If Only
If only, if only you knew I was here. I could make your most farfetched wishes come true, your wildest fantasies a reality, if only, if only.

Death isn't what everyone makes it out to be. There isn't a tunnel with a white light at the end, there are no majestic pearly gates, there is darkness for a short period while your soul escapes, yes, but there's nothing magical about death. I found this out because I was murdered. There, I've said it. It's cut and dry, and I'm not going to sugar coat it. I was never that kind of person, and I'll never be that type of woman.

My murder was not the first of its kind. It was so clichéd, I probably would have yawned had I not been in fear's embrace. I was only twenty, fresh and 'clean' to the world. Clean, only because I had never lived outside my home. I was by no means a virgin, and by no means prudent. I took my community in my grasp, and tainted it with my scandal and sin before setting it alight with the combined horror of a hundred parents, now struggling with the knowledge of what their daughters were truly up to.
I left the town after my final steady girlfriend had left me. She couldn't handle the whispers, the points, and poorly concealed stares. One thing that life taught me the second I dropped out of my mother's womb was that life was a bitch, and it birthed children like me. I walked before I crawled, and read before I talked. I was the odd one in our family, but Dad was proud. I was the one 'destined for greatness'.

The second he discovered my lifestyle, he wasn't so sure how much of that 'greatness' was left for me. I was quickly and discreetly swept out the door with the cat litter. You probably don't care about the bread to my story, you want the lunchmeat.

Chicago, it was big, and it was bad, and I was a little girl in a red jacket destined to be eaten. I had never been in a place so large and so rough, I was accustomed to the small town comforts that life had stolen from me. So, needless to say, it wasn't long before I had found my last dollars had flown from my pocket accompanied by a nimble fingered dancer. So, I wandered the streets for days, cold and damp in the late fall when I finally stumbled across Madame Sophie's. It was a little bed and breakfast set in bleak stone. I was numbed. I was hungry. The scent of food wafted from within the shop, I couldn't take it. I had to go in.

I took one look at the woman with makeup caking her face, still not concealing the beauty mark off the left corner of her mouth, and her hair, black and loosely curled falling in pieces over her eyes darker than an abyss. The second her gaze shifted to me, I felt awkward in my skin for the first time in my life. My blue eyes felt too large, to sunken into my face, I felt chilled, wishing I hadn't cut off most of my hair for a few extra dollars.

She smiled a microscopic smile, as if her face would crack and fall to pieces. "Welcome. You seem to be looking for food. Can you work?" I stiffened slightly, "Uh...Excuse me?" "Look at you! I ask you this because you do not appear able to pay a bill. You're nothing but a filthy street rat that crawled out from the gutter. So I ask. Can you work?" I blinked slowly, shifting nervously, before daring to ask, "Well...What kind of work would I have to do for you Ms...." "Madame Krista is my name, and I think I have the perfect job for you."

Madame Sophie's was not a bed and breakfast. It did serve food, and offered all kinds of services, and not only the fast ones. We served people after hours, we served people in bathrooms and back rooms, and filled the gluttonous till that never seemed to be truly full. No matter how bruised or bitten we became, we were never worth the money we earned. It was after a few months of this treatment that I became aware of my situation. I was nothing. I would never be anything, or at least, I wouldn't be anything if I didn't have money. That's when I started hoarding small change. Nothing more than a dollar here or maybe a few cents there. I had them tucked away safely, where I thought nobody would ever find them. II had saved up roughly 300 dollars when Madame caught on.

There was a hell of a storm that night, the wind was wailing, and the thunder and lightning were fighting each other. She came in as soon as my customer had left, and caught me red handed. "So," She said, leaning against the door frame, "I see you have been stealing from me." I quaked in fear, shook my head, and dropped my box, spilling money all over the floor. "N-n-no..." I whimpered pitifully. "Oh, I think you have, my little Nymph." She said in an icy tone, drawing a knife from behind her back, entering my room, and shutting the door behind the quietly, all in a fluid motion. She pointed the blade at me, the cold steel glinting in the light. I was frozen. She pushed me over, straddling me and lowering the sparkling edge to my throat. "I don't think you'll be doing that again. Do you?" Mute from the dread flowing through my veins, pulsing thunderously in my head, I shook my head. No...I'll never steal from you again Madame... She made a ticking noise with her tongue and teeth. "I don't think so either."

Within the next few minutes, I was watching her from another standpoint, standing over her and watching her murder me. I watched her blade plunge into me countless times, watched as the blood drained from my body, and watched my body writhe in pain in a puddle of its own blood. You see, when you die, your soul escapes before it is harmed, but your body absorbs all the damage. As a soul, you won't feel the pain of your body. You'll probably get a faint tickle where your injuries are, but that's about it.

I watched her walk out, and saw my breathing finally stop. The second I was fully dead, I felt a tugging sensation, and turned to see a woman in a black business suit. She looked at my body, and then at me, as if to say, "I'm sorry for your loss." I then followed her to a place much like an office building, but it's a lot more comfortable, or at least the chairs are, who's to say? I was seated and a matter of fact voice filled the room. You have died. The woman's mouth had not moved. I opened my mouth, trying to speak, to ask questions, to retort to the remark...Yet I couldn't speak. My mouth moved, but no air could pass through my nonexistent lungs, and I had no vocal chords to speak of, so I could not speak. Relax. Speaking won't take long to master. Simply imagine the words leaving your living body. Then the words will form. Please, give it a try. A one word response will be satisfactory.

I managed to unleash a nearly silent, raspy, Okay... This woman went on to explain several things to me in a very brisk manner. To put things quite simply...There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no purgatory. Well, maybe I should rephrase that; there is a spiritual plane in existence where all spirits go to be sorted and sent away to do different things. I suppose one could call this place heaven, hell, or purgatory. Whatever you want to call it, it's where you'll end up the second the people in the black suits come to take you away. Once you get there, you will be talked through basic skills such as speaking. There are many skills, but some are quite specialized; only appearing in a few spirits out of every fifty or so. Such as the infamous ones who can appear to humans. They're the lucky ones. Most of us can't even make ourselves known.

Once they talk one through the basic skills, you are then presented with a choice. You can become one of them, and help other spirits, you can move to other planes but never return to Earth, or you can basically bum around wherever you please, but not be able to return to the planes. This choice wasn't hard for me. I didn't like this place already. It was so damn pure; it made me feel like a speck of mud, marring the clean slate. You can dress people up however you please, but the assholes are still assholes, the druggies are still druggies, and the hookers are still hookers, but now they're assholes, druggies, and hookers in nice clothes. I didn't want to mess up the spiritual plane, or any other plane for that matter, so I was sent back to Earth.
I wandered around for a bit...but it wasn't long before I returned to Madame Sophie's. I couldn't return home. I couldn't bear the thought of it. I spent my days lounging about, laying where my body had lain, and resting my head on the dirty window pane looking down on the city street that was always alive with some form of activity.

I don't know what Madame Krista did with my body, and I don't care. This (believe it or not) is not my story. This story is the story of another young girl, a pretty little thing with a devious mind. I warmed myself by her aura's fire. I watched over her while she rested her head where I had rested mine. This is Sybil's story. Or something like it.