Life After Death

Chapter 2

I remember falling into the water. It was dreadfully cold. I felt my clothes clinging about me and hampering my movements, and as I rose to the surface I gasped for breath. My mouth was filled with water, and I sank again. I was chilled through and through; then a sort of delirium came over me, and there was a ringing in my ears.

I wasn't alive anymore.

I remember seeing my long red hair reaching out to the surface of the water. I remember feeling the dark waters swallow me and drag me down until all air, all life left me.

I remember nothing more.

***

Someone was dragging me out of the water. I felt arms circle around my body and wrench me from the icy abyss.

Coldness seeped through my clothes and straight to the bone. My hair was a tangled mess around my head. My clothes made me feel cold and heavy. My backpack was missing. I felt numb, that was the first thing I felt. I felt empty. Like the wind - the life had been knocked out of me.

I was gasping for air, desperately trying to grasp the thing that had been taken from me.

The snow swirled round and round, like tiny tornadoes. Twirling flakes found their way past me, and making its way to my bare skin. It was so cold it burned but I didn't shiver. I was focused on the two men dressed in a paramedic's uniform. They were hovering over a body, poking and prodding it.

It took me an entirety of three seconds to realise what had happened - I was looking for the source of the incessant wailing, but in some horrible turn of events I had fallen into the creek. I had been drowning.

I jumped up. I was sitting in the snow. Fox tracks and bird claws printed in the dirty clumps of snow around me.

They must have found the person who had been crying, I thought pushing myself up from the wet snow. But why wouldn't they check on me? I had been drowning, too. Fear bubbled up within me. I scrambled toward the paramedics.

What if the person had died because I wasn't quick enough?

I hurried to them. "Is he okay?" I asked, fear causing my voice to squeak.

They didn't answer me.

"Is he okay?!" I shouted, louder this time. "I said: Is he okay!"

Nothing.

What the Hell?

"Is he -"

My voice died in my throat. A paremedic - the black guy with the buzzcut - moved slightly to the left, giving me a clear view of the person they were hovering over. I stumbled back, losing my balance and collapsed into the snow-covered ground. I squirmed to the back, pushing myself up against a gnarled tree. I placed my head between my knees.

"No, no, no. No!" I screamed. The scream ripped through the atmosphere - it was blood-curdling and heart-wrenching; in normal circumstances anyone would have heard or noticed it. But I knew no one would hear me.

"It's her," the black man said.

His paremedic friend - he was pale with red tufts of hair sneaking from beneath his black beanie - nodded. "It's Meredith Gray. Age sixteen. Time of death: unknown."

Another scream left my lips. No one moved. No one heard me. No one batted an eyelash. Because I was dead. I didn't exist anymore.

I tried crying but nothing came. I was just heaving. No tears. Just dry-heaving.

I placed a hand over my chest hoping to feel the familiar thump but there was nothing. I was empty. There was no life within me. I was just an empty poltergeist, or whatever I was.