As uncommon as a good night of sleep is, even more uncommon is a good dream. Laying my head on a pillow is perhaps the easiest part of my day. Looking back on last night I wonder how I fucked it up so royally. The same as every night, I drifted into uneasy sleep after creating a million different scenarios in my head for how my day could have been better. I breathed deep.

The day has passed, you did your best, think about how you can make tomorrow great.

My therapist has told me that I catastrophise things. I can see how that makes sense, but I like to think of it less as catastrophic and more like a very inconvenient sidekick that tells me how bad I am and how every hates me. Or maybe that’s just standard when you’re 19.

The day has passed, you did okay, think about tomorrow.

It’s not that my life is bad, not yet anyway. It’s the thought of interacting with people, them asking how I’m doing and me just staring at them with a blank face. No thoughts, no fun titbits about my week. Just pure, unadulterated plain.

“How are you doing?”

For a moment I thought my flat mate had crawled into my room and whispered the question directly in my ear. Then I opened my eyes.

Red and pink clouds hung low on a mountaintop, a heard of sheep grazing downhill, a lake stretching into the horizon, green and blue shimmering on it’s surface like the gras and sky had merged into one. The grass, I had to take a moment to rationalise how much green surrounded me. Endless waves of tall grass creating ripples and eddies across the surface. A light wind hit the nap of my neck, cooling my sweat from tossing and turning before sleep, softly lifting my baby hairs and placing them down like a gentle mother’s hand.

“It’s rude to ignore a direct question.”

I jolted, not surprised but stunned. When I turned my head slightly to the right, I caught a glimpse of shadow moving across the flat rock I was standing on, but no body.

“How do I talk to an invisible person, like…which direction should I address?”

“I am not a person.” He, at least I thought it was a ‘he', was clearly offended by the question. Disgust dripped from the words, and I couldn’t help feeling I had just failed a test I didn’t sign up for.

“What are you then? If not a person?”

“We are called the Other.” As if that answered every question I had about the matter. “You seem puzzled, have you not met one of my kind before?”

I stretched back in my memory, trying to think if I had ever had a conversation with an invisible pers-…thing. But I couldn’t remember past a few days ago, could barely remember what the car model had been, how many people had been there, what song had played as she was carried in.

Stop it! The day has passed, you have survived, think ahead.

“No.” I didn’t trust myself with more syllables. I could feel a stone stuck in my throat, threatening to rise and force tears and snot and emotion.

“First timer…” It said…or they said? I needed to ask before the social interaction went too far for it to be awkward. Could you call a dream chat a social interaction? “… and I really don’t feel like doing the induction.” I realised they/it had been talking the whole time.

“Please, don’t exert yourself, I think I’m happy to just stand here and stare at the sheep.” It would be peaceful, I realised, to stand and not need to go anywhere. I hadn't felt peace in a while. They had moved into small families upon hearing myself and the spirit speaking.

“That will NOT do my girl! Do you realise how lucky you are?” Despite the invisibility I could practically see the hands on their hips.

The last week had not felt particularly lucky, far too many black clothes.

“No.” I felt bad for being so anti-social. “Can you explain where I am? I thought I was asleep but…”

My word drifted off as I realised, I could feel sweat, wind, and even the sun was warming my left side slightly.

“You are in the second realm.”

“The…”

“Second Realm…the one after yours.”

“After as in…”

“After death.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

My head spun. My stomach lifted and dropped like a stone all in a heartbeat. I stared around frantically. She was here somewhere. I wanted to scream; this couldn’t possibly be real. I pinched my arm, I pulled my hair, I stared straight at the sun, I tried everything to wake myself up. I couldn’t face the truth of what this spirit was telling me. Not this soon, not this way.

“It doesn’t work. It never works. You are here now, where everyone comes. There is no way back, only forward. Head down that path,” and suddenly a set of stones, each 3 metres apart with small sidewards V’s cut into them, arrows! “And you will find what you have been yearning for.”

“How can you know what I yearn for?” I was angry, at the spirit, at it’s stupid voice, at myself for creating this dream world.

“I have always been here my dear, I was waiting for you.”

My dear

“Dad?” Tears filled my eyes then. Huge, swelling tears. Tidal waves of emotion hit me until I was gasping.

“The longer we wait the more we waste away." He had waited all this time. "You must move forward quickly. It’s very like human life.”

“I-…Is she?”

“Yes, she’s waiting for you too. I told her she mustn’t wait out here. Follow the path my dear.”

“But you?”

“I’ll be fine, I have a couple more people to wait for.” My brother and sister.

“Okay…” I didn’t know how to carry on. I couldn’t just-

“Go now, before you lose your nerve. Don't let yourself waster away. I love you” The wind whipped. And I knew he was gone. He had saved me the horror of a second goodbye.

Wandering down the hill seemed like a nice stroll. I wouldn’t know, I sprinted. Down and down it went. Until I felt like I had been running for hours, days even. I don’t know when the landscape changed, when building built around me closing in faster and faster until all I could see for miles were apartment blocks and office buildings and number 52's staircase. I stared up at it, the flat we had lived in when I was a grumpy teenager who thought it was cool to stay out late and laugh at the people on drunken nights out.

Then I was running up the staircase, I was at the door and turning the faded bronze handle attached to a door with black chipping paint. Underneath was the hot pink door we had inherited from the previous owner, even though none of the furniture left in the apartment had been hot pink. On our first night, sleeping on the floor curled up together on a king mattress, we had made up stories about the previous tenants. I often wonder what stories the next tenants would have made about us.

Maybe they saw the black appliances and guessed we were goths. Maybe the purple painting in the hall had framed us as artists. Maybe they never thought of us. Maybe the landlord had told them why we were selling the place. That there were ghosts in the second bedroom, she would never let us give her the master bedroom.

‘I don’t need it.’ She had said, ‘Besides I am not sharing with any of you! You all snore like your father.’

I swung open the door, and it may or may not have hit the wall behind me.

She was there.

She was there!

Stood at the window with a cup of tea, hair pulled tight to her scalp. A loose jumper and skinny jeans. A brown belt, the only one she owned. A necklace of fading silver. Small hoop earrings she had worn every day.

Her scent wafted towards me, the exact perfume she had worn my last year of school. The year I refused to tell her I never felt like getting out of bed to go to school. The year I walked straight past her to my room and barely came out for dinner. The year I regret the most.

I took a step. This isn’t real, I said to myself. But she was there, in front of me. Smiling like she’d never left. Like I hadn’t dropped a flower into the ground last Tuesday and woke up gasping for air every day since.

I took another step. What would I say first? Would I be able to stop the words? What would I tell her with one more moment of time? We have so many more moments.

I took a final step. Tears were filling my eyes now, the bottom half of my vision watery and horrid. I hadn’t cried yet, not really. Not for her, for myself mostly. I had cried with regret, but not grief. The grief had never loosened in those moments, never released it’s grip.

It loosened slightly now. I reached out a hand, she extended her left hand to hold, a look of concern flashing across her face. I had never asked her for help. I had never leant on her like a girl should with her mother. I’ll never know why I did it. I suppose I thought I had so many more years to tell her how I felt, let her help me.

“Mum…” Our fingertips brushed and I felt a tugging sensation at my back. Like someone had attached a tiny string to my t-shirt. It nagged. Then it pulled properly. Suddenly I was covered with the sensation. I was being dragged backwards with the force of three or four people. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Stuck with her hand outstretched. Eyes full of concern. Lips parted, with her tongue placed on the back of her top lips, starting the words ‘I love you’. I silently begged her to snap out it. Save me!

She couldn’t. No one was going to save me.

My eyes opened for the second time. I was staring at my ceiling. Except the ceiling wasn’t there. I could see nothing but red-hot anger, grief that turned grey at the sight of it and sadness such a deep blue it felt black and empty. I wanted to scream but that stone was in my throat, dry and hoarse.

I cried until the world came back into focus. Until I had unpicked the meaning of the last hours. I had been dreaming. She was gone, really gone.

I rose from the bed in a daze. I must have opened my bedroom door, descended the stairs, and flicked the kettle. I had dropped a tea bag in a cup. And I was pouring hot water. I was stirring it, but it didn’t feel like me. I belonged elsewhere.

“How did you sleep?” maybe my flat mate, maybe another voice.

Her voice said The day has passed, you have survived, think ahead.

The spirit’s voice said After death. You must move forward. Don't let yourself waste away.

“I slept…fine.”