Life After Death

Chapter 41

The worst thing I could have imagined when being alive was public humiliation - having to enter class late because I had overslept or because Mom didn't check the clock or because Nathaniel left me home; having to talk in front of entire school and sneezing causing a hunk of snot to stick to Angelo Ramirez's hair (he was super hot). But now that I was dead, those things are nothing compared to half the shit I had been through since being dead.

The worst thing right now was trying to sneak me out of Grim Reaper headquarters. Danny wasn't kidding when he said that the place was huge, because it was massive. As soon as we exited Roman's from we came to a long hallway. They adorned me in a Grim Reaper sweatshirt and sweatpants and led me down the hallway as we acted "casual" - which wasn't very casual.

At the end of the hallway was an elevator that led you to any hallway in headquarters. We stepped inside, and just as we were about to leave a beefy man with tattoos all over his body and a thick beard hopped into the elevator. He didn't do much as glance at anyone of us. Danny, Roman and Sylvia seemed to be in panic mode, though, they pressed me against the elevator wall and Sylvia hissed at me not to speak. I didn't.

"Y'all are idiots," the man announced. He half-turned to us. I was surprised at how he sounded - sort of like a hillbilly. "If I noticed the celestial being, so will Reggie."

"Angus..." Sylvia tried.

"Dont Angus me lil' darlin'," he told her and his dark eyes went over to me. Roman took a protective stance in front of me. "You claimed her, huh?" Roman didn't say anything. There was a moment of silence. Unbreakable silence. Then the bell of the elevator sounded and the doors slid open soundlessly. "Door 0," Angus said. "Open it, think about the place you want to be and it takes you there. It's out of use because it was known for some glitches but I fixed it up. Its on the last floor. Door 0. Good luck." And Angus was gone.

We stood in silence.

"I had no idea Angus spoke," Danny breathed.

"Neither did I," Sylvia said. "Usually he just grunts in response. Did anyone expect him to sound like that though?"

"Expect the unexpected," I whispered.

"What was that?" Roman asked me.

"Nothing," I cleared my throat, "Door 0, right? Last floor?"

Danny nodded and hit the button and we were moving.

***

It seemed to take forever to get to the last floor. I let out a huge sigh of relief when the silver doors slid open soundlessly.

Roman was the first to step out into the inky darkness that belonged to the last floor of Grim Reaper headquarters. Everyone else hesitantly followed afterward, keeping close together.

The air was stale, but I couldn't find the source as to why because it was that dark. I felt a hand hold my own. I didn't care who it was - I clutched onto it for dear life, or afterlife... whatever... and continued the trek through the last floor. I felt like we were walking down an endless passage.

Danny let out a loud groan. "How are we going to find this door when we can't even see anything?"

"Roman has a sixth sense about this shit, Daniel," Sylvia said - she was holding my hand. "Just follow him."

"I can't even see him -"

"I'm here," Roman announced right in front of me. Suddenly, he stopped and I bumped into him abruptly. I glowered at his back - or what I hoped was his back - and stopped walking. "This floor hasn't been in use for a very long time..."

Suddenly, a single warm glow emanated from the ceiling. We all looked up and there was a chandelier on the high ceiling. We looked around and we were in this massive grand room. It had been collecting dust - it seemed - and hadn't been used in forever. Sylvia let go of my hand and looked around the grand room. "It's the training centre. Or was." Sylvia said in awe. I looked around but it just looked like an empty room to me. "I heard that years ago - maybe even millennia ago - hunters and grim reapers trained together in this room. I didn't know it existed. But it does."

"Hunters and reapers, together?" Roman asked in disbelief. "Who told you that shit?"
"Why does that sound so unbelievable to you? You and Meg seem to get along just fine." I commented looking up at the oil lamp wondering who had switched it on the first place.

When no one answered my question - I was only left with dead silence, the only sound came from the wicker burning in the oil lamp and the flickering flame - I looked around in question to see Roman glaring at me, and Sylvia glaring at Roman. "Did I say something wrong?" I asked, pursing my lips.

"Meg and Roman used to fuck," Sylvia stated bluntly.

"You know, the afterlife is just like the material realm," I pondered. "I didn't think grim reapers and spirits could - as Sylvia so delicately put it - 'fuck'."

"Oh, well, they can," Danny interjected. "You still have the genitalia to do so..."

"It's fascinating, ain't it?"

"Yea, it is."

"Okay, can we stop talking about sex?" Roman said, growing agitated.

"Why? You don't want any of your dockets coming out?" Sylvia snapped at him.

"I thought we were over this!" Roman grumbled.

"Oh, we are so over this!" Sylvia snapped back.

Another silence cloaked over us. "Anywho, we came here for a reason?" I broke the silence. "Door 0, like good ol' Angus said?"

"Yes, let's do what we came here for," Roman said through gritted teeth.

"I love lovers quarrels," Danny sighed.

I giggled, "Me too."

We all stood in the centre of the room, letting the glow from the flickering flame to guide us, until I noticed something - there wasn't any doors around us, the elevator led us inside of here somehow and left us here without an exit or - from what I could see - Door 0.

"Guys..." I whined.

"I know," Roman said, looking around. "Door 0 cannot be seen with the naked eye."

"What?!" Danny screeched.

"What does this mean?" Sylvia asked, suddenly worried and afraid.

"It means until we find door 0 in this room - we're stuck here." Roman delivered the ominous news in an apathetic demeanor, but I could see the worry lighting up in his dark eyes.

"Forever or until someone comes into this room?"

"Forever," Roman announced dramatically. "Unless someone actually does comes to this floor. But until then..."