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September 5, 2017

Mateo Torrez

8:45 p.m.

I wake up and look around. I'm on a train. I look out the window and there's nothing. The other people on the train are quiet. Most are adults except one little girl, probably five years old, crying in a seat. I look around and don't see rufus anywhere. My chest sinks.

I'm dead, this is the afterlife isn't it?

Fire.

So that's how the world would remove me. I look down at my arm to see that the skin if lighter there, its scarred. I feel bad, not just for myself, but for Rufus, I broke my promise, I left our island. My heart feels heavy, like a pit in my chest. I hope the fire didn't kill rufus, oh god it killed him didn't it. He's not on the train with me but maybe there's another train. I'm dead, he's dead, and now he hates me. I have to figure out if he's dead or not. I have to uphold my promise and find him even if he doesn't want to see me.

The afterlife is a lot like the overworld, is that the right word? It doesn't matter now anyway. I just have to find him. When the train stops I rush off to see some mirror image of the city I grew up in. I rush through the crowds of people, I don't know where I'm going but I'm going somewhere.

This place is a near perfect copy of the Whatever-you-want-to-call-it-where-we're-alive-place, the only difference is everyone here is dead. I look around this mirror version of my home city. Former home city. It's unclear. I need to find some way to find him, maybe he's still alive. Maybe he hates me for breaking my promise but I won't know if I don't try.

I tap someone on their shoulder, an older woman with blonde hair, I don't recognize her but I need help.

"Excuse me miss?"

She turns her head and looks shocked to see some kid.

"Oh my, you're so young dear, what happened? what do you need?"

I choke back emotions, I don't want to think about how it happened, I know, Rufus might know if he's even alive still. No one else needs to know.

"Is there a way to see if my friend," I pause, friend, "To see if my friend is still alive, it was his End Day too and I need to find him."

"Oh that's sweet, if you go to the subway, it acts like a gateway. Go there and you can return to the living world but not for very long, you'll be able to find him but not interact with him."

That's all I need.

I thank her and run off, I have to find him. He's alive. I know he is. I didn't kill him. I didn't. I have to believe that.

9:05 p.m.

I made it to the living world and i'm standing in my burned apartment. I walk out the door and see my neighbors crying in the hallway talking to paramedics. They're crying.

Maneuvering here is easier when you're dead, I can just walk through people and buildings.

I step outside to see fire trucks and and ambulance, I get closer to an ambulance and hear him.

"DO YOUR JOB AND GET HIM TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL!"

Its Rufus, he's alive, I didn't kill him. I stand next to him, I want to hold him but I know I can't, so i just stay there by his side. He only has three hours and i'm going to be there with him even if he doesn't know I am.

9:16 p.m.

I'm sitting next to Rufus, my last friend and first love, while my roasted corpse is being put into a bag. He's crying and I can't help but feel horrible that I left him.

9:24 p.m.

I'm sitting in the ambulance with Rufus as he's receiving medical attention. I look at my body, something I never thought i'd have to do. I hear rufus talking to my body. It feels wrong to listen to him talking to me, but he's not talking to me, he's talking to the boy in the bag. I hope he knows I can hear him but he probably thinks I can't. I want him to know i'm here, I want to hold him, and kiss him, and tell him he doesn't have to wait to be with me because he's already with me. I'm standing right here. We arrive at the hospital. All three of us, me, him, and my body. The paramedics split us all up. They send my body up to the morgue to observe it, determine how I died even though it's pretty obvious. Rufus heads up to intensive care.

9:37 p.m.

I sit with rufus on the hospital bed as he gets clean air, seeing his body desperately fighting for life is calming me even though we both know he's almost out of time. He pulls out his phone and starts crying. I don't bother looking over his shoulder to see what he's looking at, it's not my business.

He lays down on the bed and I lie down next to him. I feel bad about leaving our island so this time i'll stay right here till he wakes up.

It's the least I can do.

10:14 p.m.

Rufus is awake and walking around. He's heading up the stairs and i'm following, terrified he'll fall and I won't be able to catch him, luckily there's a nurse following him up the stairs but it's still nerve wrecking. We stop at the eighth floor and I start crying as he walks into my dads room. I collapse to the ground and don't follow him in.

I can't face my dad now, I can't help but feel like I abandoned him. He's going to wake up with no wife, no son, and thanks to me, no home. I stay in the waiting room while he talks to my dad. I look around and see Elizabeth being comforted by another nurse--Natasha according to the name tag--Natasha is holding Elizabeth while she cries, telling her about a better place, then I hear my name mentioned. Elizabeth must have found out. I want to hug her just like how I wanted to yell through Rufus's phone when he called Lidiah earlier, but I know I can't interact, I can only observe and it's awful.

10:36 p.m.

I follow rufus as he starts walking to Althea Park. he really does go there when he's scared or in the wrong head space. He approaches the curb and I see him pull up the video of me, it feels like it was taken ages ago but its only been a few hours. Rufus starts tearing up. He steps off the curb and I hear a car honking it's horn at Rufus but he doesn't hear. I see it coming but Rufus doesn't. I want to grab him, I want to save him from death's icy grasp but I can't. All I can do is stand there as Rufus unknowingly breathes in his last few breaths. I turn away.

I hear the collision and I hear Rufus scream.

I don't want to look but I do, I see him lying in the road, the car now stopped a few feet on the other side of him. He's lying there desperately trying to live. The man who hit him is calling the police

He's barely holding on and I cant stop crying. I crouch down next to him and try to grab his hand but mine just goes through his. There's blood on his shirt and his arm is broken, he's looking up at the sky. His hand goes limp.

He's gone.

I can't take this anymore, I close my eyes and left everything around me fade to white. I reopen them and i'm back in the afterlife, sitting in the street across from Althea Park, in the same stop I was in a few moments ago.

He'll be here soon, I have to find him. I have to keep my promise.

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