What Follows
1.2: Tobias

~it’s a little too late . . . i’m a little too gone . . . a little too tired of just hanging on~

I open my eyes as the odd feeling behind my abdomen fades away, to replace myself surrounded by black everything. And I’m either lying down -or uh, standing- peacefully in, uh, my grave? Or I might have simply levelled up and am now on a higher level of messed-up-ness, aka hell.

I walk- my bad- I ′glide’ (I think) cluelessly and grimly in the darkness, waiting for something to show up or anything to happen. Maybe an ignited meteor to hit me in the head or any other vicious occurences because that’s how I imagined hell to be like. Molten lava coming out of my every pore and burning my skin alive, torturing me for my heaps of sin.

But here, there aren’t pores and my skin isn’t burning. There’s just blackity black wherever I look. I don’t feel cold. I don’t feel hot. I don’t feel a thing. It’s like hanging out with my literally naked spirit and it freaks me out.

I glide some more and wonder if I can pull off some ice-skating moves cause this is how moving here feels like. And it’s probably because I can’t feel my body’s heaviness or my feet pressed against anything. It’s like there are no directions. There isn’t a ‘left’. There isn’t a ‘right’. And there is neither an ‘up’ nor a ‘down’.

Just nothing at all except for my aware spirit, or whatever I am. And, really, I am terrified of the endless possibilities of what this is and there’s nothing I can do about it. Because there are no distractions in the darkness that’s eating me up. Nothing to look at and nothing to think about except for my mother’s tears and my dad’s despondency.

“You’re about the hundredth person to kill themselves on the fifteenth of May-” A deep, manly voice says and I stop, my ‘spiritual heart’ in my mouth. I straighten up (or at least I think I do) and look around in anticipation, hoping that anything, anything would show up.

“Excuse-” I mutter breathlessly, turn around one more time and gasp. A light so blinding, illuminating a boy’s figure, no older than eighteen, appears right in front of me. I even have to shut my eyes.

I slowly open them and blink at him in surprise.

“Hello. I am Tobias,” he says, awkwardly shrugging a shoulder.

I am so stunned by how he looks like, I can’t even answer. And it isn’t because he has three eyes or because he's handsome or anything like that. It’s just that, wow, somebody is here with me. And that, no, I’m not stranded here alone.

Tobias is thin and very tall with red hair that floats around his big head and with very light and bright hazel eyes. His mouth is quirked up in a small, curious smile as I gulp nervously. He looks like an animation movie character.

And I’m certain that fear isn’t an emotion I should associate with at the moment, because what’s the worst thing that can happen? I’m already dead, and fear, I believe, is for the living.

“Hello?” I speak cautiously as I slowly approach him. I’m not sure it’s working. I’m not sure if we can get closer. If we don’t just have infinite space between us that can’t be shortened.

Tobias touches his nape and blinks at me. “I haven’t seen you before-” He gets closer and it seems to work!

“You’re -uh- very bright-” I blurt out, my nerves kicking in. Who is he? And why am I talking to him? Why him? And how is it possible when I’m dead? What bloody hell is this?

“Am I?” He murmurs, stretching his arms in front of him and stares at them. “Really?”

“Seriously?” I irritably interrupt his staring session and he drops his arms to look at me. “Why do you get light for yourself and I don’t?” I ask. “Do you have any idea how dark it is?”

“I have no say in this-” He clears his throat as he eyes me thoughtfully, curiously. "Though, I can see you very well. Your light-” He tells me, lifting a hand toward me. “You don’t see your own light. I can’t see mine either.”

I shake my head and purse my lips, noticing the absence of a lot of things that would usually be in any conversation. I can’t feel his body’s heat. I can’t hear rustling when his feet shuffle. I can’t feel anything at all. It’s like we’re so cold, so unreal. Like characters in video games with uncoordinated movements and sounds.

“You’ve been here before? I mean, you reside here?” I ask and get closer to his amused figure, hoping I would catch on something. Anything. But it feels like we’re galaxies apart. “Do you-do you understand what this is?” I search his eyes for anything. “Look, I-I believe that I died just a few minutes ago and was with my mom, and now-?” I clench my jaws and inhale shakily. “And now, I’m here. And I’m trying not to lose it because I know, I know, it’d be pointless. But what is this ′thisness’?” I rant, waving my arms around and shaking my head desperately. “Private Five Stars Hell for Suicides?”

Tobias looks confused by what I told him, but his eyes spark up with things to say. “You still haven’t seen a thing.” He says in realization. “You’re a newbie. And you need to calm down-”

"Calm down?" I say incredulously. "Is this real? Am I real?" I look around in desparation. "Are you even real? Is this- Is this some form of simulation?"

I quickly realize that very little things (like the possibility of us being stranded in a surreal existence due to a glitch) confuse this Tobias so much.

“Is that a good or bad thing?” He asks in response and I narrow my eyes at him.

"What is?"

"This simulation-"

I exhale exasperatedly. "Are we dead?"

Tobias looks at me like I'm very, very odd. "Of course we are."

I blink at him and he tsks.

"This is your first day?" He asks quietly and I wonder if he knows a thing or two about this place.

"Is that a good or bad thing?"

“I don’t know," he tells me. "Different people react to some things...differently. It's some form of a system."

“Different people-?” I eye him down. He’s wearing a denim jacket over a yellow shirt with a grizzly bear drawing and some khaki shorts, exposing his sticks for legs. “Who are you?” I ask curiously, relaxing a bit since he doesn’t appear to be threatening. In fact, he just appears less lost than I am. But still...lost.

“Why are you here? With me?” I ask slowly, wanting to get my point through. “You don’t run that place, do you?”

“Oh, no-” He smiles sheepishly, looking down. “I’m afraid I’m just like you-” He says with a weak English or Australian accent. I can't tell.

"Like me?"

"Exactly, yes."

“You -uh- you killed yourself?”

“Well, obviously-” He shrugs, his eyes running over my hair.

“On the fifteenth of May?” I say, recalling the first thing he told me.

Tobias tilts his head and then hesitantly says, “Well, not exactly. I happen to have a very unusual- uh -death scenario.”

I tilt my head. “Care to elaborate? Cause I just left my mansion two seconds ago, if this is how time works here too. It’s quite alarming. And 'unusual'.”

“Well, I was committing suicide, right?” He starts slowly and I blink at him. “I thought I wanted it to be special. On my birthday. On the fifteenth of May. So I get on that bridge-” He pauses to look at me, then, “-know where it is?”

“Yes, the one connecting the two stupid cities-”

“Yes, the algae green one.”

“Yeah.”

He presses a smile. “I started jumping at 11:59 pm and died between 11:59 pm and 12:00 am. So I get stuck here for a month and a day, every year.” He sighs. “I came up with this whole theory to justify how I sometimes feel like I've overstayed my welcome. 32 days.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Yeah.”

I then furrow my eyebrows when I fully process his words. What did he mean by ′get stuck for a month and a day, every year’?

"Hey, wait-” I say, shaking my head. “What do you mean?” I look around the empty darkness in dread. “What the hell is this place?”

And maybe it’s suddenly all starting to sink in. The magnitude of my situation. The loneliness I feel and the fact that I am dead. Dead. Dead. And that this is where I end up. In a dark, claustrophobic, seemingly endless space of God-knows-what with an uncoordinated idiot.

Tobias is about to open his mouth to answer, but I feel that same suction force down my abdomen. My first instinct is to clasp onto Tobias’ forearm in alarm. He looks at me wide-eyed and shakes his head with parted lips.

The last thing I see is the twinkle of his hazel eyes as darkness engulfs me. And no matter how I try convincing myself that there’s nothing to fear because I’m dead- I am plagued with fright.