I woke up. It was weird. I saw this sudden bright flash as my eyes slowly adjusted to the light around me. I was confused. Where am I? As I lifted up, searching for answers as if they were written somewhere, I absorbed the scenery around me. There were lights everywhere and they shone bright against the dark sky. Red and blue all around me. People everywhere, most in uniform like those worn by police officers. I heard a woman wailing in the background as I saw two men pushing some sort of bed across the blacktop. There was an oddly shaped mass that sat atop it, covered by what seemed to be a black bag as it was rolled into a truck with the name of a hospital I'd been to before on the side. What was happening? There was a smell in the air, an unsettling stench of something that had been burned.

Close to where I had stood, behind me I hadn’t yet noticed until that moment, a silver car. Its front lie implanted into the side of a now wounded tree, steam emerging from where the masses touched. A wreck? There was shattered glass everywhere, the impact must have been large and powerful. But there was no one inside. I heard as the wailing woman's voice that I had somehow ignored up to this point began to muffle, like she had been put behind a shield to block her sounds. There were two ambulances, both marked by the name of a somewhat familiar hospital , they pulled out and raced down the road against the wet blacktop. Then it got fuzzy, a blinding fog put me into a trance to where I had lost the visibility of my surroundings. As if I were put to sleep, yet I was still standing.

It was so weird, as if by magic, I now sat in the very back pew of a large church. Something about it was oddly familiar. I could hear the sounds of sobs, people blowing their noses, the whimpering of a woman. I looked up to see people sitting in no particular order in the pews ahead of me. I stood to get a better look. Most were dressed in black. It was depressing. As I navigated my eyes across the room I met with the sight of a wooden casket that sat in the center of the aisle all the way to the front. A funeral. But for whom?

I made my way to the aisle, as quietly as possible. I made my way down the center. No one noticed me. Where they just too upset to look at anyone? So as I investigated the somewhat large group of people, I saw some familiar faces. My aunt Brenda, grandpa Gill, even my three best friends. But why? As I finally reached the front, I looked to a women, I couldn’t quite see her entire face behind the tear drenched tissue she pressed to her cheek. The more I looked at her, the more familiar she appeared. My mother. It was her who wailed at the scene of the wreck, her who filled the room with depressing sobs. I tried to speak to her, I tried to ask her why she was there, who had died. She didn’t answer, didn’t even glance at me, as if I weren’t there.

And before I could look to see the coffin that was closed, to see who lie inside, that same fog took me into a similar trance, and I found myself in a graveyard as if by magic once again. The same people stood, crowding around something, or someone. I pushed my way through but no one seemed to notice me, they didn't budge. I found myself looking at a minister reciting parts of the Bible over a hole in the ground as people threw flowers into it. And what I saw next froze me solid. The walls of my sanity closed in as I looked once more to be certain of what I’d seen. There, at the foot of the rectangular hole, a tombstone. Engraved in the granite was my name. My birthdate, and what appeared to be the date of my death. I was in shock. Was this real? It couldn’t be. I must’ve been dreaming. No way I was dead. I was standing right there looking at my own tombstone, hovering above my corpse that would soon be forgotten under a pile of dirt. As I felt an ache in my chest, everything started spinning. Was I going insane? Things got fuzzy. Not this again. With no free will, I was transformed into an odd universe that felt like a strange reality. This time I was at school. It was first period. The date on the board was just a few days in the future of the haunting date that marked my death. My teacher stood in the front of the class. He looked different, he didn’t seem happy, almost sad, yet it seemed whatever it was he felt, it didn't affect him too much.

“ As most of you have heard, we have lost a member in this class," his eyes glared at a desk with no one to be it’s owner. An empty seat, my seat.

“ I’m afraid that nothing can be done to undo what happened. I understand all of you knew her, and some of you may even have been friends with her. I think it’s best we take this day as easy as possible. Just work on the packet I handed out, get as much of it done as you can," he paused.

“ Okay, get to it," he walked back to his desk. There was the usual chatter amongst the class of teenagers. But a lot less giggling. Hardly anyone was really working, but my teacher didn’t care. I weaved my way through the room. No one seemed to see me. If I was dead, that would explain why. Of course, when I was alive,there wasn’t much of a difference, I usually felt invisible, but this was just pure pain. I found my “group” huddled together, a few other people sat close to them in conversation. I could only hear bits of the whisper, not hearing the source.

“ I can’t believe she’s dead.”

“ I kinda miss her.”

“ Think it’ll be the same without her around?”

If they were talking about me, it gave me a sense of joy that someone actually cared about me. I wanted to talk to them, tell them how'd I’d missed them, explain all the craziness that had taken over my life. But to them, I wasn’t there. They would never hear me or see me. I was more invisible than ever before. How could I go on like this? No one could hear me, I was dead, in any way possible. Is this what death is? A forever emptiness? Why am I still here? Where’s the gate to another universe that separates the dead from the living? Or was that it, just a constant state of purgatory?

As I was listening, I heard whispering across the room. There were a few kids sitting at a desk. They were the kids that weren’t necessarily my friends, but we did talk sometimes.

“Is it really that big of a deal? I don’t see why everyone is so worked up about it. Everyone dies.”

“I know, at least we don’t have a lot of work to do.”

They laughed. It hurt me to hear that. I mean, I don’t think everyone should care, but if the same thing were to happen them, I wouldn’t laugh. I walked back to my friends. Even though It seemed to be a short time, it was like an eternity since we talked. I wish this never happened. I always thought I would live many years, have a big family, do something in this world. But instead, I was killed in a matter of seconds, only in eighth grade. I haven't even lived yet.

“You know what, she was pretty annoying. I mean, don’t hate me, but I feel she was just dragging us down. She didn’t really fit in with us.”

“Well that’s kinda’ harsh. But, I can see what your saying. She was our friend though.”

My heart dropped. My own friends talking about me like that. The people I trusted most didn’t even care? It seemed they did only seconds ago. I felt betrayed. I had no idea they felt that way. This odd experience turned into a nightmare, I thought dying was the worst thing that would happen to me today. My mind was spinning. It was too much. My life, my friends, a lie. I was on the verge of tears. Maybe it was better me being dead.

Whatever this was, I had to wake up. Wake up! Wake up! I pinched and screamed and closed my eyes. But there were no ruby slippers to take me home. This had to be a dream, it didn’t feel real. My life couldn’t be over. Not yet. There’s so many things I wanted to do. Places I wanted to go, things I wanted to see. All gone. I realized how much I had taken the life I had for granted. All those days I slept in, all the times I sat for hours watching TV. I could have done something with my life. Was this some kind of lesson? Was God showing me the truth in my life? Was he showing me that if I kept on this path, my soul would be condemned to Hell?

Once again, my heart stopped. Well, the idea of it did since it had stopped already, literally. At this point, I didn’t really care what my friends thought because they weren’t really my friends anymore. I was no president, I didn’t help in saving millions of people from racial prejudice, I was no broadway star or movie actress. I was just a simple girl, from a simple family, living in a simple town. Soon, I would be forgotten as if I never existed. To others, I would only be a name on a rock.

I was dead, and that was it. There’s nothing to it, one day you’re there, the next you’re not. It was simple. You’re just dead. I am dead.