So we’re both dead, now what?

I was still lying on the river bed. None of my muscles could move and I felt that my heart has stopped beating. Yet I was still able to talk to myself in my mind. My brain was surely dead as well I thought to myself.

“Raine, where are you?” A familliar voice called out. 

“I’m here,” I answered back to Lay.

“Oh, can you see me?”

“Yeah, you look really pale though and kind of see-through.”

“You too, so ghosts are actually a pale colour and have a little glow around them,” he said amazed, “I wonder if I can go through walls?”

“You can try,” I encouraged him.

The arches weren’t that far and he walked over to them. First his placed his hand through the stony structure and his hand completely disappeared. Then he moved on with his arms and then his whole body.

“That was pretty cool!” he exclaimed, appearing behind me.

I turned around and noticed that I was standing on the water. I could see my body underneath the dark, murky river. Lay’s body was lying on the boat. As for the man, he probably swam away after shooting me. I looked down at my hands and then at my body, I was wearing the hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, Lay’s blood stain on my sleeves and bullet hole through my chest.

“Are we ghosts now, Lay?” I asked.

“Erm, I think we are,” he simply replied.

“What should we do about our dead bodies then?” I asked curiously, I didn’t want my body to be lying on the river bed and becoming bloated and then wrecked, my skin becoming slimy and withered, leaving my bones slowly decaying afterwards.

“Do you want to carry it back to the village and bury them?”

“If you want,” I said, my feet skimming the surface of the water as Lay hovered in the air doing somersaults and cart-wheels.

I dived down into the water and dragged my limp, dead body up. It floated up easily and Lay helped my hauled it onto the boat. It was strange seeing myself, the clothing were all wet and soggy, my hair plastered across my face like seaweed washed ashore onto a large rock. Then, both Lay and I sat or hovered on the boat and started rowing it with the oar which I also fished out from under the water. We continued rowing it down the river; we should soon come to an opening, I hoped. The tunnel was very dark. Only the sound of gentle dripping water can be heard and the occasional sound of a fish splashing past.

“We’re actually dead,” I said.

“I know, but no one is going to miss me,” Lay said sadly.

“Where are your parents?”

“My grandfather sacrificed them straight after I was born because his son, my father, and my mother were no use as they did nothing to protect the village from danger when the ancestral spirits came to take over,” he explained.

I gasped and clamped my hand over my mouth. How could he do that?

“Twenty years ago, if a family bears a male, they must then sacrifice another family member in order to balance the souls on this world.”  

“That’s horrible,” I said, “You don’t have to go on.”

“I’ve never seen my parents so I don’t know what they look like,” he shrugged, “I’ve looked through every corner of the mansion after my grandfather died, hoping to look for a picture or something but I guess he has taken away every trace of their existence.”

I looked at him with sad eyes, but he just continued rowing, as if it had no affect on him.

“I doubt my aunt is going to miss me either, she’s probably forgotten about me.”

“Don’t worry, we can be ghost buddies.”

I laughed at his request.

“But what happens afterwards?” I asked, “Do we stay as ghosts or do we go to limbo and be judged whether we go to heaven or hell?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he said, thoughts running through his face as he tried to come up with answers, “We are ghosts now, do you think we can see other ghosts?”

“Maybe, because I can see you in front of me,” I replied, “No one has probably died here so we won’t be able to see any ghosts, when we get out of here, we might.”

“Raine!” Lay suddenly shouted, pointing in front of me, “Can you see the light?”

“Yeah!” I said happily, when a little gleam of light appeared bigger and bigger as we rowed closer and closer.

We rowed faster and faster. The exit was within reach.

Then we emerged from the dark tunnel. Light welcomed us warmly and we were gliding on a slow moving stream. Both sides were surrounded by apple trees. Wild flowers covered an expanded part of the land. Rabbits and deer skipped and hopped around the lush, green grass. This was like the Garden of Eden. The plants were growing wonderfully, sprouting flowers of every colour and the animals were living in peaceful harmony. I watched in awe as we went downstream. The tweeting of the birds and the sound of the insects hummed in the background.

“Where are we?” I finally asked, taking a sight full of the surroundings.

“I don’t know.”

Suddenly, a deer splashed into the river behind us. I spun around just to catch the sight of a bear bearing its fangs and sunk it into the deer’s neck. Blood trickled down the fur of the bear and the deer’s body twitched as it urged to survive. But the bear took a gnashing bite and tore the meat out. The flesh was fully visible and the blood drained into the river. The red water reached the boat and I let out a little scream. The animals were not living in harmony. Nature was still being nature as I have thought it would be.

“Let’s go,” Lay suggested and we continued rowing in the bloody river.

Soon we have reached a fork of the river.

“Which direction should we take?” I asked, holding my oar firmly in the river bed.

“We need to get back to the village, so what about that one?” Lay said, pointing to the left.

Both routes were identical. Trees were located in the same position and it seemed like a mirrored image. We just turned and continued rowing. As we moved further, the amount of trees lessened and the plants began to wilt and die, eventually leading to nothing but dusty, sandy land.

“I think we’re on the river by the village,” Lay said happily, gleaming with delight to be finally be back on familiar territory.

We moved closer to the shore and Lay stuck out his oar onto the land to pull us in. Once we were near enough, he leapt out of the boat and held a hand out for me.

“Yixing?” a voice said, shocked, “Is that you?”

We both turned our head and saw a young looking guy with brown hair, wearing a white t-shirt and brown shorts. He had a fishing rope in his hand and looked at us with his hand over his eyes, shielding the bright light from the sun which was facing him.