--CHAPTER TWO!!!!!!!!!!!--
I'm dead. Oh, joy. My life's just begun, and now it's all over! I get to have lunch with the cutest and most popular guy at my school, and then I die!
"Damn it, this is so unfair!" I screamed, frustrated, punching a nearby tree. Or at least tried to; my fist went right through it. I pulled my arm back, staring at the palm of my hand, and said, "Well, this is weird as hell."
I looked up at Isuke, who was floating cross-legged above the cover of the treetops, watching the sunset, and asked him, "Yo, Isuke! Are we ghosts? Is that why we can, like, go through stuff and fly?"
"Yeah, you're a ghost. And it's all my fault," he said flatly, still watching the sun.
"Why is it your fault? Didn't you try to save me? Aren't you dead, too, because of that? And hang on a sec," I said, looking at my body, which Isuke had carried from the crash site into the small stretch of forest bordering the street, as I had followed from above. "How the hell were you able to carry my body if you're a ghost? I can't even touch myself!" I demonstrated, poking my right index finger through my body's forehead. Ew, I thought. That was kind of weird.
"Senna."
"Yeah?" I said, looking up and extracting my other hand from my stomach.
"I never said I was a ghost. I only said you were," Isuke said quietly.
"What? Then, if you're not a ghost, then what are you? What else can you be?" I frowned, confused.
"Well, answering your second question, I could be a lot of other things," he said, lying on his stomach and floating down to my eye level. "Like, I could be a demon, or a monster. Or maybe I'm lying, and I really am just another ghost. Or I could be the Grim Reaper, and you'd never know. Senna, there's a lot of things about this world you don't know about, but now, because of me, you're... you're dead, and you can't survive in this world, or any other, in fact, without certain knowledge of how to survive.
"When you die, certain things happen. Your soul, concious, and subconcious selves are basically kicked out of your body, because your living body has been pushed too far past its limit, trying to keep your life bond intact. So when the bond is broken, you die, simple as that.
"Second, if that's your body on the ground right there, then what's your ghost body made of, since you exist, but aren't solid enough most of the time to touch real, solid things? Well, most things are made of atoms, you know that. But real things, like people, plants, or buildings are made of atoms infused with life energy and spirit energy, while spiritual and unreal things are made of atoms usually only infused with spirit energy. Life energy and spirit energy can't touch, but spirit and spirit energy can. So, if living people are more spiritually aware, like if they're asleep or about to die, then they can see, hear, and feel us, like we were as alive and real as them. Make sense?"
I nodded and said, "Mm, yeah, I guess. Basically, most people can't see us unless they're close to death or sleeping, because our atoms are infused with different energies that can't touch, and we die 'cuz our life bond was broken, and I need to survive somehow, and there are more worlds than just this one. Okay, I think I got most of that. But, uh, you didn't actually answer my first question; you only answered my second. So will you tell me now? What are you?" I crossed my fingers, hoping he'd give me a straight answer this time.
He studied me for a few seconds, debating, probably, if he should tell me. I hoped for a yes. At last, he seemed to make up his mind, and said, "Okay, Senna, I hope you're ready for this. Watch."
Sticking his hand out in front of him, he waved it around slowly, like he was looking for something in the dark.
"Found you," he said, smiling crookedly. He stretched his other hand out, one hand seeming to grasp an invisible handle, the other searching for another handle, which was found quickly.
"Ready?"
I nodded impatiently.
"Okay. Senna, I wasn't lying when I said I was't a ghost. And I kind of already did answer your first question, because in my second answer I listed things I could be. Well, one of those things I am."
As he pulled his hand apart, he seemed to rip the space, revealing a jagged hole floating in the air, through which I could see only murky darkness. I guess he could see something I couldn't, because he reached in and grabbed something. Slowly, he pulled it out, and I saw a long, black cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands, which he proceeded to unwrap. The black cloth turned out to be a hooded cape, which he put on, and the long, skinny thing--
"Holy s**t!" I gasped, "You're the Grim Reaper?!"
