I was going to finish this damn book even if it killed me.
Spoiler: I died before it could.
Meet me, Hayes Joan, a 14-year-old writer. My parents died when I was ten, my siblings abandoned me, and all that was left for me was a random pendant. School was essentially a mandatory source of stress that I had to endure willingly. "Willingly" as in "under threat of social and legal execution."
Through my writing, I earned a substantial amount, enough to keep me afloat and cover my daily necessities, at least. Food, rent, and a caffeine addiction that could probably qualify as a medical condition.
My apartment was a disaster. Empty energy drink cans, half-eaten takeout, and a laptop glowing with my blessed manuscript of Blue Ascendance. You see, at this point in my life, there were only four things I held dear: the pendant my parents left me, my novel, my readers, and the few friends I had at school.
[Hayes, this chapter's a mess. Akai's death feels cheap and unearned, heartwrenching too, so don't kill him. You need to work on Deil as a character, and you're supposed to fix this by or before TOMORROW.]
Finn's message glared at me from my phone screen. A month ago, this fan of mine named Finn texted me, saying that he wanted to be my editor, and after meeting him in real life and having some meetings, as generous as I was, I allowed him.
But well, how do I say it… he was as annoying as he was effective. If perfectionism had a human form, it'd be him. With better grammar than God himself. My writing increased by leaps and bounds since I met him, but he was still annoying.
"Who are you to give me orders? It's 12 am in the fucking morning, I'm going to sleep, otherwise, that teacher's gonna trouble me at school," I said, talking to no one in particular. My walls were good listeners.
"And besides, Akai's supposed to die cheaply. He's a plot device."
But the guilt nagged at me. I'd gotten lazy. Akai's entire character was "loud orphan with a sword and great potential, enough to rival the protagonist, bla bla bla, and so forth," and was just a recycled gimmick from my last novel.
I already had the end of the novel, but for some reason, Finn wasn't willing to let me publish this chapter if I didn't fix Akai's death sequence.
Whatever… Maybe one last rewrite…
I tapped at the keyboard, extending Akai's life by a little bit:
As the blade was about to pierce his stomach, Akai laughed. "Joke's on you, I was never supposed to kill you," and retreated as Ross quickly punched the masked attacker.
"Genius," I muttered, sleep slowly seeping into my eyes. "Deep and meta." And then, I crashed onto my bed.
In a few hours, I woke up, barely feeling like I had gotten any sleep, and began to tidy my apartment. This was a rare event, by the way. Me cleaning meant one of three things: a deadline, a guest, or an existential crisis. Today, it was the first. As I was doing so, I heard a knock on my door.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*
As soon as I heard the knock, I squinted at the door. "Who's there?"
"It's me," The person at the other end of the door said.
Figuring out who was behind the door, I immediately picked up my speed, and as soon as I finished packing up the dirt, the person knocked again, louder this time. Sighing internally, I kept the dirt in one corner of the room and reached for the door; however, it was kicked open.
"Yo, Hayes"
"You could've waited for me to go to the door and open it myself, you dumbass."
'This turdstick here's Fred, my best friend, and the greatest menace to peace and quiet in my life.' Sometimes I wondered if he had a sixth sense for when I was enjoying solitude, just so he could ruin it.
"Hey, you just thought something bad about me, didn't you?"
I replied with a quick "Nothing of the sort," and locked the door.
"You came here to wait for me, right?"
"Mhm."
"Good. Give me a minute, lemme go freshen up."
Soon after I finished washing up, I went into my room and started getting dressed. I couldn't help but look at my reflection, and not gonna lie, I had good looks… Not like main-character-in-a-romance-novel decent, but good enough that some people might wonder if I was hiding a secret fan club. I shut the thought down before it could inflate my ego. I picked some random clothes, put them on, sprayed some perfume, took my bag, and dragged Fred out of the house before locking it.
Heading for school, Fred quickly tried to start a conversation by asking
"So, how's your book been going?"
"So-so."
"What's with the dry response?"
"Nothing, nothing at all."
Looking at me, his grin spread like a bad rumour. "You know, if Reol saw you like this, she'd probably… No, forget it."
My eyes widened, my back straightened, and I asked, "She'd probably what?"
"Oh, look, there she is."
"Hk."
"An ice queen to everyone but her friends. Across the street walked a beautiful silver-haired girl who would be likened to a queen by her peers due to her awe-striking beauty; however, if there would be one deterring factor, it would be those cold, unfeeling ey…bh"
Quickly closing his mouth, I said, "You can stop with the character description now."
"Well, would you look at that, someone's flustered."
"Screw off."
"She's walking towards us."
Regaining my cool, I said, "So? Reol's just a friend to us."
"Just a friend, huh? I wonder when you're going to tell her that you have a big ol' crus…bh"
Closing his mouth again, I said, "If you dare, I'll tell Cyan."
His face contorted, but he shut up.
"Good morning, Hayes."
Taking my hand off Fred's mouth, I replied with a simple "Morning," and together, we started walking to school. Along the way, Cyan and the last two of our friend group, Lace and Myno joined in the mix.
Not so long after, we reached school, and as we were about to reach the school gates, a bright white light engulfed all of us, and once I opened my eyes, I found myself in a blank white space, but I couldn't feel my body.
One moment, I was having a moment of mental joy and giddiness, and the next, there was the white light and boom, I found myself in this space.
"Welcome to the soul passage realm, where dead souls are processed and reincarnated. I am the Grim Reaper, and you are?"
My thoughts short-circuited. Grim Reaper? Did he expect me to answer with a straight face? He was robed, sure, but his voice wasn't scary or booming; it was like he'd been through this introduction a billion times and was just waiting for lunch break, and as soon as the word "dead" escaped his mouth, everything else he said went into one ear and out the other.
That word echoed. Once, then twice. And then kept ricocheting inside my skull. Dead. As in: no more novels. No more pendant. No more half-eaten noodles on my desk waiting for me to scrape the mold off.
"That's right, you died. However, you died quite peculiarly."
I wanted to scream that this had to be a mistake, that people like me weren't allowed to die this early. I still had stories to finish. I still hadn't told Reol… no, don't even think about that right now.
Calming down, I slowly asked, "And that is?"
"A laser beam."
'Right… they were doing that experiment at school.'
Laser beam. Out of all the possible deaths, that's what got me? Not a car accident, not an illness, not even the dignity of "tragically overworked author." Nope. Just a laser beam accident, age fourteen. Imagine that on a gravestone.
My parents would be rolling in their graves if they weren't already disappointed enough. If I'd known this was how I'd go out, I'd have written my obituary ahead of time. "Here lies Hayes Joan. Author. Orphan. Idiot who got lasered."
The absurdity hit so hard I almost laughed. Almost. Except my throat didn't exist anymore.
"Normally, your souls would have been cleansed of all sins and memories, but the six of you will be given a second chance."
"Normally, your souls would have been cleansed of all sins and memories, but the six of you will be given a second chance."
With a wave of his hand, he said, "Adios, young 'un. You've made me interested in you. Good luck."
Before I could voice out any complaints, my world turned dark.