As the sounds of birds reaches her ears, Charlotte opens her eyes and glances around. The air she breathes in is fresh, the grass under her arms is healthy, the leaves sound musical as they rustle in the tree she lays beneath, and the skull she can see out of her peripheral vision doesn’t startle her.
Alright, it didn’t startle her for three whole seconds. Once she registers that there is a skeleton garbed in a tattered black robe with its skull tilted down towards her face, as if watching her, she lets out a startled shriek and scrambles away from the corpse as quickly as she can.
Moving to her knees a few feet away from the tree she had been under, the brunette stares at the visage of what she can only think is the personification of death, the Grim Reaper, come to collect her soul and take her away from the world of the living.
“What the hell-”
A rich baritone voice answers from somewhere within the robes, enunciating flawlessly without the use of a tongue or lips to form complex sounds. “My apologies. I did not realize you had awoken.” The slender fingers lacking flesh or muscles touch at the jaw bone as the masculine sounding skeleton displays movement which is physically impossible for what is, essentially, a bag of bones.
Like any reasonable person who is being addressed by a sentient, animated skeleton, who moves as if it is in fact alive, Charlotte screams. She screams until her lungs have completely emptied before she draws in another breath, still able to hear her cries echo in the vast valley she has found herself in.
“Quite the set of pipes on you,” the skeleton says as it claps politely from her display of vocal talents. “Are you going to do it again?”
The rattling sound of bones striking against each other sends chills down the woman’s spine. “Wh- n-no, I, I mean, what- who are you?” She cannot help the way that her words crack and scratch over her tongue as they escape her raw throat. Screaming tends to do that to people’s voices, admittedly.
“My apologies,” the skeleton starts again. “I am William. I have been waiting here for you, or someone else like you.” He rests his hands upon his knees and cants his head curiously at Charlotte, as if waiting to see whether she will scream again or not.
“Here? Where is here?” She stands and looks around, her entire body tense as thoughts rush through her head, believing she has been in an accident, she must have died, this is some last ditch attempt at her brain to clam her down before everything fades away, surely. This isn’t real, there is nothing after one dies, science has proven-
Her panic-riddled thoughts are interrupted by that deep, impossible voice emitting from the skeleton. “The valley. You didn’t arrive at the Welcome Home, so I thought I would sit with you until you awoke and I could bring you back.”
Worry creases Charlotte’s brow as she crosses her arms over her chest. “This isn’t funny. Are you trying to say I died?”
William taps his finger bones against his covered knee as he thinks about that. The way his skull tilts from one side to the other, along with the low hum which escapes from somewhere within his robes, unnerves the woman. Everything he does should be calming, casual, even inviting, is cause for alarm and worry because it is a skeleton doing it, moving, thinking, talking, when it shouldn’t.
“No,” he finally answers. That single confident word causes her shoulders to relax, regardless of the fact she is still confused. He continues. “You are neither dead nor alive at the moment, and while we wait for the decision to be made, you have been brought here.”
“To the valley,” she clarifies with a sigh. She will have to ask what this William means by “neither alive nor dead at the moment” when she’s ready to hear that answer.
“Yes, although I think it would be best if we go back to the Home.” A soft chuckle follows his words.
“What’s the Home?” Why isn’t she running away? Is it because she thinks this is a strange dream brought on by drinking apple juice before bed, or eating an absurd amount of candy she definitely didn’t need on Halloween night? There’s something about talking to this skeleton, who identifies as “William”, which doesn’t cause Charlotte to spook and run. She is certainly unnerved, she feels cautious, yet her discomfort eases the more that they talk. Perhaps it is the valley they are in, the fresh air, the warm sunlight, or the perfect feeling grass beneath her bare feet. It might also be because the skeleton hasn’t moved, nor does he have a scythe with him to rend her body in two. For the moment he has given no reason for her to be truly afraid of him. If he still had some flesh, if he looked like a rotting corpse while carrying on in such a civil manner, she might think otherwise about fleeing.
“Oh, you’ll find out about that later. Much later, if we’re lucky.” As William talks he moves to his feet. His bones rattle under his robes and he lets out a weary “oomph” as he straightens up. “I sat for too long,” he concludes with mild surprise, reflected only in his voice.
In spite of her confusion, her worries, the fears which are ebbing away with each second that passes, the young woman laughs. She covers her mouth immediately after that sound escapes her as she feels her face warm with embarrassment.
“There is no need to hide your mirth,” he says with a dry, bone-rattling chuckle of his own. “I did not expect to feel such stiffness in my bones from sitting, was all.”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes as she wonders again why this place does not cause panic to set in, why William himself does not cause her to freak out and run as far as she can from him. She chalks it up to the desensitization of scary things due to jump scare videos and realistic depictions of death, gore, and the unknown in all forms of visual media, to the news sharing horrifying stories of suffering day in and day out, all carefully knit together with the loose threads of her own dream snippets she might recall if she wishes.
If this is a dream, it is a far more enjoyable one than many she has experienced before.
“So what am I to do here, then?” Charlotte shoves her hands into the pockets on her shorts as she looks around, deciding that she must be in a lucid dream, something she hasn’t experienced properly before. She’s always wanted to try and have a dream she can control at least once.
The valley looks as if it should be a part of the Elysian Fields, yet she does not believe she qualifies for that privilege. The trees climb lazily up slopes of greenery, wild flowers bloom in huge clusters of pink, yellow, and white, and what appear to be butterflies off in the distance flit in and out of sight.
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“Whatever you wish to do, Miss Charlotte,” William answers as he dusts off his robe. “Would you like to explore the valley, or visit your relatives? You can go wherever you want and do as you please until we find out if your visit is temporary or not.”
“My relatives?” Surprise shows on her face. “L-like my sister?”
“The nineteen year old? No, she is quite healthy and would not have access to this place. You could check in on her in a viewing mirror, however we cannot interact with her as you can with deceased relations.”
“O-oh, right. Right. Um, who all is here?”
The skull tilts as William ponders that question. He withdraws a book from within his robes and opens the wrinkled, aged leather binding. He thumbs through a few pages of yellowed and stained parchment before he lets out a soft ‘ah’ when he discovers what he wants.
Turning the book towards her, he points at the drawn family tree with the woman’s name on it. “You cannot visit Grace, or your parents, as they are all quite healthy,” he laughs, “however if you wish to see your grandparents, or second cousins, cousins through marriage, well...” As he talks, the family tree grows upwards and outwards, off the pages, until thick black ink droops with the weight of Charlotte’s bloodline. Names spider out like a never ending web of people who were related through marriage or blood. Sometimes both, if they are separated from one another enough.
“That’s a lot of cousins,” she whispers. “What a crowded family reunion that would be!”
“True. Well, if you do not wish to visit relatives, I could always show you to the viewing room.” William starts to walk as he closes and then slips the leather-bound book back into his robes. She follows as curiosity compels her onward.
“What’s a viewing room?”
He pauses to think of the best way to explain it to her. “To put it simply, it is like a time machine. You can visit ancient Egypt, the first settlers of the British Isles, you can see the dinosaurs-”
“Dinosaurs!” Charlotte exclaims with excitement. “I want to see the dinosaurs! Can we really see them? Can we touch them? Oh my gosh, won’t they hurt me?”
“No. A viewing room holds all of the information in the universe’s history. It is a unique catalog of events which can take you wherever you wish to view something. Thus the name. There is a particularly fun feature I enjoy, where you can remove the... Um. But, no, as we will be viewing only, we cannot interact with anything. That does mean, however, that if you wish to explore the ocean, you will not drown or be attacked by any sharks or something worse, though,” he finishes helpfully.
“That sounds awesome,” she breathes. “I want to see dinosaurs! And the Colosseum! And, and, all the castles, and Japan, and the bottom of the oceans, and-”
William throws his skull back and lets out a hearty laugh. The excited innocence of his guest is heartwarming and wonderful. He has experienced too many who get lost in this realm for their brief visit and never move from the valley. They cannot see beyond the field, if they ever get that far. It is rare for one like Charlotte to visit. He is glad she opened her eyes and could see everything, understand what he said. A human soul when it is neither here nor there can be a tricky thing to awaken, let alone instill understanding in for the place they must wait in while their body fights to survives or succumbs to whatever has injured it.
It takes no time at all for Charlotte and her skeletal guide William to arrive at a building that looks similar to a library. He opens the door and holds it for her, waiting for her to enter first. She thanks him and smiles in a dazzling way as her excitement for what is to come absolutely radiates from her body. While his jaw can only move up and down, his aura, the ‘vibes’ he gives off, are pleased and downright giddy, for he knows they can explore the universe and all its secrets before a decision must be made. Time is so compacted in this place that eternity only takes a few days to experience.
The first thing the pair does is enter an empty room. It looks rather plain, with a wooden table and comfortable chairs around it. William lights the candles on the scattered, unevenly placed shelves before he picks up a modern looking tablet from the mantle and sets it between them on the oak surface. The screen lights up and shows a search bar, of all things, projected between them like a hologram.
“Where would you like to go first, Charlotte?” William allows her to pick, wanting her to figure out the device on her own. He can sit back and quietly marvel at her ability to adapt so quickly, pleased he does not have another shrieking, weeping soul to try and soothe unsuccessfully before they are gone from his work area.
“Dinosaurs,” she says with unbridled excitement once more. The search bar fills in her request and provides so many results in the form of links, pictures, sound clips, and clarification options.
“Oh, er. This is a lot,” she mutters. After she clears her throat, she tries again. “I want to see a Deinonychus, please!”
As soon as she utters her request, the room starts to melt away. A disembodied voice pleasantly says, “Heard, Charlotte. Showing a Deinonychus.”
The brunette lets out a scream as she sees a creature around chest height running on two legs towards her, with a single wicked over-sized talon on each foot. She braces for impact, puts her arms up, but it runs right through her without hesitation.
“Remember, Miss Charlotte, you cannot be seen or harmed by anything within the viewing room’s database,” William says as he steps out from behind a tree, brushing leaves and a couple of twigs off his tattered robes. “Vuru, could you lower the plant life to about fifty percent? I always get lost in the trees.”
“Heard, William. Filtering out fifty percent of plant life.”
Before Charlotte’s eyes, half of the plants within sight her simply fade from view. Her eyes widen as she feels her jaw drop. She speaks before she stops to think about it, wanting to know more about this place.
Almost in a daze, she says curiously, “Vuru?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, um! S-sorry. I was just wondering, is that your name?” Charlotte has never spoken to a disembodied voice before, she thinks. Not like this.
“It is a nickname many of the guides have given me,” the voice responds in that pleasant tone, sounding more delighted by the idea it has a nickname. “What would you like to view?”
“Pink sandy beaches,” Charlotte says cheekily, not believing the voice will be able to abide by her fanciful request. She is just playing around, having fun while she can. This dream is fantastic and unreal to her.
There is silence briefly before the voice responds. “Heard, Charlotte. Showing Elafonissi, Crete.”
The packed earth shifts under her bare feet and she screams with surprise, mild fear, and delight as pink sand materializes before her eyes. She can feel the sand, she sees the turquoise waters, and there are so many people around. The young woman tries to cover herself instinctively, before she looks down and realizes she has on her lightweight short-sleeved hoodie, a comfortable pair of khaki shorts, and a few hair scrunchies on her left wrist. It doesn’t take long for her to not feel overexposed, and less time for her to start laughing at William as he mills about between swimsuit-clad people. The skeleton in the tattered black robes looks comical on the beach.
“Kind of crowded, is it not,” he calls to her over the hum and chatter of conversations going on around the two viewers.
“A little!”
“Vuru, would you please filter out all the people?”
“Heard, William. Filtering out all the people.”
As every person disappears from Elafonissi beach before Charlotte’s eyes, she feels her spirit lighten. The sound of sudden silence is nearly deafening, only staved off by the water lapping at the shore and the birds calling to one another in the sky above. A beach devoid of human life except her own, along with what she believes is a grim reaper and a disembodied voice altering what they see so that it’s as pleasant as possible, and the ability to go anywhere without coming to harm?
“I think I could stay in this room for my whole life,” Charlotte laughs as she starts to run towards William.
“Perhaps not that long,” he says as he turns his skull to look out at the sun’s rays as they dance and reflect off the water. “But nearly.”
The skeleton slowly sits down on the pink sandy beach of Elafonissi to watch Charlotte as she plays in the waters which she will never visit during her lifetime. He is smiling, even if it cannot be seen, relaxing and enjoying the simple joy of watching over someone who is experiencing a viewing room for the first time. He wonders where she will want to visit next.