• I can feel my heart beating franticly through all the pain. It’s trying to get enough blood to my body. Blood that continues to fall to the floor, pooling around me and soaking my clothes.
    Now, at the verge of death, I see his face again. I wonder if I’ll see him where ever I end up. It’s funny. Their objective was to stop us and to break us apart. They might have succeeded in stopping us, but they didn’t break us apart. In fact they just made me love him even more.
    The only thing I wish they had done differently (other than killing us of course) would have been to kill me first, so I wouldn’t have had to suffer for weeks until they came back for me. I guess they just hadn’t viewed me as a threat then. I guess it was only when I took over the business that they knew that they needed me out of the way. I wonder if they’ll do that with the next CEO. I wonder if anyone will be brave enough to see if they will. I wonder if the police will catch them.
    My heart falters for a second, then continues on it’s hopeless task. The beats become further and further apart, time itself seems to be suspended. How much longer? I think. The pain is worsening. Even if time wasn’t suspended I wouldn’t be able to tell how long I have been here. I am in my own hell. I am trapped inside my body. How much longer? I think again. Since regular time doesn’t seem to be working, I make up my own by counting my heart beats. One, two, three...four...five...
    Darkness.
    I can’t feel anything. I can’t see anything. I can’t hear anything. Nothing. Even the pain from my body is gone. So is my body. WHERE IS MY BODY?? Nothing. My body is gone. It’s not part of me anymore. I try to come to terms with that but I can’t. I was proud of my body and want it back even going through all the pain again. To be able to feel something. I am nothing without it.
    Where am I? Aren’t I supposed to be going to heaven or something? Or something. I hadn’t really been that good in life but do I deserve to go to hell? I hadn’t really been religious either. Death was changing that though. Death seemed to be changing everything, and I had only just died.
    Very suddenly there is no more black. This world is now grey with light. Light coming from every direction. Nothing but the light. Brighter and brighter. Too bright. It hurts. Make it stop I whisper to no one. Maybe the light. I can’t tell anything right now.
    Just as suddenly as it started the light begin’s to withdraw. I panic. As much as the light hurts it’s good to feel something and not be alone in the darkness. Please...who ever you are...help me...
    And then I stop thinking all together.

    When I regain consciousness I realize 3 things simultaneously. First the light isn’t too bright anymore and it isn’t pitch blackness. In fact it’s perfect. Secondly I have a body now. This one doesn’t have the wound’s that were there at the time of my death. I doubt if I even had a scar from the gun on my chest, the one that should be on my throat from the knife or the bruise that should go all the way around my ankle from the meaty hands that tried to grab me. The third was that I was lying on grass. Real grass. Still wet with dew and everything. Where am I? I think. Where can I be that I have a body and there’s grass and light?? Am I back on earth? Even though I know it isn’t possible and that it isn’t true, the moment I think it I can’t stop my eyes from fluttering open.
    Where is the sun? Is the first thought in my mind. How can there be light with no sun?
    My second thought isn’t so different from the first. Where am I? I see all sorts of flowers scattered across the field and there seems to be some kind of archway just standing there. I watch as one of the other people that are here with me walk up to the arch. She pauses for a moment and mouths some words, as if talking to someone, then walks through the arch. I look for her on the other side, but where she should have been there was only air. I jumped to my feet. Then I swayed. I didn’t know how long I had lay unconscious on the ground, but it was long enough that my body wasn’t used to standing up.
    I cautiously approached the arch. I gasp. From the angle that I had been at before, when you looked through the arch you saw the other side of it, but now looking directly through it, that isn’t what I see at all. A long white hallway with a door at the end. The white looked sort of like the colour that you could find in hospitals, but this one didn’t look like it was hiding something, and it didn’t look like there was something wrong with it. This one looked perfect.
    “Name?” A voice asked from all to close.
    I look wildly around for the speaker. My gaze settles on a small figure hunched over in a chair. I probably wouldn’t have noticed him for a long while if he hadn’t spoken. He looks so old. His body seems to enclose on itself and it looked as though even his wrinkles had wrinkles.
    “Name?” He repeats in a raspy voice.
    “Charlotte Oats,” I say automatically.
    “Charlotte, Charlotte....” He mumbles “Ahh here you are. Okay, go up to the door and knock on it.”
    I hesitate. The man takes his hand and pushes my back, forcing me through the arch. I step a few steps further, then look back. I freeze. The archway and the field are now gone. All there is now is a dead-end. Only one place to go now. I walk up to the door and knock on it like the man told me to.
    “Enter,” says a booming voice. I flinch at the sound of it.
    I don’t know what to do. I know that I don’t want to be in a room with whoever that voice belongs to, but there is no where else to go.
    The door swings open, solving my dilemma for me. I edge into the room.
    I look around the room. All there is is an empty chair.
    The door slams shut behind me. I spin around expecting to see the person who had spoken before. Instead I see nothing. I turn back around
    The chair is occupied now. The shape that is now settled into it looks like a ghost. It’s shape is forever changing.
    “Hello Charlotte,” it says. I shudder. How does it know my name? “My name is Deus. You might know me better under another name though.”
    Deus, Deus...why does it seem like I have heard that word before? Then I realize. High school Latin class. Deus means...God. I stare at the creature before me. Could this really be god?
    “Yes, I really am God,” the creature says as though it can read my mind. Actually knowing who it is, it might be able to. “But we have more pressing matters to attend to.”
    I stare at it in confusion. I am dead. Is there really anything I need to rush to do anymore?
    “What could be so important-” I begin to say.
    It cuts me off. “I believe there is someone here that has been waiting for you for a while.”
    I look up from it’s face, and there he is.
    I am frozen into place. “Mark,” I breathe.
    Suddenly I am in his arms again. I don’t know who moved or how I got there but I don’t care. I am with him once again and this time I won’t let anything separate us.
    And so my new life begins.