Her eyes opened at the hospital's mortuary room. She was light headed with a blurry vision, her tongue couldn't taste the saliva in her mouth and her ears could barely hear a sound.
With a traumatizing scar on her left arm, she pushed herself up with her right arm. She noticed her pain was gone, her mind took a personal flashback to the moment she sat in the car for a trip to her suicide spot.
She remembered the exact colour of the car, the trailer and the driver's t-shirt. The tumbling, the scattering and the yelling, the pleading for a second chance at life and the sight of the pouring blood escaping her arm's veins.
Rune watched, her eyes moved through the room. She noticed she was only patient alive in the room, no medical services, no medical appliances, just plain silence and a still atmosphere.
"Rune" A voice whispered around her. Her eyes glanced around the room but stopped at a spot. It stopped when they looked at a being standing next to her bed at the far front.
"What are you? Who are you?!" She asked startled from what her eyes gazed at. She asked again, "What are you doing here? Why are you standing there?"
It spoke out, "Rune, you have been given another chance at life. Don't waste it again." The pale yet spirit-like creature said.
"What do you mean? I died? Are you serious? How? The accident right?" She sat up a little bit more. She already forgot her dream.
"Do not waste your gift." It disappeared without warning, she flinched. Rune looked around her, she noticed the so called patients laying still were actually dead people.
The door opened up, the mortuary attendant was as shocked as she was. He stood still before asking, "You are alive?" She quickly ran towards her bed, she took her phone out.
As she walked out of the hospital, Rune realized something, one she was dead and two, it's been three days after her death. She stopped walking, her breathing increased. The timing caused an increase in her heartbeat rate.
She stared at her phone screen, it didn't have a scratch and her injury had already healed. What a miracle! She walked until she got closer to the bus stop right in front of the hospital.
As she walked she noticed the reappearing yet hidden shadows moving from around, she stopped. She turned around to look behind, she knew she heard voices but from who?
She noticed the lane behind her had nothing but silence following her. She turned forward and ran as fast as she could, leaning faster to the front.
Finally she reached the front of the building, she was at the wrong side but lucky enough for her she saw a bus coming with it's bright lights. "Hey! Hey! Stop please!" She ran straight to the front.
The elderly man stopped the bus. Rune got into the bus, she sat at the extreme end, by the back. She quickly adjusted herself to her music playlist. The bus moved calmly with others in it, and suddenly she noticed something about the bus.
She sniffed around, she noticed the change of the atmosphere. She looked around for a sign and she got one, she just realized something. She could see, hear and sense spirits.
She looked at the man sitting across, his eyes were black. The other lady had a snake-like lens in her eyes, she knew that wasn't a costume or make up prop. Her eyes looked outside the window.
She saw beings of light and dark flying across the sky, duendes and tall tree like entities. Suddenly everything disappeared when a man spoke from her right side. "Hello?"
She turned towards the side the masculine voice emerged from, He had dark hair with a set of bright blue eyes. She fell in love without her own permission, he smiled at her already feeling her energy.
"Uh Hey," He smiled at her.
He said, "Do you need a neighbour by your side? You look worried, I noticed your facial expression earlier. Are you alright? I'm Ethan."
He stretched his hand out and forward to get a mild handshake. At this point, she was more than scared to give him a handshake but she did anyway.
"Rune. My name is Rune Hathaway." She said.
He sat by her side after he noticed her warm voice appealing to his male senses, He got closer to her. He asked, "So, just for the record. I mean, I'm actually asking for a friend. What are you doing here? I mean, to what I can see. You just stepped out of the mortuary. Right?"
Her eyes widened, she asked, "How did you know that? Do I smell bad? Is my face rotten?"
"Now see here, if you had a rotten face I wouldn't be sitting here next to you, talk less of a horrible stench. I'm just saying, this side of town is for the dead and the mysterious. So which are you? The dead or the mysterious?" He said.
She turned to the back, she took her face back to him. "I'm alive and well, thank you."
He smiled again, she noticed he had sharp teeth and they were hella white. "You see Rune right? When you say you are alive, that simply means you came back from the dead. After three days I guess. You are reborn."
Rune felt a bit uncomfortable. She exhaled calmly, "Yeah but I don't get it. A creature appeared to me and it spoke of gifts."
He said, "You are apart of the mysterious now. You are welcome back."
The light from her phone screen made her eyes turn to it. She noticed she had lots of messages from people around her, family, friends and even from work.
Ethan said, "You should answer those. You know you are already popular, at least a little."
Rune replied, "Wait, what do you mean by popular? And what do you mean by mysterious? Who are you? What are you?"
He unlocked his phone, he turned the screen to her face exposing the news to her about the crash. She watched the videos and viewed the pictures fully.
She realized something, she had bruises, deep ones. "Wait, I had bruises but what happened?" She turned to look at him.
"You see, what happened right here is called the resurrection. The emergence of the after life glory, when a man does and he comes back. You could say the gate keepers of hell or the underworld, could give you a chance." He said.
She paused waiting for the next set of words to come out of his mouth. He continued talking, "Rune, even your name sounds magical to the ears of the normal and the supernatural. Just so you know, you have a magical aura. It's isn't normal, you escaped for a reason and that creature you met might have been an astral guard."
"What's an astral guard and you mentioned something about gatekeepers? Explain those to me?"
"Rune I can't talk about everything right now. I'll more time to explain, we are at your bus stop."
She looked around, yes as a matter of fact. They were at the front of the house. She was shocked, he knew her house. "How did you even know my house. You've been following me and I didn't know about you."
"Rune I could get your contact, I'll call you later and we could talk more about all you need to know or better still we could just stay the night together."
She felt cheap, "Ethan? I'm not a whore."
"Rune when you get to that floor, you know the floor with your room number. You'll notice they already moved your stuff out, you have no where to go to right now."
She walked out of the bus saying, "You are lying clearly. Let me see it." She tried to run up to her floor but before she could get to the room, she noticed the changes. Ethan was right.
He spoke from behind her, "You see Rune. It is what it is."
She got upset, "No it's not. My rent's not due, at least until next week. I still have time here."
She knocked on the door, a lady answered, "Who is it? Coming!" She opened the door, surprisingly she stood right there wondering about the corpse standing in front of her.
She quickly shut the door and ran back inside. Before anything could happen, Ethan blocked Rune's path. "Rune we need to leave, your old life is gone and the new one awaits you. We can't waste any time here."
A lowly laid violin music started playing in her head, she just stayed quiet trying to reason. Ethan held her arm softly, he hugged her calmly.
She opened her eyes and they were downstairs. As shocked as she was, all she could do was to stay still. Ethan softly brushed her cheek with his thumb.
People walked past them like they weren't there, she noticed it and calmly turned to left and the right. She placed her gaze on Ethan's face.
"Can they see us?" She asked.
He said, "We are apart of the mysterious now. They can only see us when we want them to. It's our legitimate right to do it."