The
door clicked open to a grey room, awash in the less than pleasant feelings of
uncertainty and doubt. The winds were fierce but still unable to move anything
around them. Stagnation took hold of everything that entered here and held
firmly to them without a care as to why they were there. Seraphina took a deep
breath and walked forward into the fog. People wandered to and fro not really
making any sort of effort to get anywhere. Others remained in one spot watching
an invisible television with all the memories of their life playing before
them, twisted by time and the unreliable memory of those long gone from the
material. Sera looked down at the file in her hand.
“Illiah
Skylark” she said softly pulling the first paper aside to reveal a photo of the
girl 20 minutes prior to her untimely death. She was pretty in a kind, gentle,
unassuming manner. Hopefully this one would be easy to find. Looking up from
her paperwork, the cherub frowned. Most
of the souls before her were fading into the background of the realm. Not
everyone that was here was necessarily bad or good. Sera pushed a curl aside
and looked about once more before taking a step forward. She walked quickly and
quietly through the crowds of people, hunters instincts taking over. It was
coming back to her more quickly than she had expected. To tell the truth, it
had been 50 years since she had done this. She expected that all that time to
make a difference in her abilities but, this… this was good. Maybe she wouldn’t
return to the material yet. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. She stopped and
looked towards the horizon. A woman, shorter than most, was walking towards
her. She glanced down at the picture in the dossier and nodded.
“Illiah?”
“Yes?”
“Hi.
My name is Seraphina.”
“Are
you hear to bring me to heaven?”
Seraphina
shifted uncomfortably. “No… I’m from the soul reassignment bureau. We’re
bringing you back to life.” She smiled, hoping that’s all she would want to
know right now.
“How
long has it been since I died?”
“According
to your file, 40 years. “ Sera said sifting through the papers in the file.
“Why don’t we head back to the bureau and we’ll begin the process of
acclimation to the material and you’ll get to know the persons life you’re
stepping into.”
“I’m
not being born?” Illiah frowned and sat down on the materializing chair. She
looked up towards the newcomer with doubt and fear. She had wanted to go back.
The material was a world she could remember fondly. The fear was deep seated
from her death. The man that had killed her remained in the forefront of her
mind. The material is where he was. 40 years though. Maybe he was dead? She had
watched the trial as a ghost, wandering around the court room but he went free.
There wasn’t enough evidence to hold him…
It was a cold stereotypical
day in the northwest: rainy, cloudy, dark and dismal. The court would assemble
in a little over an hour. Illiah paced up and down the streets of in front of
Hope Point Court House waiting. ‘I’m dead, I’m dead, they can’t see me. I
should get closer. Maybe they’ll have pulled up…’
Illiah ran towards the
courthouse just as the frenzy of media coverage got there and began flashing
their cameras at the lawyers and the
defendant. She pushed through the crowd easily enough(simply phased through) and
saw her husband for the first time in nearly a week. He looked different. She
remembered him as caring and, right up to the point where he strangled her. Her
hand went to her throat, trying to protect herself from the feeling of
suffocation again. The man who had loved her, now looked towards the doors of
the court house, failing to hide his satisfaction with the situation. It had
been nearly 2 months of trials and deliberations, upon whether or not he was
guilty of the strangling death of his beloved wife. He had cried on several
occasions in front of the jurors claiming to miss her terribly. Each time he
tried, Illiah screamed to no avail. For a brief moment her ghostly wails were
strong enough that it sent a chill through the courtroom, causing all assembled
to question; for a moment, his sincerity that day. Illiah was sure she was
wasting away watching these proceedings. Every day she left the courthouse sure
that the next day they would bring in more people to testify against him, yet
everyday she was let down by the prosecution’s lack of evidence. It wore away
last nerves and today… today she was sure he would be sent to jail or set free.
“All rise” The judge, jury
and parties were seated and the jury was sent into deliberations. A little over
an hour later, the jurors re-emerged looking solemn. Illiah waited with baited
breath for their decision.
“We the jury find Richard
Skylark, innocent on the charges of murder in the first degree.”
Richard looked at his lawyers and smile, patting one on
the back on the way out. He walked past his wife’s ghost, and out the doors
into his new found freedom. Illiah would never forget the look on his face.
Never.
Sera looked at Illiah who seemed to
be in a trance like state, similar to all the other souls surrounding them at
the moment. ‘What is it like group remembrance time or something?’ she thought
gathering the strength to try to pull Illiah out of it. Her face had contorted
into an angry snarl, and her entire body had tensed up in the chair. Sera was
actually scared of pulling her from whatever memory it was that was causing her
to be this upset.
“Umm….. Illiah?” No response.
“Illiah…Illiah!” She raised her voice to a sterner tone, taking the girls hand
in hers and squeezing.
“What?” Illiah blinked a few times
and shuddered remembering where she was again. It was always hard coming back
from the dream like state of remembrance.
She looked about frantically, half expecting to see her husband standing
in front of her.
"I'll kill him."
"I'll kill him."
