I could feel the cold of the night on my face a I shifted uncomfortable. When I slowly sat up, I looked around. I was in the middle of the street, looking around as I saw several ambulances and a body bag. There was a woman starting at a body with a look of terror and sadness, crying as she held her hand on her face, holding as tightly as possible. She was sniffling as she looked into the white sheet of the body, and she turned away to vomit into the gutter. I was about to walk over and comfort her, but a man was over next to her in milliseconds, putting a recovery blanket over her shoulders. He guided her away and I took a step back. I saw the flashing lights, and waited in a daze. They sped off into the distance, and I was left standing in the eerie glow of the overhead street lights.
The street seemed to be in a type of haze, when I turned around and found a blood spatter on the ground next to where my head was as I was laying down. That's weird, because I felt fine. No headache or anything. I didn't even feel bad. I actually felt better than I had in a long time, stretching as I smiled. I looked around and started to take a few steps, but I got a feeling of fear when I took a step out of the light, and I started seeing strange shadows moving in the area next to me. I backed up into the light and looked around, blinking as I heard a hissing sound. The sound of a trash can clattered to the ground, and I jumped when Mama Kitty came running out of the alley carrying a bag full of her kittens. I stared at her as she ran by, a look of despair in her eyes. I suddenly felt drawn to her, forced to follow. I chased her, into the darkness, and there was the feeling of intense evil washing over me. I looked around, seeing the shadows warping and hands slowly coming out of the walls of the buildings and trying to drag me down into the ground with them, and I kept running.
I started hearing screaming. Moaning and crying of children, begging for me to help them. I stopped next to Mama Kitty, who set down her kittens in a plastic bin next to a porch light. I turned around and felt tears drip down my face as I tried to grab a hand and drag them up. This was met with an unexpected response, moans of hopeful desperation. I started dragging up the body from the dirt, and panicking as I dragged it upwards. mama Kitty was watching with fascination as I dragged this person over towards the light and used the ground it provided to pull straight upwards. The being I saw was dripping in tar, blackened by something I could not see. I dragged them into the light and stared at them writhing on the ground, screaming in pain. The tar on their bod was disappearing, and light was shining through underneath. Tears drifted into my eyes and I knelt down, sobbing and telling them it was going to be OK. That it was going to be over soon. Whatever this was, it was going to be over soon. They stopped writhing in pain and panted when the dark tar all over them had disappeared, and the only thing that showed through right now was the bright white light. I looked at the darkness and started shouting.
"YOU HAVE TO GET TO THE LIGHT! YOU HAVE TO GET TO THE LIGHT- THE PAIN WILL END!" I charged over to the left, next to Mama Kitty when I saw the first person start to drag themselves up into the light. I hovered over the kittens protectively until there was a bright flash, and I was floating above the planet city. I was floating on a cloud.
"You have shown great bravery, for such a young spirit." I ignored the voice that was speaking I was panicking when I stared over the edge of the cloud at the people drag themselves up into street lamp lights and scream silently at this height. Tears fell off the cloud, and suddenly there was a slow drizzly downpour. "You've discovered the secret so soon. But I wonder if you know what has happened to you."
That sentence forced me to stop when I looked down at him and I gave a small gasp. I had been somehow so caught up in what I was doing with the person I dragged into the light, that I didn't stop to ask why there was hands clawing their way out of the walls and out of the ground.
"What's happening?! Where am I?! Why am I on a cloud?! What's happening?! Tell me!" I spun around sniffling nervously, and in a panic, causing a small jolt of thunder below us. The only thing there was a hazy image of something, like a star, but it held all of the universe inside it. It was an orb. A strange one. Everything was hazy around it.
"Calm yourself, young soul." I felt a sense of warmth roll over me when I looked at it, and the storm got weaker below us. "I will answer one of your questions. Ask wisely."
That didn't seem fair to me, considering I'm floating on a cloud. Was I dead?
"What's happening?" I stared at it curiously, and felt it's curiosity mirrored back at me.
"You are being selected to join what the spirits of your world call the "SRG." The, as they call it, Spiritual Reality Guide." I swear I felt my stomach drop after hearing that. I looked at it and swallowed my dryness in my mouth. "Do you accept the proposal?"
I felt my world shatter below me, and my heart sank. My parents were going to be left without their daughter. I was making a decision without even saying goodbye? it was as if the orb could sense my heart change, and it grew sad. It knew this was hard on me, and I knew it was trying to decide on something.
"I'll join you under two conditions." I sniffled as the rain picked up.
"What are these conditions?" I'm glad it was humoring me.
"I'll join you if you answer me one question... And let me leave a voicemail on my parents phone to say goodbye. if they answer the phone, then you have to let me talk for the time it takes." I felt my throat seize up.
"Your question." It agreed.
"Am I dead?"
It remained silent and I looked at it expectantly as it began to glow a darker blue.
"Yes."
I sobbed out, and fell to my knees, tearing up as I felt the soft caress of the clouds vapor as the storm raged on below the cloud.
"I will give you time." A phone appeared before me, and I grabbed it, holding the phone in my hands as I stared at the dial. I slowly started to dial my mothers phone number. It rang quietly, and there was the sound of it continually ringing. My mother picked up and I heard sobbing into the phone from my father.
"M-mama... Mommy I'm sorry... I shouldn't have snuck out while you were arguing. It's me... it's me Cassidy... Mommy out me on speaker I don;t have much time." I sobbed and the storm surged under me. I sniffled as I tried to hold myself together. "I love you... I love you both... Promise me you won't hurt each other... Please, promise you'll get better. If I ever have a little brother or sister, tell them about me... Tell them I helped people.. Tell them that the world can be bright if you make it bright... And-" I choked on my tears. "-never forget me. I'm still doing great things, even from the beyond. I'm going to help people. To protect mommy... Like you always said I would." I doubled over forwards sobbing as I spoke. "I love you... I have to go now... Please never forget me..."
I sobbed softly as I struggled to hang up the phone before they could ask questions. I laid on my side sobbing for hours, the storm raging well into the morning. I felt my eyes water. There was a warm glow and a small whisper from the orb as it slowly absorbed my body.
"It's time, young soul. You must be assigned to your youth..." It was sad, and trying not to choke on itself. There was a sense of calm, and a flash of light, and I felt nothing.
I heard a distant high pitched baby's scream.
It was time to work.