Afterlife

2

"Who are you?" Fiara demanded, balling her hands into tight fists. There were no objects in the room that she could use as a weapon, so her fists were the only option she had, should it come down to a situation of fight or flight.

"My name is Santino Gustalini," the Italian boy said, his hands still raised, "I work for the Angels by rehabilitating newly dead people into their new lives in Afterlife. Which I realize sounds completely ridiculous, but you have to trust me when I tell you that its all true... every word of it. The reason we have all that information on you is because this really is the afterlife, and the Angels know everything we've ever done... from the point of our birth, to the point of our death. They even have files on me."

Fiara scoffed as she said, "You really expect me to believe all this don't you?! I don't know how you got all those files and pictures, but they've got to be fakes of some sort!"

"They aren't."

"They have to be!" she exclaimed, feeling over whelmed by this whole situation. Her knees felt like they were going to give out at any second from the shock of all of this. Was she actually starting to believe him? Was she really dead? Or was he just a really good actor? It was all just too much. "They have to be," she muttered again, in a shocked and hushed tone, barely above a whisper.

"Look, trust me, I know where you're coming from," Santino said as he slowly allowed his hands to fall down to his sides again, now that Fiara seemed to be mellowing out slightly. "When I first came here I didn't believe them either. In fact I believed them even less, because they didn't have a cause of death with my file. So I outsmarted the person in charge of rehabilitating me and escaped... but after I did... I found out how sorely mistaken I was." Fiara looked up at his face with curiosity now, as she listened to Santino speak, whether it was true or not, something about his mannerisms told her that he was sincere in what he was saying, and that she should take every word to heart. "I almost died... for the second time that day... but then two people rescued me... and taught me how to survive here. Just as it's now my job to teach you, until you find a group that will take you in and help you find your path in Afterlife."

Fiara wasn't sure what half of the things he said even meant, but something about the way he said it reassured her that everything was somehow going to be okay. She finally allowed her knees the sweet relief of bending as she sank to the ground, sitting there in shock as she stared, wide eyed, at the floor, taking reassuring breaths as she tried to process everything she'd heard. How was any of this possible? It couldn't be... but this boy seems genuine in his words, and seems like he feels justified in the work that he's doing. If this were a television prank it would have been revealed long ago... this was different...this was real. She brought a hand up to touch her forehead as she closed her eyes and said, mostly to herself, "How is any of this possible? It... it can't be real... can it?"

Santino buried his hands in the pockets of his black pants for a moment as he considered his next move. It was obvious that Fiara was beginning to question her reality, and as thus would now be more open to the actual existence of Afterlife, but it was clear that she still required something that would prove to her, without a doubt, that everything they'd told her was one hundred percent true, and important for her survival in Afterlife. Showing her her file didn't seem to do any more than rattle her, so showing her his wouldn't change matters much. This girl reminded him a bit of himself when he first arrived.

Upon his arrival, he too questioned everything that his caretaker had said in attempts to prove his situation to him. He usually prided himself on being able to read people very well, and something about the way his caretaker acted around him conveyed that she wasn't telling the whole truth about the situation, so, as he told Fiara, he pushed passed his caretaker and escaped the arrival facility. It wasn't until he made it outside that he really started to question his reality... maybe that's all she would need too.