Last Seconds

Chapter Three

I can only stare at the back of the ambulance that is moving away from us until it’s gone. I want to follow it, but I also want to clear my mind first.

There are so many questions about what went wrong, but I can’t find an answer to it. It seems like it’s just recently that I’m in the bar asking for a free drink, then the stranger that I’ve met there, who doesn’t even know me, has given me a drink then become responsible for my death after and I am to his in just a blink of an eye.

And that stranger is here. Just like me, he can only stand here. His body is rigid. He doesn’t move until he sees me.

That cold, dark brown eyes of him bore into mine. His penetrating stare doesn’t waver. If he’s angry about how things went like this, he doesn’t show it. But I think he’s planning to murder me again, only that this time, he knows he can’t because we’ve seen it already in our own eyes. We are now dead. Unable to breathe or do our life cycles anymore.

I know what I have done to him is only self-defense. But what he’s done to me is pure wickedness. He intends to kill me after I help the woman. So, whoever should be angry, it’s me.

“F*ck you!” I curse him. Although my words won’t change the fact that I’m dead, it still somehow makes me better to curse him right on his d*mn face. “I still have dreams, f*cking assh*le! It has taken me years to realize that, and now you’ve ruined it!”

“And you ruined mine, woman!”

I stop. My head swirls around, searching for the man who owns that familiar solid Australian accent.

Then I find him. His brows furrow and his jaw tighten.

“You can see me?” I ask in disbelief. It’s like we have a sudden shift. He’s the first one who can’t believe that I can see him, and then here am I asking the same thing.

“Do you realize what you have just done?” he asks in a raised voice, completely ignoring my question. The veins on his neck and forehead are now visible.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, my brows furrow. “And who the hell are you? Why are you keep on appearing?”

He glares at me—his fists clench.

“You aren’t supposed to die!” he shouts.

“Then you should be angry at that thief—” I turn my head to the thief and glared at him, “—he killed me!”

The thief’s eyes flash at that, dark and angry. Gone are his cold aura. “You killed me, too!”

“Killed, my ass!” I shout back. “It was self-defense!”

“Damn, woman!” The stranger also shouts. “Shut up!”

“You shut up!” My attention is back to the stranger who I can’t understand why he’s making himself involved in this problem. “Our deaths aren’t your problem! F*cking leave us alone!”

The stranger opens his mouth in an attempt to speak but decides against it. He casts me an intense glare before his gaze turns to the thief. “You two, come with me.”

I stare at him in disbelief. He’s lost his mind. I can also see from the thief’s furrowed brows that he also thinks this stranger has lost his mind. The thief then shakes his head and laughs, a sarcastic one. He ignores the stranger and walks away. But before he can take another step, a vine appears. As if it has some magical force on it, it loops around the thief’s body and arms on its own. The thief comes to a halt.

This is not a hallucination because even the thief is in a state of shock.

Many things happen in an hour that I can’t quite differentiate between fiction and reality.

“How the hell . . .” I murmur to myself. My eyes blink a few times. In my periphery, I see the strange man walking toward me.

I gulp, the hair on the back of my neck rises. His gaze penetrates me as if he’s scanning my soul.

“Marigold Aberra,” he says sharply. “You also have to come with me.”

“What the hell!” I curse. “Are you a stalker or what?”

He ignores me. Instead, he approaches the thief.

Sh*t! How the f*ck does he know my complete name?

“Lucas Davies,” the strange man says. The thief looks at him in disbelief, but he quickly changes it into a cold stare.

I confirmed he’s a psychotic stalker. He both knows our name. And he has these unearthed powers that he’s used to the thief, to Lucas.

“You two are now lost souls,” he continues. “This day isn’t your time of death yet.”

What the f*ck! He even knows our time of death!

“I’m here to collect the old woman.”

I snap my mouth shut. I want to interrupt him, but I know that he isn’t done yet. So, I wait.

“There aren’t reapers that are assigned for the both of you,” he continues.

I know what reapers are. They are the ones to collect souls, but I didn’t expect I’d meet one. Whoever is this man, he’s a grim reaper that went to collect a soul that’s assigned for him, but now, he has two lost souls on his tail.

“So, come with me.” He flicks his finger, and another vine appears from it. It floats between us.

I hold out my arms. “No—f*ck! Stop! There’s no need to tie me. I’m not going anywhere!”

I have no plans to escape anyway, and I don’t know where to go. I’m a lost soul like he said. I need guidance. And maybe, there’s a miracle that I can get back alive if I stay with this reaper for some time. He already said that it’s not my time yet to die.

The vine vanishes. I heave a deep sigh.

Lucas, however, still has the vine. He meets my eyes when he sees me looking at him. I grit my teeth. His expression is sharper than earlier, and he’s like calculating the situation.

I roll my eyes.

“Untie me,” Lucas says after long contemplation. Maybe he realizes that his defiance is of no use. We are now both dead, even if it isn’t our time yet. Perhaps this grim reaper can help.

The grim reaper tilts his head, studying Lucas for a while. Then he flicks his finger, and the vine around Lucas’s body vanishes into thin air. As soon as he’s free, he stretches his arms out. But when I’ve thought that he’s done with his defiance, he makes a way to vanish himself like a bubble that pops. I can only stand here, and my jaw hangs open. Beside me, the grim reaper cursed under his breath. Lucas’s deceived him.

I haven’t thought that dead ones are capable of making themselves vanish until the thief has done it. It’s like we have some superpowers or something.

But how did Lucas know he could do such a thing? And how can I perform that same act? Am I supposed to think of the place I want to go? Or flicks my finger like what the grim reaper has been doing? But I’ve never seen Lucas do it. He’s just vanished.

The grim reaper might see my expression that a vine appears and immediately loops my body. Surprisingly, it isn’t tight like I’ve thought because Lucas has difficulties moving his arm. But it will indeed hinder me from moving.

“I told you not to tie me!” I shout at the grim reaper.

He turns his body toward me. His eyes flash.

He doesn’t trust me. I know what he’s thinking. He thinks that I will also do what Lucas has done. Even though I am not sure that I will do it, I drop the topic before I make the situation much worse.

“Hey!” I call the grim reaper. “If I come with you, will I get back alive?”

He stares at me with his flashing eyes. I frown.

Okay, I’ll zip my mouth. I’ll wait for him to tell me what his plan is.

Then I hear a sigh.

“Only if you succeed the three trials,” the grim reaper says. I realize it’s his answer to my question earlier.

“And what trials will it be?”

“You’ll know soon.”

I want to ask him if all those people that have died untimely and miraculously went back alive have succeeded from these trials, but it’s clear that he’s still upset. I let him calm himself first. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will wait anyway.

Now that I observe him, I realize that he has a babyface for a man who has a broad accent. His dark hair is messy in an attractive way. I just now notice that he’s wearing a plain black cloak that ends inches away from his toe. Something is missing from him—his scythe.

Aren’t that typical grim reapers supposed to hold when they collect their victims?

But maybe those I’ve seen in movies are just mere fiction. Here, in front of me, is the real one.

I look away in embarrassment when he turns at me and catches me staring at him.

I take a deep breath before looking at him again. Our eyes lock for a while.

Images of him flash before my eyes. He’s wearing formal attire—a gray tuxedo and trousers. A thin line stretches across his lip as he waves at the girls taking pictures of him. He’s also with other guys who have the same attire as him. They are walking on a red carpet.

I shake my head. The image is fleeting, and it can be my imagination, not a memory.

“Hey,” he calls for my attention.

I raise my brow. “What?”

“Let’s go,” he replies.

“What about the thief?”

His eyes flash at the mention of the person who’s deceived him, but he answers, “I’ll deal with him later.”

I nod.

He grabs my wrist, and before I can argue, I see myself flicker, and then in an instant, we’re now in a huge unfamiliar room. The grim reaper let go of me as soon as we’ve arrived.

The warmth of his touch lingers a little longer. I frown to myself.

“Where are we?” I ask. My eyes wander around the entirety of the room. I can feel my eyes well up because of the bright overall interior of the room that seems like it’s all made up of Gold. Like my name, yes.

There’s a long table in front of me. Six gold-ish and intricately designed chairs are perfectly lined from both sides. There are sculptures of someone’s head on the four corners of the room.

Gosh! The room screams richness!

Then someone materializes in the air. There stands a gorgeous woman in front of us. She’s wearing a white sleeve underneath her brown tuxedo, partnered with a brown skirt that hugs her curves in the sexiest way. Her white, glowing hair falls over his waist. Her eyes remind me of a blue lagoon. It somehow makes her inhumane.

Is she also a grim reaper?

I only realize that my mouth is open when the woman turns her attention to me. I purse my lips.

She tilts her head at the sight of me.

“Dalgonia Brickenden?” she asks. Her voice is hollow and deep.

The grim reaper beside me clears his throat. When the woman’s eyes are on him, he says, “No. She’s Marigold Aberra.”

A thin line appears on the woman’s forehead.

“Another lost soul then,” she says in a matter of fact.

“There’s another one,” the grim reaper continues, almost scowling.

The woman shakes her head, a small smile creeps on her face, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

She turns at me with her scrutinizing eyes. Then she mutters to herself, “Destiny can be cruel sometimes, isn’t it?”