2,146 words - teen speculative fiction
I was so startled at not being dead, that I almost died all over again.
Blood crashed through my veins like white water rapids. It pulsed in every part of my body, making my toes curl and my fingers twitch.
Wait, no. Not my fingers. Whose fingers were these?
They were short with wide nails. Mine had been long with round knuckles. I flexed my hand, and the fingers moved. It was my hand, but it was definitely not my hand.
Who the heck was I? And why, in the whole wide universe, was I alive?
I'd been dead for, well, maybe for forever. I don't know if was actually dead, or just not living. Either way, I had never been alive before. At least, not for so long that it didn't matter. But I knew what I looked like. And it was not this.
My eyes travelled down the hand to my wrist, forearm, elbow. This arm - supposedly my arm - was thicker than it should have been. Shorter too.
I tried to move my head, and found I couldn't. Maybe I wasn't alive then.
But I pulled in air - real air! - through my nose, and felt my lungs inflate with a burning sensation. My chest ached and my breath caught. I choked on air coming up and then on water following it. My middle tightened and I coughed so hard I thought this new throat would split.
My head finally moved and pain - literal, physical pain - spliced my in half from the crown of my head to the arches of my feet. I screamed. The sound was loud in my head, echoing inside and out. I had never felt pain before, and it was so agonizing, so real and deadly and there, that it almost knocked me unconscious.
No, maybe I had felt pain before. Maybe. A long, long time before.
The pain zinged down my spine again and I shrieked as a flash of something lit my mind.
Woods.
Was I in the woods now?
I realized I'd closed my eyes and opened them again, straight up into blue.
The sky.
And that was when my ears started to turn on. I'd heard this body scream. But now I could hear things outside myself. Voices maybe. A rushing. Birds chirping.
"Can you hear me?"
I turned toward the voice and gasped at more pain. "Yes," I said. "But I can't move." My voice was lower than I remembered. Definitely feminine, but throaty and hoarse. Maybe it was just the pain coming through.
A face blocked out the blue above me. I couldn't focus on it for a moment. Then it cleared and sharpened. Two dark eyes set in the midst of shaggy dark hair. I thought for a minute it might be a bear, but he was human. His beard and hair had gone rogue.
"Stephanie," he said.
And I knew that was most certainly not my name.
"I really think we should take her back to a hospital," the bear guy said. He still hadn't told me his name.
I pulled my blanket tighter around my shoulders. I felt too broad, too wide. This body wasn't fat, by any stretch of the imagination. But I was heavy, full of compacted muscle. I think I might have been strong, but I hadn't tested it out yet. It was just too weird.
The fire in front of us crackled conversationally and I leaned closer to it, loving how I could feel the heat on my skin, taste it in my mouth.
"She's fine!" This came from the other guy in the group. He was sitting the closest to me, almost touching. He was shorter than the wild bear man with black hair cut close to his head and no beard. He looked military tough, while bear looked wild-man tough. I wouldn't have wanted to get in a fight with either of them.
"She doesn't remember a thing," Wild-man said. "No offense, Stephanie."
I leaned even closer to the fire, then remember that was supposed to be my name, and looked over at him. "Uh, it's fine," I said.
Liz, the fourth member of this group shook her head, the beads on her pale cornrows braids rattling together. She hadn't told me her name either, assuming I'd miraculously remember it at some point, but military-guy and called to her, so I'd picked it up. "If she's still all out of it tomorrow morning," Liz said, "we'll head back. But it'd be a waste to throw out the whole trip just because she took a fall off the raft."
Wild-man sighed. "Kay. It's cool." He stood up. "I just don't want her to end up like that girl in the news a couple years ago. Remember her? Same sort of thing. Out doing the rapids with her friends, and next thing anyone knows, she washing up down river."
My mind flashed an image at me again. Woods. Water.
"What was her name?" I asked.
They all turned to look at me like they'd forgotten I was there.
"The girl who drowned a couple years ago. Do you remember her name?"
Liz shook her head. "It was all over the papers, but just for a few days. I only looked at it because we'd been planning to take the same route, but the story made us switch at the last minute. Didn't you read it too?"
"I think it started with an M," Military-man said. "Her name. Like Melissa, or Maveny or something."
"Merissa?" I asked. "Was it Merissa? I need to know!"
"Yeah," said Wild-man. "Yeah, I think it was. But that's not the point. The point is I don't want you, Stephanie, ending up like that girl, whatever her name was!"
"Yeah," said Liz. "But that girl was dead when they found her. Stephanie isn't. So chill."
Wild-man held up his hand. "Fine. I'm going to get more firewood to keep this burning tonight." He tromped off through the underbrush.
Military-man leaned closer to the fire and he and Liz exchanged a look.
"You really don't remember anything, Steph?" Military-man asked. He reached for my hand like he was going to hold it, but I buried my hand in the blanket before he could. I'd held hands with someone before. I was pretty sure. But not with him.
He settled his hand on my leg. "You're not just joking with us?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I honestly don't remember. Not any of this anyway. But I do remember something."
"Yeah?" Liz leaned her elbows on her knees.
I didn't know how they were going to take this, but it had to be said, if we were ever going to figure out what was going on. "I remember something from someone else's life."
Liz took in her breath and leaned away from me.
Military-man didn't move. "What?" he said.
"I don't think this is my life," I said. "I don't think this is even my body."
Liz swore and crossed herself.
Military-man still didn't move. "What exactly are you saying?" he asked.
"This might be Stephanie's body," I said, "But I'm not Stephanie. I'm Merissa."
"What the heck is going on?" Liz asked.
Wild-man tried to put his hands on her shoulders but she knocked his hands aside.
Military-man had taken his hand off my thigh, but didn't move away from me.
"Either Stephanie's lost her sanity," Liz said, "or she's been possessed by a dead girl. Either way, she needs to leave. Now!"
"I told you we should have taken her to the hospital," Wild-man said.
Military-man opened his mouth, and closed it again. Finally he said, "So, if you're Merissa, where is Stephanie?"
That was a question actually worth pondering. "I don't know," I said.
I liked the look of the stars. I remembered learning that most of them were already dead by the time we saw them. The light travelled so far that the stars had lived out their entire lives before the light got to our little planet. I didn't remember where I learned it. But it was in my brain. And I wondered if the dead stars knew how I'd felt, being dead too.
Was I still dead?
I guessed the stars lived forever then. Because if the universe was infinite, the light would keep going and going and going, and people on planets further and further away would get to look at the stars that didn't exist anymore. At least, the stars didn't exist where they had been born. Their existence traveled with the light. If you can see something, isn't it still alive? What is life anyway?
Maybe that was what was happening to me. My existence was traveling along. I didn't exist where I had been born anymore. But I existed here, in this time and place.
Well, sort of.
All this wondering was making my brain hurt, so I rolled onto my side and stared at the trees. But when you've been dead for so long - two years or two life times depending on who's perspective you choose - it's hard not to think about the fact that you're alive now.
I pressed my fingertips into the ground beside my face hard enough to feel the blood pulse in them. It felt good. It felt like breathing. Like blinking. It was the feeling of being alive. And I'd missed it.
I woke later to the sound of voices. It was a gradual waking, like the voices had been talking for a while and had dragged me out from under a whole pile of sleep.
"That's the thing." I think it was wild-man. "I don't think she fell."
"What?" Military-man's voice was sharp. "You think one of us pushed her? You think I pushed her?"
"Shhh! No. That's not what I'm saying."
"Then man up and say it!"
"I'm saying..." Wild-man seemed to deliberate, and I heard the fire crackle like he was poking it to irritate it. "Look, I don't know what happened. I just know what I saw. And it looked to me like she jumped."
"What? That'd be crazy. She knew we were hitting the hot spot on the rapids. She's not an idiot."
"No," said wild-man. "She's not an idiot. Not at all."
Military-man took in his breath like he needed strength not to punch wild-man. A fist-fight between them would have been something. "What are you saying, man?"
"I'm saying she might have done it on purpose. She might have jumped knowing this was the spot that other girl fell out. She might have wanted to..."
"To what?" I could picture Military-man getting up in wild-man's face, all ready for a take-down.
"Did she have a reason to want to die?" Wild-man said it so quietly I could barely make out the words.
But I heard the resounding crack of a reply. And the thud as wild-man went down.
The question echoed in my head as they scuffled in the leaves and dirt behind me. I held still.
Did Stephanie have a reason to want to die?
Did she?
If she did, why wasn't her body dead? And where the heck was she?
I got up early the next morning, right before the sun. I didn't go far, just to the edge of the river. There was a bit of a drop-off into the water under me, but the water was clear and calm, going slow and steady. Peaceful.
Nothing that would kill a person.
I dangled my feet over the edge and thought about being alive, and then dead.
"Stephanie?" I called. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"
I waited, but there wasn't any response. I hadn't expected anything. Didn't people need like a seance or something to talk to dead people? Where were all the dead people? I hadn't disappeared, obviously, and I'd been dead two years. So where had I been?
I tried to remember, but it was like trying to remember being born. It was a different state of existence. My living brain couldn't remember things it hadn't been around for. I rubbed my temples.
This was what I wanted, right? To be alive? And if Stephanie didn't want this body, I sure did. I might not remember much from being dead, or from being alive before, but I sure as heck knew I hadn't meant to die.
"Stephanie," I said to the blue - the sky and the water. "If you don't want this life back, I'm going to keep it." I didn't ask permission. I didn't mention the possibility of her wanting it back.
Because it didn't matter either way. It was mine now.
And I was holding on.
I was so startled at not being dead, that I almost died all over again.
Blood crashed through my veins like white water rapids. It pulsed in every part of my body, making my toes curl and my fingers twitch.
Wait, no. Not my fingers. Whose fingers were these?
They were short with wide nails. Mine had been long with round knuckles. I flexed my hand, and the fingers moved. It was my hand, but it was definitely not my hand.
Who the heck was I? And why, in the whole wide universe, was I alive?
I'd been dead for, well, maybe for forever. I don't know if was actually dead, or just not living. Either way, I had never been alive before. At least, not for so long that it didn't matter. But I knew what I looked like. And it was not this.
My eyes travelled down the hand to my wrist, forearm, elbow. This arm - supposedly my arm - was thicker than it should have been. Shorter too.
I tried to move my head, and found I couldn't. Maybe I wasn't alive then.
But I pulled in air - real air! - through my nose, and felt my lungs inflate with a burning sensation. My chest ached and my breath caught. I choked on air coming up and then on water following it. My middle tightened and I coughed so hard I thought this new throat would split.
My head finally moved and pain - literal, physical pain - spliced my in half from the crown of my head to the arches of my feet. I screamed. The sound was loud in my head, echoing inside and out. I had never felt pain before, and it was so agonizing, so real and deadly and there, that it almost knocked me unconscious.
No, maybe I had felt pain before. Maybe. A long, long time before.
The pain zinged down my spine again and I shrieked as a flash of something lit my mind.
Woods.
Was I in the woods now?
I realized I'd closed my eyes and opened them again, straight up into blue.
The sky.
And that was when my ears started to turn on. I'd heard this body scream. But now I could hear things outside myself. Voices maybe. A rushing. Birds chirping.
"Can you hear me?"
I turned toward the voice and gasped at more pain. "Yes," I said. "But I can't move." My voice was lower than I remembered. Definitely feminine, but throaty and hoarse. Maybe it was just the pain coming through.
A face blocked out the blue above me. I couldn't focus on it for a moment. Then it cleared and sharpened. Two dark eyes set in the midst of shaggy dark hair. I thought for a minute it might be a bear, but he was human. His beard and hair had gone rogue.
"Stephanie," he said.
And I knew that was most certainly not my name.
"I really think we should take her back to a hospital," the bear guy said. He still hadn't told me his name.
I pulled my blanket tighter around my shoulders. I felt too broad, too wide. This body wasn't fat, by any stretch of the imagination. But I was heavy, full of compacted muscle. I think I might have been strong, but I hadn't tested it out yet. It was just too weird.
The fire in front of us crackled conversationally and I leaned closer to it, loving how I could feel the heat on my skin, taste it in my mouth.
"She's fine!" This came from the other guy in the group. He was sitting the closest to me, almost touching. He was shorter than the wild bear man with black hair cut close to his head and no beard. He looked military tough, while bear looked wild-man tough. I wouldn't have wanted to get in a fight with either of them.
"She doesn't remember a thing," Wild-man said. "No offense, Stephanie."
I leaned even closer to the fire, then remember that was supposed to be my name, and looked over at him. "Uh, it's fine," I said.
Liz, the fourth member of this group shook her head, the beads on her pale cornrows braids rattling together. She hadn't told me her name either, assuming I'd miraculously remember it at some point, but military-guy and called to her, so I'd picked it up. "If she's still all out of it tomorrow morning," Liz said, "we'll head back. But it'd be a waste to throw out the whole trip just because she took a fall off the raft."
Wild-man sighed. "Kay. It's cool." He stood up. "I just don't want her to end up like that girl in the news a couple years ago. Remember her? Same sort of thing. Out doing the rapids with her friends, and next thing anyone knows, she washing up down river."
My mind flashed an image at me again. Woods. Water.
"What was her name?" I asked.
They all turned to look at me like they'd forgotten I was there.
"The girl who drowned a couple years ago. Do you remember her name?"
Liz shook her head. "It was all over the papers, but just for a few days. I only looked at it because we'd been planning to take the same route, but the story made us switch at the last minute. Didn't you read it too?"
"I think it started with an M," Military-man said. "Her name. Like Melissa, or Maveny or something."
"Merissa?" I asked. "Was it Merissa? I need to know!"
"Yeah," said Wild-man. "Yeah, I think it was. But that's not the point. The point is I don't want you, Stephanie, ending up like that girl, whatever her name was!"
"Yeah," said Liz. "But that girl was dead when they found her. Stephanie isn't. So chill."
Wild-man held up his hand. "Fine. I'm going to get more firewood to keep this burning tonight." He tromped off through the underbrush.
Military-man leaned closer to the fire and he and Liz exchanged a look.
"You really don't remember anything, Steph?" Military-man asked. He reached for my hand like he was going to hold it, but I buried my hand in the blanket before he could. I'd held hands with someone before. I was pretty sure. But not with him.
He settled his hand on my leg. "You're not just joking with us?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I honestly don't remember. Not any of this anyway. But I do remember something."
"Yeah?" Liz leaned her elbows on her knees.
I didn't know how they were going to take this, but it had to be said, if we were ever going to figure out what was going on. "I remember something from someone else's life."
Liz took in her breath and leaned away from me.
Military-man didn't move. "What?" he said.
"I don't think this is my life," I said. "I don't think this is even my body."
Liz swore and crossed herself.
Military-man still didn't move. "What exactly are you saying?" he asked.
"This might be Stephanie's body," I said, "But I'm not Stephanie. I'm Merissa."
"What the heck is going on?" Liz asked.
Wild-man tried to put his hands on her shoulders but she knocked his hands aside.
Military-man had taken his hand off my thigh, but didn't move away from me.
"Either Stephanie's lost her sanity," Liz said, "or she's been possessed by a dead girl. Either way, she needs to leave. Now!"
"I told you we should have taken her to the hospital," Wild-man said.
Military-man opened his mouth, and closed it again. Finally he said, "So, if you're Merissa, where is Stephanie?"
That was a question actually worth pondering. "I don't know," I said.
I liked the look of the stars. I remembered learning that most of them were already dead by the time we saw them. The light travelled so far that the stars had lived out their entire lives before the light got to our little planet. I didn't remember where I learned it. But it was in my brain. And I wondered if the dead stars knew how I'd felt, being dead too.
Was I still dead?
I guessed the stars lived forever then. Because if the universe was infinite, the light would keep going and going and going, and people on planets further and further away would get to look at the stars that didn't exist anymore. At least, the stars didn't exist where they had been born. Their existence traveled with the light. If you can see something, isn't it still alive? What is life anyway?
Maybe that was what was happening to me. My existence was traveling along. I didn't exist where I had been born anymore. But I existed here, in this time and place.
Well, sort of.
All this wondering was making my brain hurt, so I rolled onto my side and stared at the trees. But when you've been dead for so long - two years or two life times depending on who's perspective you choose - it's hard not to think about the fact that you're alive now.
I pressed my fingertips into the ground beside my face hard enough to feel the blood pulse in them. It felt good. It felt like breathing. Like blinking. It was the feeling of being alive. And I'd missed it.
I woke later to the sound of voices. It was a gradual waking, like the voices had been talking for a while and had dragged me out from under a whole pile of sleep.
"That's the thing." I think it was wild-man. "I don't think she fell."
"What?" Military-man's voice was sharp. "You think one of us pushed her? You think I pushed her?"
"Shhh! No. That's not what I'm saying."
"Then man up and say it!"
"I'm saying..." Wild-man seemed to deliberate, and I heard the fire crackle like he was poking it to irritate it. "Look, I don't know what happened. I just know what I saw. And it looked to me like she jumped."
"What? That'd be crazy. She knew we were hitting the hot spot on the rapids. She's not an idiot."
"No," said wild-man. "She's not an idiot. Not at all."
Military-man took in his breath like he needed strength not to punch wild-man. A fist-fight between them would have been something. "What are you saying, man?"
"I'm saying she might have done it on purpose. She might have jumped knowing this was the spot that other girl fell out. She might have wanted to..."
"To what?" I could picture Military-man getting up in wild-man's face, all ready for a take-down.
"Did she have a reason to want to die?" Wild-man said it so quietly I could barely make out the words.
But I heard the resounding crack of a reply. And the thud as wild-man went down.
The question echoed in my head as they scuffled in the leaves and dirt behind me. I held still.
Did Stephanie have a reason to want to die?
Did she?
If she did, why wasn't her body dead? And where the heck was she?
I got up early the next morning, right before the sun. I didn't go far, just to the edge of the river. There was a bit of a drop-off into the water under me, but the water was clear and calm, going slow and steady. Peaceful.
Nothing that would kill a person.
I dangled my feet over the edge and thought about being alive, and then dead.
"Stephanie?" I called. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"
I waited, but there wasn't any response. I hadn't expected anything. Didn't people need like a seance or something to talk to dead people? Where were all the dead people? I hadn't disappeared, obviously, and I'd been dead two years. So where had I been?
I tried to remember, but it was like trying to remember being born. It was a different state of existence. My living brain couldn't remember things it hadn't been around for. I rubbed my temples.
This was what I wanted, right? To be alive? And if Stephanie didn't want this body, I sure did. I might not remember much from being dead, or from being alive before, but I sure as heck knew I hadn't meant to die.
"Stephanie," I said to the blue - the sky and the water. "If you don't want this life back, I'm going to keep it." I didn't ask permission. I didn't mention the possibility of her wanting it back.
Because it didn't matter either way. It was mine now.
And I was holding on.
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