** Random, don't even know where it came from, hope you guys like it.

Gift wrap the Globe

Preface

I don't know who cried at my funeral. I don't know if anyone missed me besides my parents. It was a nice thought though, to be missed. That's the stuff you always thought about in the spirit world because there's nothing else to think. You think about your family and you recite your own name.

My name is Kathleen Mitchell and I have two parents and a younger brother and sister. No, that's not right. My name was Kathleen Mitchell and I used to have two parents and a younger brother and sister.

Death isn't what you think it is. There's no heaven and hell, no limbo, no loitering on earth for unfinished business. I know for a fact that in death you go straight to the spirit world and you stay there… well at least normal people do. The spirit world isn't as glamorous as it sounds, it's agony actually. You can't imagine the pain the spirit suffers being separated from the body, floating around in a pit of eternal ends, just mindlessly twisting around the other screaming spirits until you all almost become one.

You can lose yourself you know… I almost lost myself once, you have to keep reminding yourself who you are otherwise you forget and then you're just a spirit, plain and simple. The older spirits that have been there for centuries to date have forgotten themselves, if you listen closely you can hear them screaming out random names just hoping to find theirs. Spirits are loud by nature, if you can even call it nature because we are the supernatural in a sense, but without a body to be heard everything you have to say needs to be a scream.

Well suddenly everything went silent and death came down for a visit. He hardly ever came down to the spirit world, but when he did it was never anything good- I was only a new soul but I already knew this. But it wasn't bad this time; Death himself was offering what every spirit craved, he was offering life… and he chose me. God knows why he chose me but he did. It wasn't just me though, he collected a handful of the newer spirits and he took us back to the real world. It was all an experiment, Death would give us these bodies, not our old ones, they didn't belong to us anymore, but he'd give us these new bodies and put us in a world different to our old one. He would watch the way we lived and then he would collect us for a final time in our new deaths. It was like he'd gift wrapped the globe and given me the whole world again, and this time I'd know how to live it without it being cut short.

Luck, that was all it was, it was pure, unadulterated luck. I got a chance at life again and trust me to allow one stupid boy to screw it all up.

Chapter one

My name is no longer Kathleen Mitchell; according to the hospital tag on my now very dainty wrist, my name is Holly Hepburn. It felt extremely weird being in someone else's body, I had the sensation that I was trespassing and for a brief second I wondered if the real Holly was still present. I quickly wised up, remembering the clause that we were to take the bodies of souls that had recently died; the old Holly had been in a car crash and had taken my spot in the spirit world. For a second I pitied her, but I learnt that you shouldn't sympathise with the dead, we were selfish creatures by new nature. It would be wrong for me to deny the fact that it felt good to be alive again, to breathe air, to be left alone in silence. Well the peace didn't seem to last long because soon the room was flooded with people flitting about me like madmen. They were all speaking at once so I only caught a few words; the most popular of those words was her name… my name now.

"Holly can you hear me?" A doctor with soft, wrinkled features and greying hair leant over me and flashed a light in my eye.

I blinked at the intrusion, but a smile graced my lips all the same because he was a human, with a real life body. I could've kissed him but I didn't, I just sat there and let the hospital rush around me, checking my blood levels and whatnot. I just sat there in a daze just remembering the feeling of being alive. It'd been a while, one year exactly since I died… since Kathleen died. It wasn't a dramatic or traumatic death or anything, that just wasn't my style, the old Kathleen had never been extravagant. It was cancer a.k.a the silent killer, throat cancer to be specific, something almost unheard of in non-smokers. It started with what doctors thought was tonsillitis, but then I couldn't breath and my throat began to bleed regularly, and so finally those fucking so called professionals gave me the x-ray and found advanced tumours in my throat. My body shut down slowly, my limbs thinned to the point where I was beyond model skinny and my voice got lost somewhere. It was horrible, but most of the time I was drugged up on morphine that I was floating on a painless cloud. But now I was alive again, alive and kicking.

"Holly!" A dark haired woman, with soft looking brown skin and a dishevelled look about her, came rushing in. "Oh god Holly, what a miracle you're alive. T-the doctors said that they didn't know if you'd make it! Thank god!"

The woman draped herself over me and buried her wet face in my neck. I stiffened, of course I did, she was a complete stranger, but whilst my mind revolted my new body seemed to remember and began to soften slowly.

"Your father's on his way now," she lifted her head up and stared deeply into my eyes.

I noticed that she was a very pretty woman, despite the fact that she looked like she hadn't slept in days. She had striking green eyes, coffee coloured skin and thick black hair, that was tied up in a loose bun. Her bone structure was delicate and well carved, and I instantly wondered 'is this my mother?' and then finally 'do I look like her?' if I did I would be glad, my old body had been disappointing in contrast, to say the least, all I could remember was thick ginger hair and goofy teeth and I instantly wanted to forget again.

"I prayed to God every night," the woman confessed, stroking my hair, "and he listened to me because here you are…"

I wanted to tell her 'there is no god!' but who was I to dash her earthly wants and desires, if it comforted her now to believe there was peace after death, I would allow her.

"Please Holly, say something?"

I blinked, not sure of what to say, but so desperately in want of using a voice again, a real one that could be heard.

"…Hello?"

I was surprised… surprised at my own voice. It was gentle, lyrical almost, nothing like my boisterous personality, it just wasn't me. Death wasn't kidding when he said he would take us to lives that were not at all like our own.

The woman must've been pleased with my feeble attempt at a speaking, because her face spread into a beautiful grin. "Hello baby, welcome back."

Welcome back indeed.

** There was a lot I had learnt about Holly Hepburn in the space of 24 hours. For one, she was 17 years old, four years younger than I had been as Kathleen. Two, she lived in the suburbs with her middle class parents and went to a private school (that would be fun). And thirdly, she had died in a car crash that happened two weeks ago- I asked her mum, my mum how it had happened but it was an extremely taboo subject.

"It was just an unfortunate accident," was all she said.

True to her words, my 'father' showed up at the hospital although he was not what I was expecting. I'd been waiting for a gorgeous, super lawyer, tycoon extraordinaire, type guy. What I got instead was a very skinny, pale, balding man who wore a soft expression on his face.

"Hi dad," I piped up, trying to get a taste for the word on my tongue.

He strode over to me with his long legs, his smile wan but genuine all the same. "How are you feeling Lollypop?"

Lollypop? You have got to be kidding me! My old boyfriend didn't even have a pet name for me, but then again we weren't the sort. So instead of sneering and chuckling to myself, I plastered on a smile and giggled. Giggling seemed to come natural to this body…

"I'm alright, they've put me on some meds for the pain so I'm fine really."

I watched as both of them frowned and shared a brief glance with each other. I quite obviously didn't sound like the "Lollypop" they knew, but that what tough tits for them because I was their daughter now.

"Well I've got some good news," my dad came over and put a hand on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to shrug it off. "The hospital said that you're well enough to come home tonight, now that you're awake."

They expected a smile so I gave them a smile, buttering it up to the point that my cheeks ached with the effort. What kind of Brady Bunch shit was this? I pushed this thought away thought, I had to be grateful that I even had a life and the euphoria of that was still buzzing away in my mind.

My mum leaned forward and clutched my hand, squeezing it once. "Bonnie's going to be so happy to see you, she's missed you so much."

I opened my mouth to ask who Bonnie was, but thought better of it. I didn't need them locking me up in a mental institute as soon as I got my freedom! So I went along with everything, a smile stuck to my face all the while. Dad handed me a little bag full of clothes and the nurses directed me to the bathroom to change. As soon as the door closed behind me I let the bag fall to the floor and I went straight for the mirror.

Have you ever looked at yourself but never recognised your own face? I was pretty, stunning almost, with caramel coloured skin, the same light green eyes as my mum and her delicate bone structure. Although my hair was in a ratty ponytail, I could tell it was long, past my shoulders, and a beautiful shade of honey brown. I had inherited my dad's height, lithe looking bones but I had my own unique way of moving and actual womanly curves you only ever saw on everyone else but yourself.

Wow, I touched my face with hesitant fingertips… I'd never been beautiful before. My old body was extremely thin, especially after the cancer, I had literally no boobs and the most striking thing about me was me unruly ginger hair. Well look at me now. I smiled and a strange girl smiled back at me.

Of course the beautiful face was covered in a few bruises, but she had been in an accident after all, the most she'd left me with was cuts and scraps and a minor limp. I'd lucked out and it had me wondering how the others were doing. There was another clause though, us spirits could never meet each other again, otherwise it would mean instant death, which meant back to the spirit world. I shuddered, pulling on the pair of jeans and top that was left for me in the bag. I took one last look at myself in the mirror, happy with what I saw I smiled and finally left the bathroom. Mum and dad were filling out some paper work for my release… funny, I made it sound like I'd been in some prison or something, but that's what the spirit world was, suffering without parole or release and I never wanted to go back. However, despite my circumstances I knew that no-one could cheat death because for every minute you live, you're only getting closer to the hour of your end.

"You ready to go?"

Mum's cheery voice was such an antithesis to my thoughts. I nodded, remembering to smile, and followed on behind my parents. We stepped outside of the hospital and I was finally allowed to take a breath of fresh air. It felt as if it was my first breathe, it felt as if I'd been born again.