I stand in the middle of the hall. Just looking; only watching. I wouldn't join them. Even if I could. I wouldn't say 'hi.' Even if they could hear me. So I just stand there. Silent. Unmoving. 'Why can't they see me?' I wave a hand in front of a familiar girl's face.
Nothing.
Maybe they can, and they just don't want me here. That's normally it anyway. So why shouldn't it be now? I start to walk into the crowd of school kids. None of them look in my direction.
"What are you doing?" I turn. Some one's looking at me. 'They can see me!' I smile and wave. The girl who spoke walks towards me.
And right through me.
'What the hell?' She's looking at a boy. Not me. 'Oh..' She wasn't talking to me after all. She didn't see me. But. 'She walked right through me; is that even possible?'
"Hey." Great. Another one. I turn again. And stop. This wasn't happening. She couldn't be here.
"Are you talking to me?" I ask. She nods. But she shouldn't be. She's dead. I know she is. I went to the funeral yesterday. That's when I-
"Of course I am. Who else do you think is listening?" she tells me.
"But you're..."
"Dead? Yeah, I figured that out when Karissa didn't freak out when I said 'hi' to her," she finished.
She smiled and pointed to the girl in question. I looked. I walked over to her. I waved my hand in front of her face.
Nothing.
"Hey! Karissa!" I yelled. Still nothing.
'What the hell is going on?'
"You don't remember, do you?" I turn again. 'Remember what?'
"I don't know what you're-" I started. But maybe I did remember. After her funeral. I remembered now.
"So, I really am dead, aren't I?" I asked her. She nodded.That explained a lot. Everything really.
Except one thing.
"They don't look very sad. I remember when we all heard about you. Karissa was devastated," I said, looking over at her. She just frowned. She knew what I did. But she died from a car wreck. I didn't. She didn't deserve to die.
But I did. I didn't want this just because she was gone. I wanted for a long time. She just gave me an extra push.
"They don't know," she told me. "But she does." She pointed to a girl with long brown hair. 'Is that Kyson? She dyed her hair, again...'
"How?" I asked. She shouldn't know. Nobody should. I should still be under the bridge. Mom won't check on me. She knows that I don't go to school anymore. So, she wouldn't know that I'm not there. In my room, or the house. At least I didn't leave town. But, I wish I would have. Maybe this wouldn't have happened.
"She was in town that day. You need to pay more attention when you have those damn headphones in," she answered me. 'Yeah. Thanks, now someone tells me.' I look at her; she looks back.
"Oh. Well, I don't know why she wouldn't have told anyone." I turn my stare to the people before me. They were all chatting happily, even Kyson. 'Maybe she doesn't know..' Or maybe she just didn't care. We weren't really friends anyway.
"Neither do I," she tells me. She also looks out at the happy students. A bell rings; we look up, then back at each other.
"So, what happens now? Are we ghosts or, what? What do we do?" I ask her. She smiles, but looks back to the people trying to make their way to class.
"That's for you to figure out." She vanishes. 'Me to figure out? She must already know what to do... dammit.' Great now I'm stuck here and I have no idea what I'm doing. 'This sucks.'
I go up the stairs until I reach the library. Third Floor. I take a seat in the corner; I pull out my iPod. Then I put my headphones in and press play. Call It Karma. 'Oh, the irony.' I sing softly to myself, even though they couldn't hear me. 'Wait a minute. I have my iPod? How is that even possible? I'm dead!'
The world around me started to shift and warp into a bright white light. And then everything went dark. I could hear someone. I didn't know who. But I couldn't see anything; it was too dark. I was too far gone. Or was I?
"Hey, you awake?" someone asked. I open my eyes. More white. Great. I squint my eyes, trying to see past the blinding lights to the person who spoke.
"Turn off the damn light!" I grumbled. A light flickered off. 'Finally, now I can actually see.' I look around. 'Where the hell am I?'
"Where am I?" I ask, looking at the other people in the room. I know them. 'Karissa. Kyson. What are they doing?'
"Where do you think you are! We're in the freaking hospital!" Karissa exclaimed. 'Hospital?' I gave her a confused look. I'm supposed to be dead. Dead people do not wake up in the hospital. 'Wait...'
"Does that mean I'm not dead?" Karissa looked shocked. Kyson looked almost mad.
"I saw you, I know what you did," Kyson told me. 'Yeah, I know.'
"It doesn't matter," I said, rubbing at the bandages on my wrists. Now she looked shocked. 'Guess she doesn't know that I don't regret doing anything.'
"So, when can I leave?" I ask. There's no response. But I never expected one anyway. Because they couldn't hear me...