Dying Girl

"As a result of the writing challenge between my friend Allen and I, this is what was born. The rules: no more than 1000 words, subject was an accident that resulted in some sort of power. Enjoy!"

My name is Alys Scott. I will probably be ten years old forever.

What happened to me was no accident, not in the figurative sense anyway. Technically, he hadn’t meant to kill me but I got in the way.

My stepfather was straddling my mother and beating her senseless when he went to deliver the final blow. He must’ve thought I was asleep, but who wouldn’t wake up with terrified screams echoing throughout the small apartment? I dove over her and his fist barreled into my head, killing me instantly.

I am destined to die again and again, each time a new horrifying experience. With my unjustified death, I became a symbol of vengeance. I was given one single power: to ease the passing of the dead. People that died silently in their sleep did not need me.

The ones that were murdered, the ones that would not feel validation, they needed my help. Make no mistake, however: I am never there to save them, just to help them pass over. To comfort them and release them to the afterlife.

I’ve never actually seen the afterlife. I will not see it until I relinquish my need for the vengeance that I know I am unable to enact.

A guardian came to me minutes ago, a messenger from beyond, and assigned me my newest death. A young pregnant woman has been buried alive. It doesn’t matter who buried her, but I asked anyway. I always ask but the guardians never answer me. They just dissipate.

I descended upon the filthy grave and waited. I could feel her fighting below, trying to push her fingers through the garbage bag that encased her. She tried to take small breaths but her panic made that impossible. She passed out and within seconds, her spirit was floating above the site.

The ghost woman dropped to her knees and began digging. Her desperation at saving herself was horrifying. Knowing that in order for her to pass over, I would need to suffer her fate was horrifying.

I put my hand on her shoulder but she didn’t notice. Instantly, I was sucked down into that grave and I became her. I too pushed my arm against the plastic to no avail. I felt the panic surging in my throat and I willed myself to find a way to save her, to change her fate. I gasped at air that was non-existent for about a minute, passed out and died.

I appeared next to her: a child with white blonde hair and ethereal green eyes. She looked at me, frightened, and I simply held out my hand to her. I was empathetic. I understood her horrors. She took my hand and vanished.

So it went. Every day, a new death. Each day scared me but I’d died a fair amount of times that I was starting to accept dying. I refused to let go of my hatred for the man who’d murdered me. The only thing that gave me hope was that my death could’ve mean something.
The guardians came again and again. A man was beaten to death. A woman was drowned. A baby wrapped in a blanket, left in subzero temperatures. All of these deaths were painful, some more terrifying than others, but when I was assigned the young girl, perhaps a year older than myself, who was raped and strangled, I swore that I would find a way to harness my odd power for the better good.

I was not summoned again for a week, which was disconcerting.

When the guardian finally arrived, I was on edge. I had been beckoned every night since my power was given to me. I’d never had a rest from death.

Another woman. Beaten, stabbed and about to be burned alive.

I went to the scene immediately, but I dreaded it beyond anything. My one fear was dying by fire. It was the only death I’d yet to experience and to say I was petrified isn’t enough. I went to her because I had to, yet knowing that I would need to understand her death for her to pass, made me shake uncontrollably.

She was quite conscious, aware of the pain the flames wrought on her body. She sounded like a guttural animal, groaning into the charred dirt surrounding her burning self.

I did not want to die like that. I did not want to help this woman. Please, I begged, do not make me do this. Do not ask me to die like that.

Inevitably, the woman’s ghost popped up. My trembling hand neared the woman who was bowed over, trying to pat out the flames on her own corpse. My fingertips brushed her shoulder and instantly I was in agony.

The fists battered my face and I tried to defend myself but they just kept coming until I was on my knees, spitting out teeth and blood. The knife gouged my torso multiple times, but somehow I was still breathing.

I did not want to experience being burned alive. It didn’t matter what I wanted, the fire still came and it was more agonizing than I thought. The pain seared through my body and as I melted away, I looked upward for a brief moment. My eyelids bubbled but for one second, I saw him. My stepfather. The one who gave me death. Now, he was killing me again.

I was floating beside her; she was still trying to put herself out. Little pieces of her body still crackled. I held out my hand to her; she turned, not wanting to accept it, not wanting my understanding. Her eyes widened and so did mine as we stared at each other. My mother.

She grasped my hand happily, thinking we were finally reunited but then she vanished and dissolved to the underworld. Her charred body was still smoking on the ground. I knew then that I would be the one that eases death for a long, long time.