Life After Death

You know those monsters your parents tell you about as kids? The ones under your bed, or the ones in your closet. The ones your parents tell you about to make you follow their rules. Well, they're real. When you die there's no heaven, there's just hell, the same old world just crawling with monsters. Trust me I’d know, It was just another day like any other. I was going to work, some crap office job that you half-ass but no one cares because they all do the same. But when I was walking to the train station, I don't know it just went all fuzzy and now I'm here, I know now that I was killed, not sure how, I can't remember. I’ve tried to find other dead people but it seems I'm alone, all I can do is keep my distance from these monsters? Spirits? Not really sure what they are but they're just there, walking, or degrading into their surroundings. 

I'm disappointed that life goes on when you die. I was hoping for some final peace and tranquility. I don't know how long I've been dead but I can still see all the people going about their life. I Feel like I'm in their world, I'm walking right next to them but I can't touch them. I see children or elderly sometimes look back at the wandering monsters or look over to me, I can't tell if they see me through the veil, or are looking right through me. I think at this point in their life they're closer to the afterlife than the living. I wonder if I saw these things as a kid and blocked them out. Telling myself they were bad dreams. I think time is passing the same in the afterlife as it did in my old miserable life. Everyday the monsters have been more aggressive. They move quicker and seem to be out to get me. I found myself being chased by them more than a few times but this just might be my last race against them. My stamina was never good. Man I should have listened to the “smoking is bad kiddo” that my mom would drill into my head. My feet are hitting the pavement, I feel the shock throughout my whole body, the crackle of my own bones. The scrape of the monster's nails along the side of an industrial building ripping the metal, the hissing sound hurting my ears. I look over my shoulder to check my distance and… BAM my face hits the wall. I feel the nails ripping my skin open warm blood trickling down my face, it's the first time I've felt warm since I died. The monster screams, head tilted up into the air, large teeth showing, and soon enough more surround me. They all look different, some like snakes but with giant teeth and human faces. And some kind of like clowns and mimes, but way worse, more ugly. They start to rip at my limbs, surprisingly it didn't hurt as bad as I thought, but nonetheless I'll have to die again…

I'm paralyzed, I can't seem to move. I've lost too much blood, my ears are making the annoying ringing sound, and my vision is going to fuzzy little black spots popping up. I bet if I could look in a mirror I'd be all pale and ugly, my brown bob too dark in contrast. What I thought was an “afterlife” is more like a window. I need to pass through it to go to the afterlife but I'm caught here unable to pass through. 

I once talked with an elderly man. I was hiding in the hospital from one of the wandering monsters, I don't know how but he saw me. I hoped he could save me, release me from whatever this was but he told me something strange…

“What defines one of your monsters you speak of? Is it the actions they took for a cause, or is it the cause they took for those actions?” 

“What are you, define what you were and what you want to be.”

I haven't been able to stop thinking about what he said. And why am I thinking of it now? It's making me wonder if all the bullshit my parents would spew about being a good person while living impacts what happens in your afterlife was true. It was always “Deora, you need to be more kind” or “Deora stop that! You know the spirits will give you a bad afterlife” or something along those lines, something spiritual. Deora, what a bad name for your kid. I was constantly called the wrong name, but for your information, it's pronounced de(o)-ra I swear anything would’ve been a better name. But… just maybe how bad I resented them ended me here. I moved away at 18 over to Washington from Ireland. I didn't go to college, worked a crappy office job, smoked in their house, wasted their money. I guess I never thought of it till now, I coped in any way to forget the life I was living and ended up jealous of others' lives, stuck in my endless self-pity. I was in the wrong, I finally see the truth…

Can I pass in peace now, Mom?