* * *
"Senna! Senna! No! Senna, I'm so sorry! It's all my fault! Senna! I'm so sorry... It's all my fault..."
What... what the hell? I wondered. Tears... someone's crying on me... Who's crying on me? What's going on? What--
"ISUKE!" I sat up, screaming, eyes wide and watery with... my own tears?
But on my face... These tears weren't mine...
"Senna! Oh my God, I'm so sorry! Senna..."
"I-Isuke? Was that... Why were you just crying on me? Isuke?"
Isuke was crouching next to me, crying for no good reason. He tried to talk again, hopefully to say something that actually made sense, but then was apparently overcome by tears, and threw himself onto me, giving me the tightest bear hug I'd ever gotten.
"Ow... Isuke, will you get off? Trying to breathe here, you know... Ow..."
He immediately backed off, and said, "Sorry..." Well, I think he said sorry. It sounded like he said, "Ovary," but he was still crying, so it was kind of hard to tell. What a weird guy.
I started to get embarrassed by his bawling, so I let my eyes wander to try to figure out what happened. Bad idea. Again.
"Oh my holy ******** s**t! Isuke! Look... look down... Oh my God... Will someone tell me why the hell we're floating fifteen feet in the air?! And whoa, what happened down there? I-is that a... a bus that just got a serious fenderbender in a tree?! And what's with the crowd and the ambulance? Is the busdriver okay? Scratch that, am I okay? What about you, Isuke? And, uh, shouldn't we somehow get down before someone down there sees us, and goes all, 'Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Oh my God, it's a couple of kids in the sky! Let's shoot them down!' And then they get some machine guns and shoot us down and we'll be all like, 'Ahh, we're gonna die!' and then we fall to the ground with a whole bunch of holes in us and die a really stupid death. I kinda don't wanna die, Isuke!"
Isuke finally stopped blubbering so much, and wiped his nose on his hand. He looked up at me, still all teary, and said with some difficulty, " 'ey, Senna... Hate tuh be da one tuh tell ya dis, but you're already dead..." and broke down again.
"Wh-what?!" I gasped.
"Look down dere," he said, pointing, "Dere's your body."
I looked, dis believing, but then was forced to believe as I saw myself in the middle of the street still, not moving, as the doctors and nurses examined me, and pronounced me as dead.
"Damn it," I mumbled, "Now what's gonna happen?"
--END OF CHAPTER ONE!!!--
