Ghosting The Billionaire Bad Boy

3.Out-worldly Mistake

John Paul

A flash of blinding light surrounded me and in the next moment I was in a busy street of the town where I lived, right next to my favourite coffee shop, Café Le Chat Noir. It didn't make sense, I was in my car a few seconds ago... my car... the accident.

Realization hit me like a stone from a catapult!

I must be dreaming, that was the only reasonable explanation.

I just had to pinch myself and wake up.

But I looked down at myself. I was some kind of phantom, an outline of my normal human form. Was I really dead? If yes, what then was I still doing here in the middle of a busy street? So, this wss what life after death looked like?

Perhaps my body wasn't dead yet. Perhaps there had to be a way back into it. But how?

First I needed to my body. Then jump into it and probably resurrect or something. I thought afterlife had a grim reaper. Why was no spirit person here to answer my questions, explain what was happening.

My family... they must know where I was, where my body was.

That was it! I could go home, but who was I kidding? They were seldomly present at home. It would be easier to find them at Central Tech. I walked towards the company; I was indeed a f*ucking ghost. Invisible! It's funny to be invisible, when during my whole life I had always been the center of the attention.

After some time, I arrived at the building, at my family's company. A software development enterprise. I went directly to the twentyfifth floor, where I could easily find my dad and my sister, and passed through the wall of my sister's office and there she was, sitting on her revolving chair behind a huge mahogany desk, rocking from side to side, as if nothing had happened.

Are they not aware that I just suffered an accident? They should know it by now, it's not every day that a Cadillac gets tipped over a bridge downtown.

Everyone should have noticed, someone must notice. They should at least realise that I was late for the meeting and nowhere to be found. If I wasn't such a regularly unpunctual person... I always got to the office late and at my convenience to the point that everyone became used to my nonchalant attitude. Besides that, they would have noticed. I stared at my sister as she calmly answered her phone that rang out when I appeared, before taking a sip of coffee.

"JP didn't come to the meeting, as everyone expected. You know he is an irresponsible brat... No, no... he hasn't show up yet," she said to the person on the other side of the line.

I knew we had grown distant, but I can't believe Charlotte talked about me this way behind my back.

After she hung up, I strode towards her and tried to get her attention, "Charlotte, can you hear me?" I screamed, agitated.

As I expected, it fell on deaf ears. Damnit! I scattered the papers on top of her desk, like the ghosts in movies I saw did, but my sister only huffed and shook her head. She was in a mood again. I am the dead one, I am the f*****g ghost, and she is in a mood?

The phone rang once again and she answered another call, "Hi, baby." she said. Surely, she was taking with Jan, her boyfriend. They've been together for many years now.

He is also a businessman. They are the perfectly boring couple

"Yes, he didn't show up... I think it worked well. Yes... you were right! That was the right thing to do, get rid of that useless brat! Life is so unfair, but now that we decided to take justice into our own hands, things will soon become what they are supposed to be, baby, she giggled, before taking another sip of coffee.

I couldn't believe it! Was she talking about me?! My sister was the one responsible for the accident. I tried to reach her, to drop her coffee on her papers, to do something, but nothing worked. I am not even good at been a ghost. I was shocked, I would be livid right now, if I still had a body.

I left her office, going through the wall. Still shocked to the core, at a loss of word and everything. I couldn't ever imagine that Charlotte could be that evil!! How can I find my way back now? The bridge! That was the last thing I saw before I found myself in this current predicament, before I became a stupid and helpless ghost. I have to get back there and find my body.

As I stepped out of the company's building, I saw a man in a suit. He wasn't some businessman coming to the company for some official matters, he was working towards me purposefully like a man on a mission which means he saw me. Then I noticed something about him; he was glowing, just like me. Who is he? Another ghost? I thought in alarm and relief at the same time. "JP" he said my name calmly like it's something he always does. "How do you know my name? Who are you?" I asked looking attentively at his obvious illuminating form

"I am Hazael and I am here to take you to the place you belong in the afterlife." His voice had a calming effect I never felt before, and the words sounded like what he says on a daily basis. Maybe he does

"You mean heaven?" I asked.

"Not quite." he answered.

"Is there a way for me to come back? be alive again? I am not feeling exactly ready to take the next step, the dying step." My words echoed confusion and frustration. That was exactly how I was feeling at that point.

"I am afraid not, your time on earth came to its natural end." he said in the same annoying serene way.

"No! It wasn't a natural end! I was the victim of a trap, they killed me! I overheard them, there was nothing natural about it! I was murdered! You must help me!!" I said with desperation and urgency as I moved towards his surreal form

"There is nothing I can do, I am sorry, JP. You are about to die, your heartbeat is going lower by the minute, the oxygen flowing to your brain is considerably reduced. That is why your soul and body got detached,

"You are an angel. How come there is nothing you can do? Please orchestrate a miracle, I am too young, and I still have a lot to live and a lot to do. This can't be my end." I was almost at the verge of weeping.

"I am an afterlife worker, a bureaucrat one could say. I must follow a procedure, homologate a miracle request, which would take a lot of time and by then, your body would already be in a putrefactive state." His words sounded like a final speech.

He is a useless angel! Damn, bureaucratic processes are the worst!

I took some steps back, there was no way I was going anywhere with this guy. He didn't even offer me heaven.

"Please JP, come with me. We should make your death process go as smoothly as possible."

I didn't know what else to do.

"My body, do you know where it is?" I asked him, my voice heavy with urgency and deep desperation. I have never felt that helpless before!

"I am afraid not. To get such piece of information, I would need to send a request to the body department. I work in the afterlife soul allocation and conduction, it's a totally different sector."

I huffed in response. My last hope was gone. I followed that excuse for an angel through a narrow portal of light.

"Welcome to the ante-chamber of the afterlife, I will show you around briefly, it is part of the acclimatization process." He said as we walked across a wide hall with tall arches, and grotesque but captivating statues of gargoyles continuously spitting gold-coloured water into flowered trenches.

Few people were walking around. They all looked as immaterial and dead as I was.

Each of the doors on your left leads to one of the seven heavens. He explained. The doors were so tall they dwarfed me. You could almost call them gates. They were beautifully dotted with diamonds. I could visibly see my small image in it.

A grin curled up on my lips. An idea lit up in my head. The doors were my chance.

The angel glanced at me and shook his head.

"Please don't get any ideas, JP. Those doors can only be opened with special keys. Those keys must be earned."

"Fine, I didn't intend to remain dead anyway," I muttered underneath my breath.

"To your right are the doors of the seven pits of Hell." He explained, motioning to the wide doors . We kept walking, one step at a time.

"The small green door over there is the one we send the souls to the bodies before babies are born or even when people are granted another chance on earth. Like reincarnation. And of course, they don't have any memories of their past life"  He explained.

That was my chance! If I wasn't granted one, I would take it anyway! That was my way out, and I had no intention of losing this chance. When Hazael looked to the other side, I took the opportunity to run toward the door, I opened it and walked in without even thinking. Instead of the ground, my feet felt the emptiness of a fall. After some time, I found myself in a huge labyrinth, where souls like me were running around. There were some arrows and signs with directions.

I could read the names Asia, Europe, Africa, America, and Oceania. I went to my continent and my country Canada, when I was about to go to my city, I was literally run over by the soul of many pup dogs. I didn't even know they were part of this soul allocation insane process as well; they ran around like wrecking balls, pushing and dragging me with them, and before I could see, I was jumping through another door.

I braced myself to the free fall, clenching my eyes shut! It was a stupid idea!

I expected to fall into oblivion, some kind of void, or even reincarnate as a dog, that was how horrible my luck had been lately. But soon, another flash of light made me numb and I blacked out. I didn't even know that a dead, or semi-dead soul, could faint.

I started feeling heavy, I didn't feel the freedom and thrill of being weightless anymore, now there was something material, a frame limiting me once again.

It appeared I might have found my body.

I forced open my eyelids, they were heavy as rocks. I blinked twice trying to adjust to the light, trying to adjust to the fact that I had a body now, a pair of eyes once again.

I saw the blurred face of a ginger mid-age woman, she looked intently at me, shocked

“Elle!" she exclaimed joyfully, her eyes glistering with unshed tears

What the hell? Who is Elle? Where am I?