It was so odd, waking up after my fall. So many weird feelings. First, my body was completely cold, then I felt so relaxed. Then, I opened my eyes, gasping for air. I tried looking around, but… everything was dark. Pure black, even when I knew my eyes were open. What happened after that fall? Did it blind me?!

I tried to get up and find out where the hell I was, which was my first mistake. As soon as I braced myself on my arm, my neck shifted and immediately I screamed out in pain. I fell back on my face, sending more pain throughout my body.

“In here!” I heard a voice say. Some boy I think. I wasn’t sure because of the whole situation of not being able to see.

“Max?!” Huh… I knew that voice. Was that…? “I’ve got you. Just wait a minute. This may hurt a little bit.”

I felt someone’s hand put my head on their lap, making me cry again with another wave of pain. Then, a soft hand was placed on the back of my neck before something weird started happening. I could feel bones and muscle in my back shifting around and snapping into places. It hurt a bit, just like he said, but it was also a bit calming. When everything had settled, I could see trickles of light before the entire world flooded into vision, making me groan as I slowly opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was the plain, wooden ceiling of the house, then when I rolled over on the shiny, reflective floor I- Wait… My house didn’t have a wooden floor. And where were the stairs I fell down? And Reginald! Aven and Beatrice too! Where was everything?! And the man whose lap my head was on, it was-

“Lucas!” I cried, throwing my arms around his neck and giving him a giant hug. “I thought you were dead!”

“Oh yeah,” he coughed, pulling away. “About that…”

“He is dead,” said a voice from the doorway. “We all are, including you.”

I looked over to see two more familiar faces: Dallas and Rex. But they… they looked wrong. A bit twisted even. Rex looked impossibly famished for a human being to still be on their feet. Almost like a skeleton wearing someone’s skin. And Dallas… Half of the boy’s face was covered in bandages, all stained with a light red. I didn’t know if I wanted to find out what lied under them.

“Don’t stare,” Dallas grumbled, walking away in a moody fit.

“Happy deathday,” Rex nodded.

“I’m dead…?” I whispered. “Then… is this Heaven?”

“It’s funny you thought we were going anywhere good after what we did,” he smiled. “Especially what Lucas did to some of those people.”

“Wait,” I said fearfully. “Are we in Hell?!”

“Definitely not,” Lucas shook his head. “I believe we’re somewhere in between.”

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Rex waved, heading out. “I don’t want to be here when something gross happens between you both.”

“Thanks Rex,” Lucas rolled his eyes.

“No problem,” he smiled with a thumbs up, walking out of the door and to who knows where. Lucas turned his eyes back down to me.

“Maybe we should go to my office.”

“I think I’d like that a lot,” I nodded as he helped me to my feet.

“Guess I should welcome you then,” he coughed, scratching the back of his head. “Welcome, Maxine Hawthorne, to your eternal afterlife.”

*   *   *   *   *

“This place is…”

“Really similar to my lab?” Lucas finished as we walked into his office. It looked exactly like the one he had back home. “Yeah, it’s no coincidence either. It looks like I’ve got some kind of control over this place.”

“Really? Why?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” he admitted, taking a seat and scratching his chin. “I just know that after my execution, I woke up here and well… We can talk about it later.”

“But why am I here?” I asked, confused. “Why is Dallas here? Why Rex?”

“Still figuring that out,” he admitted again. “But I think it has something to do with this.”

He gestured to something near the corner of the room. It was something that looked like the start of a family tree, but had metal engravings where the names would be. At the very top, there was a picture of Lucas, with Lucas DuCarmont below that, and Boss below his name. Below Lucas were three others lined up. Pictures of Dallas, Rex, and I with our names respectively below them. We all had odd subtext below our names though. Underneath Dallas’ name were the words Suicide Boss. Below Rex’ was Anorexia Boss. Finally, below my name was Anxiety Boss.

“I don’t get it,” I scratched my head. “I’m anxious?”

“Well, anxiety and anorexia nervosa are mental conditions,” Lucas explained. “And it’s not a stretch to think that suicide is linked to mental illness…”

“You think we’re here because of your psychocology study thing?”

“I don’t know if we’re here because of it, but I think that has to have some play in it. I just haven’t figured it all out yet.”

“Wait, if we’re in the afterlife, then…” I looked around before glancing up and back at Lucas. “Have you met God?”

“Can’t say I have,” he laughed. “Been too focused on whatever this place is. I think we have a job to do here.”

“What do you call this place anyway?” I asked.

“The Afterlife.”

“Well yeah we’re in the afterlife. But Heaven and Hell have names, so-”

“No, no, Afterlife with a capital A,” he clarified. “Afterlife with a capital A which is a part of the afterlife with a lowercase A.”

We sat in silence for a moment after that explanation.

“Really?” I judged harshly. “That was the best name you could come up with?”

“I don’t remember asking for a critique,” Lucas grumbled.

“If we’re dead and stuff, can we look down at the people who are still alive?” I asked. “I want to make sure Aven’s ok…”

“I’m not sure, in all honesty. We’ve been working on figuring out everything between the death and arrivals and magic and everything-”

“Magic?!” I exclaimed. “When was magic a thing?”

“We’re in a recreation of New York that I somehow made after I died,” he said, leaning forward and raising an eyebrow. “How much of this doesn't seem magical to you?”

“This is all just so much,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes.

“Looks like we’ve all got magic and abilities of our own, including transformations.”

“Transformations?”

“Yeah, I call them our True Forms. It’s a kind of form that I think reflects us on the inside. At least that’s my working theory.”

“Huh… How do I do it?” I asked, clenching my fists and trying to feel something. All I felt was hungry.

“It takes time,” he explained. “Dallas hasn’t figured out his yet. Rex has, and apparently his power is impossibly impressive engineering skills and mental calculation faster than most calculators.”

“Wow…” I whispered. “Don’t calculators take years of studying math to get to that level though?”

“Rex is just gifted,” Lucas sighed. “But don’t panic if you can’t wrap your head around the magic right away. I feel like you’ll have a while to figure it out.”

“Right, right…” I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck and looking down.

“So, how did you die?”

“Huh?” I asked, snapping out of my daze.

“How’d you die?” he asked again. “If it’s not too much trouble. I’m just curious.”

“Oh… Beatrice told Reginald about us. He got angry and accidentally pushed me down the stairs, and well you know how that ended up.”

“Interesting…” Lucas mumbled, looking me in the eyes.

“Wow, thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Glad I at least died interestingly to you.”

“No, not the part I thought was interesting,” he said, pulling out a small pocket mirror from the side of his desk. I saw what he thought was so interesting. There was this pink star right below my right eye. I put my fingers on it, but the star was printed onto my skin.

“That is odd…” I whispered in awe. “How long has that been there?”

“It popped up when you started explaining how you died.”

“It’s like one of those tattoos sailors get or face point on performers,” I noted, not able to take my hand off of it. “I kind of like it though.”

“Does look good on you,” Lucas nodded. “Maybe your power has something to do with that?”

“That would be interesting,” I giggled. “We’ll see though. I may look fine, but I’m just smiling to not freak out.”

Yeah, that was definitely the truth. I was shaking and smiling. Nerves were bouncing off the walls, and I couldn’t help but just do some deep breathing.

“Um, Max…”

Lucas pointed to my arm, which had an inky image of a heart beating. That was the freaky part. The image was moving. On my arm!

“Gah!” I screamed, toppling backwards in my chair and hugging my body. 

Skulls and hearts appeared around my body, along with pictures of shouting people, stairs, chairs, and impact marks. I was starting to hyperventilate as my skin started getting consumed and decorated almost completely in these black marks.

“Max, Max, calm down,” Lucas said, gently getting up and approaching me. He put his arms around me and we both rocked back and forth. “In your nose, out your mouth.”

After a few minutes of gentle rocking and deep breathing, I felt better. I was still shaking, but most of the images on my body had disappeared. When Lucas let me go, I held back onto his arm. We looked each other in the eyes.

“I just need a de-stressor,” I said, almost pleading.

“We can do that,” Lucas whispered with that gentle, gentle smile. He moved over and closed his office door, locking it. He cupped my chin and we shared another kiss. That’s how I spent my first day in my afterlife.