After I Died

Ghost Induced Swim

     "You guys can tag along too!" Alex said to Cameron and Sabrina as she started to walk down the hallway and I rushed to catch up to her, as to not lose her in the sea of... people? I still didn't know what exactly to call them, seeing as they weren't by any means human, but afraid it would be rude to ask.

     "First things first, classes." Alex said, walking towards the large fountain in the atrium. "Luckily, school only started about a month ago, so you won't be too far behind." It sounded pretty far behind to me, but I refrained from voicing my opinion. "You have your schedule?" She asked me, sitting down on one of the stone benches surrounding the fountain.

     "Schedule?" I asked, supposing I should have gotten one already.

     "Yeah, so you know where your classes are." She said, as Cameron sat down next to her and Sabrina drifted mid air around the fountain.

     "I don't have one." I said, quite tired of telling people I don't have something, haven't heard of something, or don't know something.

     "Oh, well you kinda need one. I'll get one from Ada, one sec." The Alex-shaped goo shrunk into a bat and flapped off back down the hall. I sat next to Cameron on the bench, trying to remember the notes I took on conversations without pulling out the whole notebook. I didn't need to.

     "So new kid, how'd you die?" He asked, earning a swat on the back of the head with a vine from Sabrina, causing his right eye to pop out of his head and onto the floor. "Ah, hey!" He exclaimed, quickly scooping his eye back up and whipping a cloth out of one of his coats many pockets. He gently cleaned it, scowling at Sabina as she returned to her circling of the fountain.

     "Oh, um..." Should I make something up? "Murdered." Why did I say that?!

     "Yeah, most of us were." Cameron said casually, popping his eye back into his head. I sat there hoping he didn't ask me to elaborate. "But like, how were you murdered?" Crap. Alex took the news pretty well... I think. Maybe they would too?

     "Okay well... the thing is..." I was thinking about the best way to phrase it as Sabrina paused her circling of the fountain to listen. "I... don't know." I was expecting the usual eye pop and jaw drop but they just looked... sympathetic.

     "That's fine, what did you look like when Death came to you?" Cameron asked.

     "Like... this?" I asked, not having realized how much knowledge everyone had about reapers, considering how little I knew myself.

     "Really? Ah 'eard 'e like, came down and gave a speech an' turned you. That's whot Jay said." I thought I was done being confused for today, but apparently I was mistaken.

     "Really?" I asked, trying to remember if that had actually happened or not.

     "That didn't 'appen? That little-" Cameron grumbled.

     "Wait, don't discredit Jay quite yet." I said quickly, assuming that was yet another normal thing that I didn't experience for some reason.

     "Eh? Why not?" He asked, cocking his head to one side.

     "Well, because..." This would be a good time for Alex to come back now, I thought. "I lied. I have no idea how I died, I woke up like this." I said, the jaw dropping I had earlier anticipated now coming to pass.

     "That's... kinda odd." Cameron said, clearly trying to spare me the severity as Ms. Belle had done.

     "I also didn't wake up in a graveyard." I said, almost trying to get him to admit it was bad, even though I knew it already. I was sick of people trying to preserve my feelings about my own life. If you could call it that.