The last thing you notice when you die is the smell.
They never tell you you shit and piss on yourself when you die.
Then there's the darkness. Not just black. Something deeper. The kind that swallows everything. Thoughts too.
Better than blindness.
Oblivion
And then—
I gasped for air.
Shit— I…
I was back.
Back to life.
For a second, dying didn't feel terrifying.
Just… interesting.
The shadows in the classroom looked longer now.
Not just longer.
They looked wrong.
They stretched further than the light should have allowed, slipping across desks, curling along the walls like something reaching. Like something testing how far it could go before someone noticed.
I didn't move.
Not because I chose not to.
Because my body hadn't caught up yet.
The floor was still beneath me. Cold. Hard. Real.
Too real.
My fingers twitched slightly against it.
Slow. Delayed.
Like the signal had to travel further than it should have.
Or like something else was deciding whether I was allowed to move at all.
I breathed in.
Too sharp.
My chest tightened, then released in a staggered rhythm that didn't feel entirely mine.
I stayed there for a second longer.
Listening.
Not to the room.
To myself.
And something else underneath it.
I pushed slightly.
My arm responded.
Late—but it responded.
Enough.
Enough to try again.
I shifted, dragging myself just enough to lift my weight off the floor.
Everything felt heavier than it should have.
Not like exhaustion.
Like resistance.
Like the world hadn't fully decided to let me back in yet.
Across the room—
Movement.
Kellan and his friends were leaving.
Laughing. Talking.
Their voices blurred together.
Distant.
Wrong.
Like I was hearing them from underwater.
Or from somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.
The door opened.
Closed.
And just like that—
The room emptied.
Silence settled again.
But it wasn't empty.
It lingered.
Pressed in.
Watching.
I forced myself upright.
Not fully.
Just enough to lean against the desk.
My hand found the edge.
Gripped.
Held.
The wood felt solid.
More solid than anything else in the room.
I held onto it longer than I needed to.
Just to be sure it was real.
Outside, students in other classes talked and laughed.
But the sounds weren't clean anymore.
They came through warped.
Stretched.
Delayed.
Like the world was trying to catch up with itself.
I frowned.
"…what?"
Nothing had changed.
And yet—
Everything had.
The shadows along the walls shifted again.
Not moving.
Not exactly.
Just… adjusting.
Like they were aware of me now.
Like they had noticed that I had noticed them.
I stayed still.
Watching them.
Or maybe—
They were watching me.
The thought didn't come with fear.
That was the strange part.
It came with awareness.
Quiet.
Certain.
Like noticing something out of place and realizing it had always been there.
My breathing slowed.
Not naturally.
Forced.
Controlled.
Or maybe… controlled for me.
The room felt thinner.
Less stable.
Like it was being held together by something I couldn't see.
Something I couldn't understand.
Something that didn't need me to understand it.
A faint pressure brushed against the edges of my thoughts.
Light.
Deliberate.
Testing.
I went still.
Completely still.
And for the first time—
I didn't feel alone.
Not in the way I used to mean it.
Not in the way that meant someone was there to help.
But in the way that meant—
Something else had noticed me.
And it hadn't looked away.