afterlife's monsters had braved the Light and followed me home. I didn't even have time to warn Dominic before the shadow detached itself from the ceiling and lunged at the two of us with a terrible screech.
Every night I dream you're still here
The ghost by my side, so perfectly clear
When I awake, you'll disappear
Back to the shadows
With all I hold, dear
Vale: Don't go into the light, Skye.
-Cue 'It's Always Sunny' Intro Music-