Page 270 of Castings & Curses

I press the glowing red button on the panel, watching the arrow as it stops on each floor, waiting. “Home, Mercy. We are going home.”

CHAPTER6

Mercy

Just breathe,Mercy.

You got this.

To say today has been an utter day from Hell is absolutely an understatement. I still can’t believe that just this morning I was eating Pop-Tarts and watching cartoons with my best friend, Miles.

Everything was so… normal.

The last thing I truly remember was Miles reaching across the console, setting his hand on my thigh, and the way he turned to me with that smirk, I just… knew.

I knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t get the chance. Because in seconds, my entire world went black, and the next thing I knew…

I was in the darkness, cold and alone.

I don’t know how long I was there until I decided to move, to search for warmth. My mind kept replaying that one scene in Frozen 2 when Anna is lost in the cave and she wants to give up, but then, she says what’s basically become my motto in life: “Just do the next right thing.”

And I knew the next right thing was to keep moving. Eventually, I’d find what I was looking for. Then, I saw it. The light. It was just a crack, not the all-encompassing light everyone makes it seem. It was just a sliver of light in the darkness, and I made reaching it my goal. I walked and walked until the silver became larger, and I realized it wasn’t a sliver at all, but a door.

A glowing, heavy white door.

I’ve seen all the horror movies about opening freaky doors in the middle of nowhere, but I had the strangest feeling in my stomach that whatever was on the other side of that door would hold the answers to what happened to me, where I was…

Where Miles was…

Curiosity got the better of me and I set my hand on the door, and I just… pushed.

It opened, and I didn’t think twice about going in. But all I saw was expansive fields and more light. More walking.

I don’t know how long I walked until I came upon the Pearly Gates. Then, I found Valory. She seemed nice enough, though a little distracted. I guess wandering in at closing time will do that to a person, but I wasn’t sure I had yet grasped that I was in Heaven. Not until she confirmed my suspicions.

I’d died.

The world going black meant I was no longer a living, breathing entity. I’d found the light, and I was dead.

So why didn’t I feel dead?

Nevertheless, I faced this new development with the same poise my grandmother always tried to instill me.You can’t control the situation, Mercy. You can only control how you react to it.

Valory seemed to think there was something wrong with my information, as she kept asking me questions, trying to locate me in Heaven’s computer system or something. I didn’t quite understand it. After all, the idea that Heaven has a computer filing system is still slightly bonkers to me. I always expected Heaven to look like it did in the movies, but it looked nothing like that.

I’d followed Valory’s directions on the printout, directly from the Pearly Gates to the door that read HAD. It didn’t look as well kept as the other doors, and I looked over the paperwork two, maybe three times, to make sure I was reading the golden letters on the distressed ebony door correctly.

H-A-D.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, and found myself in a long, expansive hallway. The walls were dark burgundy and the floor was black, with little bits of silvery glitter. It looked like a cross between my bedroom at home, and an elite banker’s building.

There were plenty of doors and elevators in the place I ended up. I walked around in the silent emptiness in search of anyone who could tell me if I was in the right place and where my room was.

Which was how I ran into Endor in the first place. The door to the office space he was in was the only one I’d come across that was open, and upon seeing what I did… even the thought now makes me blush.

I probably should have knocked, but I assumed it would be a dead end, what with how my luck was going.

Then, his girlfriend got pissy—I knocked over a bunch of papers—and Endor basically grabbed my printout, and commanded me to follow him like I was nothing more than a kid.

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