Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
When we open our eyes, the insanity is back with a vengeance: we’re suddenly in the middle of the crowded street once again. Through the noisy masses of wailing spirits, I spot my apartment building like a lighthouse at sea, our destination, our salvation.
Without wasting a second, I grab Byron’s hand and charge through the horde of vague faces. Unfortunately for us, we’re now having to push upstream in this river of undeathly demise, each distressed spirit seeming to do every damned thing they can to block our way. The more we move, the slower we seem to go, the rushing river working like quicksand against our weary limbs.
“W-We don’t belong here!” moans Byron, terrified. “We’ve been in this place too long. You took too long! What took you so long?? Did you even find West??”
“Yes, I did!”
“What’d he say? Did you get all your soul back?”
I shove and fight against the misty, shapeless wave of spirits. “I’ll explain everything when we get back to the apartment! Hurry!”
That’s when we both hear something in the distance beyond the crowd, somewhere far down the street. It’s a howling noise ahead of us, like a distorted ambulance except humanlike.
Then we see it. I can’t in any good faith identify what the fuck it is, but it looks like a giant tidal wave of whitish nothingness several blocks away, building and growing and frothing with bright and terrifying power.
And it’s barreling towards us on a mission.
“What the fucking fuck is that?!” cries out Byron.
“I … I-I can’t even—”
“Run!!” he cries out, and now it’s Byron who grabs hold of my hand and dashes on, knocking everything out of the way that dares to stand between us and the front doors of my apartment complex.
But that wave of—whatever it is—is tumbling for us faster than we can run. It’s clear we’re out of time. “We won’t make it!” I shout, despairing. I must sound just like all the other miserable spirits around us. Maybe this is how you become one. “We’re going to be washed away like driftwood in a sea of ghostly muckiness!”
“Don’t tell me we won’t make it!”
“But Byron—!”
At once, he scoops me up into his arms like some brave paladin and I just became the prince in distress he’s saving from the white flames of a dragon. I shout out with surprise as he sprints ahead, defying every law of physics I know. Not that they apply here, apparently.
The tidal wave of terror continues rushing forward. Closer and closer. Louder and louder, the creepy siren of noise it emits as it approaches.
Byron charges on with all his strength, bracing the pair of us against the relentless onslaught of ghosts that ram into us like an opposing rugby team. He emits some kind of impressive, guttural war cry, which both startles me and turns me on, as he rages against our inevitable fate of being consumed half-alive by the tidal wave.
We might have a chance after all. “We’re almost there!” I exclaim, encouraging him. “Go, go, go!”
“If I didn’t say it already, I love you!” he cries out.
“You say it all the time! Every morning! Every night before we go to bed! Five more steps!”
“Is it too much??”
“It’ll never be too much!! Three!”
“I love you, Griffin James! I fucking love you!!”
“One!”
We burst through the front door. Byron dumps me onto the ground and slams shut the door at our backs. Not a second later, a bright white flash ripples past the front windows of the building accompanied with an inhuman cacophony of screams that has me and Byron slapping hands to our ears for the long eleven and a half seconds it lasts. Then it mercifully fades away, carried on further down the street to wherever it was headed.
Byron and I meet each other’s eyes, aghast, as we slowly lower our hands. We can’t say anything for a while, overcome by how unnervingly close that was.
“Y-You okay?” he asks first, voice trembling.
“Yeah, babe.” I rush up to him and throw my arms around my man. “I … I’m so sorry. About all of this.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
He doesn’t know. I’m going to have to tell him. “Byron …”
“We have to return to our bodies! Quick!”
With no chance to explain a thing, he takes hold of my hand and heads up the stairs. Each step is a blur as we race ahead. Our stamina seems limitless as we pass the second floor landing, arrive at the third, then finally sprint down my hall and clamber through my front door with abandon.
Mrs. Shaheen is standing over our bodies when she looks up, wide-eyed, at the sight of the door opening seemingly on its own. We don’t ask questions. We don’t need another instruction. We leap towards the floor like a pair of synchronized swimmers readying a dive—me towards my body, Byron towards his.