Phil's P.O.V
Darkness is waking up. I watch as the first yellow rays of light start clawing their way upwards. Streaks of red and pink colour the sky, it's my favorite time of day.
I watch the world every day as the dead of night subsides and light and warmth cover the grass, cover the leaves of every tree, how night flees and a new day is here. As a ghost, I cannot sleep. Another one of deaths unspoken rules.
There are so many rules of life and death in this world. Even when I was alive I loathed it. Not only societies pathetic rules of what to wear and how to think. Not that I ever obeyed those. Just the simple rules of life. You had to eat. Had to think. Had to breathe
I thought by breaking those rules and ending my life I would be finally free. But even death has rules, so, so many rules.
The first days after my life ended I was all so happy. I ran through the streets, through the crowds of people, singing, screaming at the top of my lungs, enjoying the fact that no one could hear or see me. I yelled at peoples faces, called them all the names they called me when I was alive.
But after a few days it all became routine. It all became dull and grey.
It wasn't really so different to being alive, back then nobody took much notice of me either of course. But sometimes there were just little things I missed.
Like feeling my chest rise and fall regularly. The beat of my heart, strong and warm in my chest telling me I was alive.
But most of all I miss sleeping. I miss dreaming.
They say afterlife is like a never-ending dream. But for me afterlife hasn't really begun yet. I'm somewhere in-between. At least now I have enough time to think.
My life is better than it was when my heart kept beating scarlet through my veins. I just wish I could finally go on.
The sun has risen quite a bit by now, sunlight spilling through peoples windows, illuminating houses and apartments alike. London is about to awake.
To me it's all the same. The last what? 360 days maybe. All the same.
All 360 days apart from one. Number 359. Yesterday. Yesterday I found the boy with the chocolate brown eyes. The floppy haircut. The scars.
He kept reappearing in my thoughts. His slender hands on the piano, his soft voice as he sung the sad melody. But most of all his eyes.
The pools of brown that held more emotion than a Shakespeare play.
The hope within so genuine, so pure. The disappointment that caused my stomach to clench up painfully. The frustration. The tears. I could loose myself in those eyes.
But I did the right thing. I left. That was private. I could've done nothing.
He's a broken boy, just like me, impossible for others to understand.
I get to my feet, stretching my arms and neck, stiff from lack of movement in the past few hours. I just stand there, admiring the cloudless sky, the sun shining bright and warm. The first warm day in months, and a typical cliche beautiful day. I sigh. I have always preferred the rain. Days spent curled up on my sofa, listening to the rain pounding on the roof above, completely absorbed in one of my many books. It was one of the only things I really enjoyed when I was alive. Reading.
I spent my time roaming Hogwarts grounds, fighting with Katniss in that scary Arena and exploring a world of elves and dwarves in middle earth. I cried with Eponine on that fateful day in France, I rode Falkor's back through Fantasia and I solved mysteries with Sherlock and Watson. I could loose myself so easily in the words of others, entering worlds, stories, memories, anything to escape my own dull life.
Stories of love and pain, friendship and fight. I always loved how every time you read a book the second time the story is different, the little details you notice, the memories of the first time you picked it up in that bookshop around the corner, spending the little money you had on a new paperback copy. Every time you open the book the memories will come flooding back, the rainy day you spent at home with your book, the mug of hot chocolate you almost spilt over the pages and the smell of the half-molten vanilla candles you had lit while reading, the smell familiar, soothing.
But now I am dead. The only story left is my own, a story I thought would end on that day, the day of my death. But really my story only just began.
I yawn and lower my eyes to the scene below. On the busy main road people where going on with their daily lives, driving to work, walking their dogs.
Just as a yellow school bus drove by a familiar teenage boy with brown hair came running out of an alleyway - my alleyway. Catching sight of the bus he had obviously just missed, he cursed under his breath and started walking in the direction the bus had left.
Once again the powerful urge to follow him soars through me. I consider my options for a second. I have nothing better to do. In one swift movement I step fore-wards, off the roof, and fall for a second before landing neatly on the concrete ground. Even this has become routine. Normal.
I hurry through the crowd of people, doing my best at avoiding to touch people. Apparently it's a quite unpleasant feeling, a ghost passing through you. I finally catch up with the boy, whom I still don't know the name of. I follow him, watching his long, thin legs move smoothly in his all-too-baggy skinny jeans. After a short walk we reached a familiar building. A school. My old school.
***
I am sitting on the windowsill in G4, history, watching old Ms. Munsoy get on with her lesson. She had been my history teacher two years ago, before my death, and was one of the only teachers I happened not to hate. It was a strange feeling, to be back in the place I had hated so much when I was alive. Seeing familiar faces, mostly teachers and students that had been in the years below, my year graduated last summer, reminds me of why I did this. Why I so desperately wanted to leave this place. The feeling of missing being alive vanishes instantly.
I don't miss my old life. I really don't. Sometimes I just wonder how it would've been like if it'd all been different. If my mum wouldn't have died so young. If my father hadn't been such a drunk. If I had gone to a different school, a school where people liked me, respected me. I guess I'll never know.
Why I am sitting here, in one of my old classrooms? I'm not really sure myself. I am here because of the boy with brown hair and chocolate eyes. The boy with the scars.
I learnt his name today. Dan Howell. I never noticed him at school when I was still wandering earth, but he was two years below me when I died. Still, I wonder how he could've never caught my eye. I was probably too busy worrying over my own life. I could hardly care for myself, let alone others.
So I am here, sitting in one of my old classrooms, watching a broken boy live his broken life. I followed him today, sitting in the green grass of the school grounds at lunch, joining him for all his lessons. I had nothing better to do.
He's different than the others, no doubt about that. He's special.
There's something about him. Something so familiar, more than just the self harm we have in common.
I study him for the umpteenth time today, him sitting there with his slumped shoulders, absorbed in his own thoughts, busy with something under his desk. I don't have to look to know what he's doing, certainly not happily texting away with a shiny iphone like the girl in the second row's doing.
''Dan could you please pay attention to me and not whatever's under the desk, thank you.'', Ms. Munsoy's voice booms through the classroom, her grey eyes looking straight at Dan. He blushes, shifting around in his seat, trying to follow Ms. Moroy's words, but returning to his daydream only a few moments later, when she proceeded talking about an essay. Fortunately for him, the bell rings, sparing him from another of Ms. Moroy's scoldings. She's a good teacher, but she never tolerated any students daydreaming in one of her lessons.
I follow Dan on is way home, always trailing a few steps behind him, thinking. He spoke to almost no-one at school, to teachers only when asked, let alone fellow students. Not that anybody spoke to him either.
After the short walk home, we reach his doorstep and I if I should with him. I felt creepy enough following him around at school.
Deciding to leave him alone for a couple of hours, I walk aimlessly through the streets of London, caring about nobody and nothing. What was it about this boy that I couldn't stop thinking about him?
It was well past eleven, darkness had fallen hours ago, when I returned to my alleyway, deciding to visit Dan one last time before retrieving to my roof.
He was awake when I entered his room, sitting in-front of the outdated laptop on his desk, looking deadly pale, pitch black circles under his eyes. Just as I approach him, he closes his laptop, giving it a somewhat frustrated look. He gets up, leaving into the small bathroom. Knowing what he was doing I just stand there, waiting.
After a few minutes he steps out of the bathroom swaying slightly, dragging himself to bed, the lack of food and sleep obvious. A fresh bandage is wrapped around his right forearm. I watch as he collapses on the bed, smiling sadly at him. Reluctantly I sit down next to him on the bed, starting to sing another of my songs, ever so quiet. I'm still not sure if he can hear me, but if he can he's to tired to take any notice of it. I sing him to sleep, my voice only fading when his soft snoring fills the room instead.