Waking up when you were dead was easy. Nobody got bed head, or stinky breath… you just opened your eyes and felt refreshed. June stretched and then walked across her room before she pulled her clothes off and went into the shower.

Another memory. June knew some ghosts either couldn’t get clean because they didn’t remember it or didn’t need to shower, just remembering how they were clean. But June liked the shower. The splashing water fell down and vanished as it hit the floor, and soon she was fresh and happy, walking back out to grab her clothes.

This time, June decided on something other than her cheerleading outfit. She’d died in it, but she didn’t have to spend the rest of eternity wearing it. She reached in and pulled out her pink jumpsuit and white shirt, pulling them one and buttoning up the jumpsuit before she pulled her shoes on.

“Even dead, this looks good on me,” June said. She shook her head, remembering the date she’d worn the jumpsuit for.

She’d broken up with David two weeks later, and she guessed he’d Moved On, though to be honest, it wasn’t as if it was easy to find people in the Memory Lands.

With that, she checked herself in the mirror, ran her fingers through her hair, and headed out.

As usual, the building changed as June joined the morning rush. Big enough to let everyone out—but small enough, so it was crowded. The building had memories, after all, memories of crowded morning rushes and people trying to cram down into a single elevator.

June didn’t mind. The old building had more character than the hotels and such springing up, the million buildings needed for the newly dead.

They had memories, but not memories reinforced by years, decades, or even longer of existing in the Memory lands.

Maybe that’s why I teamed up with Hank and Sally. They weren’t ancient, but they’d been here for a while and—

“And if I don’t hurry, I’m gonna be late!” June darted out of the elevator when the doors opened, dodging a big workman with two bullet holes in his shirt, passing by a woman wearing a flapper’s dress, and then was on the street, pulling out her key and calling the trike.

I love this so much! June thought. She giggled as she got on the bike, put her helmet on, and took off down the street.

It was dawn because the Moon was rising. The sun never shone down here, so the Moon took its place, rising up, the blue light slightly brighter than it was at night. At the same time the moon set, it would rise again, this time a true moon, illuminating the City at night. There were eclipses, but June hadn’t been around for any, not yet.

Hank and Sally didn’t like them. Most of the other old-timers didn’t talk about Eclipses.

Teacher had merely suggested she remain with other people and stay inside during an eclipse. Nothing else.

But I don’t care because now it’s time to see Hank win! June zipped down the roads, dodging in and out of traffic. Like the building, the City ensured that the roads were crowded. It was morning, and it was in the nature of the place to be crowded. In the middle of the night, no matter how many people were out on the road, it’d feel empty.

But June zipped by a milk truck, dodged in front of a Roman cart, a pair of skeletal horses plodding forward, then stopped at a walkway as the police officer raised his hand and whistled like he’d been doing since 1915 when he’d been run over on his last day on the job.

At least that was his story. June had heard others, involving drinking himself to death on the day he was fired.

But then he signaled, and June zipped forward, she was—

The LED light turned red.

“OH, COME ON!” June said. Hank had bitched about this light, and not just because it was new.

The City remembered. And evidently, modern street lights remembered that their job was to make you miserable.

June waited, tapping on the handlebar, as the light turned green for the empty street, leaving everyone else fuming. Then finally, finally, it changed color for her, and she zipped across.

Behind her, howls of outrage rose as the light promptly switched back to red, leaving the majority of the people trapped. A few defied the light, and took off, pursued by a bullet-riddled police car, its old-fashioned siren wailing away as the skeletal form inside gripped the steering wheel.

Some people just like their job. For a moment, June wondered if she should follow them and see just what the cop was going to demand.

No. I’ll be late. With that, June turned down the other street and headed to her destination.

The Ring wasn’t the largest sports facility in the City. But it was still larger than any equivalent in the Living Lands. Once it had been an empty field where children remembered playing ball, but as more people died and brought their memories back, it changed. Now Roman marble competed with art deco facades and brutalist architecture. LED lights blazed next to bonfires, while endless seats marched up until you could look down on the rest of the City.

Most of the people were heading to the main entrances, the noise of the crowd rising and falling. June didn’t. She headed to the racer’s entrance, where Hank had told her to go. At the gates, a pair of guards held up their hands.

“Where’s your ticket? You can’t just get in with a bike.”

June looked up at the guard. “I’m here for—“

“June!” Sally called from inside. “She’s with us,” she told the guard.

“Right.” With that, the two men went off to yell at someone else. Sally came running up and examined the trike.

“You gonna race?” she asked.

“And show up Hank?” June shook her head. “Nah, besides, I just made this. Teacher.”

“Here only for a little over a year, and you’re already mastering memory-craft.” Sally put her hands over her eyes and gave a theatrical sob. “They grow up so fast.”

“You could do the same, you know.”

“Nah, too much navel-gazing,” Sally said. “C’mon, Hank’s getting ready, but he gave us good seats.”

“Right,” June said and called the trike back into her key. “Let’s go.”

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

----------------------------------------

Like the exterior of the Ring, the interior was a mix of styles. At the lowest levels were benches that were just rocks, their sharp edges worn smooth, while slightly above them were ranks of stone seats dating from the days of Sparta and Athens. Then there were rickety circus-style seats, opera boxes, and luxurious skyboxes with LED lights and butlers to provide drinks for their well-heeled inhabitants. Some of the butlers were real, men and women who had spent so many years in service that they couldn’t imagine anything else. Some were memories there because they had always been there.

June shook her head as Sally led her to a part of the Ring that was made up of rickety wooden benches.

“Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs!” A vendor walked past, and Sally raised her hand. He turned, and she smiled, dropping several coins in his hand, and waited as he pulled the hot dogs and drink out of his pack.

Memory tokens. Not a specific memory, not like the ones that Sally and Hank had given June, but the more general memories. The smell of a summer day. Thunder when you hid under the bed. Memories that people at the mint could imprint upon the coinage without losing themselves in it.

Or memories you create without knowing. June had found coins under her pillow on more than one night, the way she slept in the building creating the memory tokens. Not much, but enough if you didn’t care to live beyond your means.

“And there they are!” Sally said as she handed June a hot dog.

June bit into it, and swallowed. It tasted like… well, a hot dog you’d get at a ball game. Down further, in the places where those who had lived in Rome were sitting, there were other meals being served, meals that tasted like the ones they’d eaten during gladiatorial contests.

And down on the field, June saw Hank on his bike. There were bikes and cars, and horses and what looked like a skeletal elephant with a castle on it. Things that would have been impossible to exist in the Living Lands. But not down here.

The crowd slowly fell silent as a woman strode out, wearing a scarlet and white dress.

Her throat had been messily cut, explaining where the scarlet came from.

“Want some popcorn?” Sally asked.

“Sure,” June said.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the woman shouted, her voice raspy. “Welcome to the race!” She gestured at the gathered racers, as greenish-white spotlights illuminated them. “Enjoy this race. Remember it!”

“Remember it!” everyone shouted back.

“Ready?” She raised her hands, waiting as the Ring fell silent. Then her hands caught fire, greenish flames flickering along her fingers before they ran down her arms and illuminated her entire figure, and now the dress was turning black as the flames roared up, consuming fabric and skin alike. And then there was a skeleton, flame outlining her bones before she brought her hands down. “BEGIN!”

And then the race started.

----------------------------------------

June leaned forward as the mob took off. Being dead, you didn’t actually have to worry about dying in the race. Oh, there were ways to permanently kill a spirit, but they were both obvious and not something you could do by accident.

There was a cloud of dust rising up as the bikes, cars, and animals charged forward over the hard-packed soil.

“They have navy fights here, fill up the bottom with water. Have you ever seen those?”

June shook her head. “Not that much into fighting.”

“Eh, it’s not that bad. The worst that happens is someone gets a little waterlogged.” Sally paused., “I heard they had a place over in Europe where that was the selling point. Fight all day, party all night.”

June shook her head. “Not for me—oh!”

Down below, Hank’s bike, fire streaming from its exhaust, whipped under a skeletal elephant, barely avoiding one great foot, as the riders shouted and fired arrows at him.

“Foul!” Sally shouted, jumping up, popcorn landing on some of the people below her. “Foul!”

“Doesn’t anything go here?” June asked.

“For our guy, yes! But they fouled him!”

“Well, he’s doing fine,” June said.

“That’s not the point!”

But down below, Hank zipped around a corner, almost getting clobbered by the insidious fusion of a hot rod and what looked like a haunted house. June shook her head.

I have no idea where that memory came from. But now they were in the obstacle section. As Hank roared through, thick tentacles exploded from the ground, whipping around and trying to get the contestants. One horse was grabbed, mount and rider alike being pulled underground, cursing, and whinnying all the way.

But Hank dropped his bike on its side, skidding under one tentacle before he turned and got it running just in time to jump over another tentacle which took out its frustration on a little hybrid scooter just behind him.

It went like that for several laps. June couldn’t really tell if the laps were a few miles or dozens of miles, but they were getting to the end, five vehicles left that had survived the various challenges.

Mike was down at third, and in front of him was a souped-up Model A and a WWII jeep.

“Hank Simmonds is making his move!” the woman shouted, still in a skeletal form.

And Hank was. He cut to the inside of the track, risking the thick, grasping thorn bushes on that side, and moved forward. He passed the Model A, and then there was only the jeep in front of him.

But as he moved forward, one of the hazards, a skeletal lion, erupted from the bushes.

June swore she could hear Hank’s curse as he pulled back, evading the lion—but putting himself too far back to make up the distance as the jeep shot over the finish line. Sally was running down, scattering popcorn from her box with every step, and June followed her. Down around the pits, June saw the stand for the winners. At first place was a tall, rangy man wearing an old army uniform, while Hank stood in second place in his leather jacket, running a comb through his dusty hair. At third place, the Model A driver stood, and June blinked.

She looked like someone’s grandmother, in an old flapper dress, white hair and a purse.

“I’ll do better next time, dears,” she said. “Remember, I was the fastest driver in Calabas County!”

“Right, Ma’am,” the soldier said. “Almost got me, Hank.”

“Almost, Tom,” Hank said. “Damn hazards.”

“Better than not having ‘em,” Tom said. “Can you imagine what it’d be like, just zipping around the track? Boring. I got enough boring in the old folks home.”

“It helps that you come back,” one of the other racers said. Behind him, a skeletal horse was kicking a tentacle off of its left rear hoof. “Sure gotta admit, I’m interested to see what happens when the newcomers get settled down and start racing…”

“June has a bike,” Sally said. “She could enter the race next time!”

“Sally, I just made the bike!” June said.

“You did it from your memory?” The soldier frowned. “That’s pretty dangerous, Ma’am.”

“It’s not—I’m learning how to shape memories…”

The soldier whistled. “That’s not easy, and you’re already doing it? You must have had a pretty good death.”

“I um…” Tired, head falling on my desk, barely caring that blood was dripping from her mouth, nose, every orifice, with cries and screams in my ears, someone trying to call 911, and then they got quieter and quieter until all was silent… June blinked. The soldier was staring at her.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “I forgot that you are a newcomer. It took me a while before I could think about it.”

“No, it’s just that…” June shook her head. “I think maybe that might be why I’m sort of good. I got sick right away, but I think I was the last in the school to die.”

Hank whistled. “That might do it.” He shook his head. “But on to more important things. I came in second, and this time I didn’t put my bike into a wall.”

“That’s true,” Sally said, patting June’s arm. “For a while, putting his bike into a wall was the highlight of the race.”

“It’s not my fault,” Hank said. “I still didn’t realize physics don’t work like they did in the Living Land.”

“Heh, if that’s the story you wanna stay with. Well, I’ll let you kids find your own fun. I’ve got some friends who just dropped in so to speak, and wave some old times to chew over.”

With that, he left, waving at various racegoers.

“I didn’t get his name,” June said.

“He doesn’t have one. Or at least…” Mike shrugged. “Some of the dead, you know they’re impacted by the memory of the living. He was blown into tiny little pieces, and nobody could tell who he was. So…”

“He’s an Unknown Soldier.” Sally said. “Not the only one, and they’re not just soldiers. Some people, for some reason, lose their names, or just don’t answer to them, but are remembered for what they were.”

June frowned. Becoming an archtype? She’d have to ask Teacher about it. But—

“What is she doing here,” June muttered.

“Who?”

“Mother.” The others followed June’s gaze to see a cloaked woman turn away from them and leave the stands. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“June, that isn’t a good idea,” Sally said. “Not until she comes to terms…”

“I already got in a fight with her once, and I don’t need her haunting me.”

“Yeah, that’d be a bit redundant down here.” Hank said. “But we’re coming with you.”

“Why? She can’t hurt me, not permanently.”

“No, but she might know people who can.” Hank frowned. “Look, I know you’re upset at her, and the Rapturists can be annoying, but some of them have learned ways to hurt people—permanently.”

“In any case, getting into an argument just isn’t worth it,” Sally said.

June sighed. “Fine, I’ll just follow her to see where she’s staying. And then we can leave. That way I’ll know where not to go. Fine?”

Hank looked at Sally. She shook her head.

“Okay, June, we’ll come with you,” Hank said.