WESLEY RUSH

WELCOME

CHAPTER ONE:
WELCOME

         Wesley Rush came to a crossroads. He looked into the distance, carefully down each road. Both streets were nameless, sandy, and appeared to shrink into forever; pointing their own way towards the end of absolutely nowhere. Most of the time, for Wesley, he didn’t care which way he went, as long as it didn’t lead into trouble. Usually he’d just pick, shrug, and go. Left or right, desert or more desert, it didn’t make much of a difference. But today, it did matter. Today, for the first time in a long time, this young seventeen year old mattered.
         Wesley pulled out a letter that had instructions and directions on it from his suit coat pocket. This had to have been the ninth or tenth time he had studied this over since he started his journey. If he wasn’t so serious about getting to where he needed to be, and on time, he probably would’ve laughed at how nervous he was.
         Usually, he made fun of the ones that got assignments. Brown-nosers, over achievers, all hopeless attempts to get anywhere in this world. Now it was his turn.
         The difference between him and most everyone else he knew, was that he didn’t care anymore. He’d given up hope, for the most part.
         Wesley wouldn’t admit it, but getting this job made him feel a bit hypocritical and important. Like a preacher, practicing a religion he once taught against. Maybe he got this little assignment to trick him into wanting to feel special again; to make him want to aspire like everyone else; to put him back on track with the torture of hoping for something better that would never come. He hated that it was working too.
         He tried not to think about it.
         All he knew was that if he didn’t do this right, things would get worse for him. He already had it pretty bad, and it was hard to imagine, but it could defiantly get worse.
         Despite his feelings to not do what he was told and walk away, he read the instructions again, and went left.
         It could always get worse.
         A couple miles down, the road turned into hills. Then the hills into sand dunes. It was blazing hot in the the desert, and the reflection of the morning sun beat like fire into his azure eyes. Wesley hated sand, almost as much as he hated giving in to feeling special. He hated the gritty texture, and how it got everywhere, all the time; In his nice dress shoes, up his sleeves, inside his collar and down his shirt. He kept brushing it out of his once perfectly groomed jet black hair, but it just kept caking on. He hated a lot of things, but that was how he got by. Hating led to numbness. Numbness led to emptiness. Emptiness led to nothingness, and nothingness was the safe.
         After a couple more miles towards his goal, he stopped on the top of a dune to look at his pocket watch. He pulled it out and sighed. At least it was still ticking. It seemed like time had a mind of its own sometimes. It didn’t always work the way he wanted to. It looked like he had a good forty five minutes left to get there. Hopefully, that was enough time.
          He took in a deep breath and tucked the pocket watch back in, under his tattered white button down shirt. Just then a massive wave of sand whirled up at him, sending Wesley and his shoulder bag cascading down the dune side.
         Like time, the weather didn’t always worked the way Wesley wanted it to either.
         Everything in his bag came spilling out, cartwheeling down all around him, sliding helplessly. When he hit the bottom he felt like screaming, but he decided to try and laugh it off. It came out more like a whiney moan, so he settled for softly cursing the desert under his breath for a while instead. It didn’t make him feel better, but that's how Wesley usually handled situations like that. If laughing didn’t work, fix it with passive aggressiveness.
         He looked around at all the junk. A rusty hand mirror, an hourglass, an empty picture frame, a bundle of clothes, and a packet of paper documents. Most of the papers were flying around in the air, raining tiny words in black print. It wasn’t going to be worth running after all of them, he didn’t have time. The only one that really mattered anyway, was in his suit pocket. He checked to make sure it was still sealed inside. He knew it was, but he had to check anyway.
         After another few good more miles, he came across a man, chained to boulder. Wesley stopped and watched him. He was crying and trying to claw himself into the sand, away from the heat. He had a golden crown on his head and a purple cape draped around the side of his neck. It looked like the man had tried to strangle himself with it, numerous times, but with no luck.
         This was not a strange sight for Wesley, you could almost say he was jaded now to this sort of thing.
         When the man saw Wesley he stopped crying. He tried to stand, but couldn’t.
         Wesley walked up to him and crouched down, shook his head and covered his nose and mouth. The man stunk of cooked flesh and sweat.
         They didn’t say anything at first, they just continued to look at each other. The man’s crown drooped down over his eyebrows and dug into his eyelids. The jewels fastened to the gold shined piercing light into Wesley's eyes and he had to look away.
         “I don’t want your pity, boy,” grumbled the man.
         “I’m not here to give it.”
         “Then why are you here?”
         “I’m just passing by, Sir.”
         The Man squinted his eyes and tightened his jaw. “Who are you?”
         “No one special,” said Wesley. “Someone just like you.”
         Wesley began to stand and walk away. The man reached up and grabbed Wesley’s neck like a snake snapping at its prey. He pulled him down, pinning him to the sizzling sand.
         In this moment, Wesley found himself thinking about a year ago; thinking about a different place, and a different time. When he worried about the cutting thumbnails of a strangler, digging into his esophagus and trachea, choking off his air supply. Or when he cared about contracting some incurable disease from the dripping sweat, blood, or foaming spit from a man like this, hovering over him. Now, all he worried about was being on time.
         The man held him down tight; growling, and shaking violently, and all Wesley could think to do was to laugh.
         Nothing like this ever happened to him when he didn’t care about being on time, when he was against the world, when he was rebellious. He would gladly get strangled then. That was why this was funny.
         What perfect timing
         He let out a little strained sound that was an attempt at a chuckle. Then he started to pound out the laughs as best he could, with what little air he could squeeze through.
         As he laughed, the man’s facial expression changed. For better or worse, Wesley couldn’t tell. He didn’t know if in the next couple moments he was going to black out or get to get back on schedule, neither would have surprised him.
         First the weather, now this guy. What was next?
         Then the tears came; the old man’s face turned into a sprinkler head. The grip loosened and Wesley shuffled free. The man, on his hands and knees, grabbed handfuls of sand. His fists shook. He moaned and rolled over onto his side in agony.
         “I’m sorry, I can’t help you sir,” Wesley coughed, standing up and rubbing his throat.
         The man didn’t answer.
         Wesley shook his head, started to walk away, looked back, and was off again. Wesley really didn’t feel sorry for him, it was to late to feel sorry.
         About a mile later he could finally see the black shadowy outline of the mountain-like stone on the horizon. The one that looked like a colossal open clam shell, sticking out of the ground. That was where it was going to happen. That was where the letter said to be.
         As soon as he saw this he started to pick up the pace.
         If you tell someone that hasn’t mattered for a long time, that purpose is just a few miles away, you can turn them into an instant track star. Even if they acted like they didn’t need it. Just like lungs don’t need air to be lungs, Wesley didn’t need purpose anymore to feel whole. But it was still nice to breathe every once in a while.
         Where Wesley lived, people will do anything to bring meaning to their small, insignificant existences. They would suffer to any degree for the smallest chance to feel important. They couldn’t help it. When you’ve lived where Wesley lived long enough, It becomes your nature.
         Wesley’s thighs burnt as he marched over those last couple dunes. Finally, he hit the flat rocky ground in the shade of the massive angled mountain. Then, he collapsed, and just laid there on his back. This Place was more of a cave than a giant rock. Open, grey, empty. Like a broken maze drawing a child would draw.
         He felt sick. But, in a way he felt like he had conquered the world, so it evened itself out. If only Wesley knew what was going to come next, he might have chosen to trek a hundred more miles the opposite direction instead of laying down.
          He slipped his pocket watch out again. According to it, he had a full two minutes left; just enough time to lay there, close his eyes, relax, and trying not think about anything. he knew that wasn’t possible, but it was nice to have a few seconds to try.
         If you were to put your anticipation and excitement on one side of a scale, and your passiveness and sarcasm on the other, you would get Wesley.
          Despite everything, it was nice for Wesley to get away for a change. This was the first time he had been alone since...well, since he could remember. One could say that solitude, was the best kind of vacation, at least for Wesley. Solitude was something he had not experienced in a very, very long time. He couldn’t help but soak up every second of no one around him. No voices. No fights or gangs tearing limbs off each other. No self help groups to tell lies of hope to. No painful cries in the night. No ideas of escape, or ridiculous explanations and theories to why things were the way they were. If anything could help him relax, it was perfect solitude. But, like everything else that is nice, it never lasted very last long.
         With thirty seconds left, he decided to sit up. Ten seconds, he is looking around. Five, he is on his feet and has his watch inches from his face, eyeing it down. zero, he’s frozen.
         Nothing...
         Still, nothing.
         He waits.
         He waits another five minutes, frozen, and still nothing.
         Now was when the worry kicked in.
         Was he in the right place? Was his timing right? He took out the letter. There was no question about it, he was in the right place.
         Was this whole thing a joke? An elaborate way to torture him, more than the usual amount? If it was, he was going to tear off some heads when he got back.
         Then, something flashed in his peripheral vision. Behind a boulder, a dim white light sparkled, then was gone. It happened so fast he thought he had imagined it for a moment. This was it, it had to be it.
         He threw is shoulder bag back on and hurdled his way over to see what had happened. He had to do a little bit of climbing to get up there; duck under a few ledges and muscle his way through a crack in a boulder. He had to weave through a few sharp stalagmites that looked like swords, as tall as he was, pointing up in all different directions. It took him almost another eight minutes to get to the where he thought the flash came from.
         For a while he thought he had gotten lost. Then, his eye caught something next to a large stone wall. When he saw it, he stopped. His heart fell through his his guts like a pebble in a pond. His jaw fell too, wide open. Those bright eyes of his gazed in wonder; in awe, almost in disbelief. He knew what was coming, the paper in his pocket said everything, but he didn’t think it would hit him this hard.
         There laid before him a beautiful blonde young girl, curled up and shivering. She was completely naked and the glow from her skin was barley starting to fade. She looked maybe seventeen, close to Wesley’s age.
         He quietly reached into his shoulder bag for the bundle of clothes and carefully unwrapped them. A robe-like shirt and long pair of soft pants, designed for such occasions.
         Now she was moving. She was waking up. She reached down and wobbled as she pushed her body into sitting position and began to cough. Wesley didn’t know if he should run over and help her, or stay put, which resulted in a series uncertain jarring movements; crouching behind rocks and looking through cracks. He looked more like an animal hunting prey, rather than what he was there for.
         She rubbed her eyes and stared into the darkness.
         “Hello?” She cried. “Is any one...” She coughed again.
         Wesley was getting his nerve to respond but he wasn’t there yet.
         Only five feet away now, he stood there in the darkness, waiting to approach in the most careful way possible.
         “Where am I?” she said, more to her dazed self, this time in a whisper.
         Wesley tripped over a ledge and came crashing down, smashing his knee on a sharp rock. He let out a horrible echoing roar.
         She screamed, jumped, and started pumping out breaths like an carbon dioxide conveyor belt. Then realizing she was naked, covered herself the best she could and tried to stand.
         “It’s okay,” said Wesley.
         This made her jump and start to breathe hard. Then realizing she was naked, she covered herself the best she could and tried to stand.
         “Who’s there?” she demanded.
         “It’s alright, it’s okay. Here, I brought you clothes.” Wesley came into view. There were a few bright beams of sunlight that shone in through the rocks that displayed a distorted version of him.
         He tried to smile a soft one as he offered the bundle to her. He didn’t look like he was smiling though. He looked more like a nervous school boy being presented in front of a classroom full of bullies and girls that would never write him folded notes that say 'do you like me,' on them.
         “Who are you? Where...What’s going on, I was just...”
         “I know, I know, It was all confusing for me at first too. It’s okay, you can trust me.”
         She started to pull back and was shaking her head. Wesley turned and faced away because he felt a little embarrassed. He remembered how vulnerable he felt when he was in her shoes. So he put the clothes on the ground and backed away.
         When he spoke, his face was to the wall. “Alright, I’ll leave these here so you can get dressed, then I’ll meet you around the corner.” He tried to act like this was protocol. Like he actually knew what he was doing. As if she were trying on some clothes at a discount store and he was here for a size fix.
         He had no clue how to handle this.
         She didn’t respond.
         He was tempted to turn his head back to see if she was going to say anything, but he didn’t. He just walked around the corner as quickly as he could behind a few stones and sat on a flat rock. He was trying to convince himself that this brief encounter had not affected him, but he couldn’t ignore the pounding heart in his sternum. He was just doing a job, that was it. He was fine, cool, calm, and collected. But his hands were clammy and shaking and he didn’t know why.
         He had not seen skin that smooth in a long time; hair that silky and golden, hips so perfectly carved... He shook the thoughts out of his head. Those thoughts were not allowed anyway, not that he cared what was allowed, but all the same, he could be in big trouble for thinking those things.
         Beauty was something Wesley had not been around in a very long time. The instructions didn’t say she was beautiful. How do you work with that? He would rather be strangled into the hot sand again than deal with beautiful. At least he knew how to handle that.
         About another five minutes go by.
         “So, um, are you dressed yet?” He shouted.
         Nothing.
         He yelled again, “Hello?”
         Now was when the concern set in. He decided to turn around and climb back over the walls that separated them. When he got there she was gone. It was dark except for those beams of light, so he checked the corners carefully. After a while, concern turned into a small dose of panic. If he had lost her, he would have failed his entire mission. But where could she have gone? It was an open desert past all these rocks so she couldn’t have gotten too far off.
         He stopped to scratch his head. “Hey!” He shouts into nowhere in particular. “Where are yo...”
         Something hits him in the back of the head. It doesn't knock him out but it shakes him up a little bit. He stumbles back and looks up. The girl was climbing. Fully dressed and cruising up the side of the rock face. She was almost to the top of one of the bigger boulders now.
         “Oh, no,” said Wesley, sarcastically to himself. “She’s beautiful and clever.”
         He jumped on the rock face and went after her. She reached the top slid down into a pile of rocks. He followed, shouting for her to stop, that he wasn’t here to hut her, that he was here to save her. She didn’t stop, she wouldn’t listen.
         He chased her over, under, and in between rocks and walls. Then to a dead end where he finally caught up to her. On one side of them there was a deep dark drop into the stalagmites, the other, a rock wall to smooth the climb.
         “Get away from me.” she yelled.
         “You don’t understand, I’m here to...,” He had to lean forward and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
         “Get away from me.” she yelled.
         “You don’t understand, I’m here to...,” He had to catch his breath.
          Wesley gathered himself and was about to speak when she did something that surprised him even more. She attacked him. She picked up a small jagged rock that looked like a broken knife and came running at him with it. Like a derailed, gorgeous locomotive. Wesley’s eyes grew to golfball size. How do you stop an angelic rhino charging at full speed?
         Wesley dodged the knife but not the bodily impact. She knocked both of them over, sending them rolling into the wall. Wesley hit the back of his head then landed on top of her.
         This girl had spunk, she was a fighter, he did not expect that. He tried to hold her flailing arms down and the sharp blade away from his jugular. He also tried to muster out anything that sounded like a complete sentence.
         “Stop. Please, listen to me...”
         “Get off of me!” She screamed.
         “Okay, okay, calm down!”
         Wesley jumped off and got to his feet as soon as he possibly could, so did she. Then she backed away as fas as she could get and pointed the knife at him.
         “I know this is very confusing for you. Trust me, I know.” said Wesley.
         “Who are you? Where am I? I was just driving my car home from work and now I’m here.” Teeth grinding, and what looked liked could be the start of tears began to form as she said that.
         Wesley held up his hands, palms facing her, in an attempt to calm and pacify her. Then he reached in his suit Jacket and pulled out the letter.
         “Now, this is coming at you at a million miles an hour, I get that. It’s normal to feel the way are feeling right now, but I need you to be still and I need to ask you a few questions.
         “Questions?”
         “Yes.” He began to read. “Are you, Fiddle Jean Mayberry, born on the seventh day in August?
         Her eyebrows pointed downward. “How do you know my name?”
         “I’ll take that as a yes," said Wesley. “At least I’ve got the right person.” He smiled, but she didn’t.
          “Who are you?” She asked.
         He looked up from the paper and quickly said, “my name is Wesley,” then pulled out a quill pen from his bag. “Now, I'm just going to ask you to sign this piece of paper, and then I will...”
         “Sign? I’m not doing anything until I get some answers!” She still had the knife pointed at him. “What is going on?”
         Wesley sighed. Even though he rehearsed this in his head a thousand times he didn’t quite know what to say.
         As nonchalant as he could make it sound, he slowly responded. “I’m here to bring you to your new home.”
         “My new home? I have a home. It’s forty two fifty five Sundown Drive in Los Angeles California. How about you take me there?” When she said this, the grip on the rock in her hand tightened up a bit.
         Wesley winced, he shouldn’t have mentioned anything about a ‘new’ home, or signing anything right away. Even with all the practicing he did, he was still messing things up. Maybe hour glass would make her understand.
         Wesley walked over to his shoulder bag, pulled out the glass instrument, and approached her with it.
          “You want answers? Here.” said Wesley.
         “What is that?” She asked.
         He didn’t respond.
         After a few seconds of examining him, then the object, him, then the hourglass again, she quickly took it from him.
         “Could you please tell me which side has the most sand in it? The top or the bottom?”
         She looked confused. “Why?”
         He motioned with his hand for her to stop talking and look.
         “There is almost nothing in the top,” she said.
         “That’s good, that’s really good,” said Wesley.
         “What, are you blind? The bottom is almost all the way full. How does this explain anything?
          To be honest, Fiddle. I can’t see what you can see in there, so it wouldn’t matter if I was blind or not. But, that’s good that it’s almost empty, that means you are on time with fate.”
         This, was a stupid thing to say.
         “What? What are you talking about?” She dropped the hourglass and started to back away again, looking for another way to run. “I don’t know what you are trying to do, or what your stupid little games are for. But, if you think that you can get any money out of kidnapping me, you are out of your mind! My father is a very powerful man. He will find you, and he hunt you down, and he will hurt you!” The knife was shaking in her grip now.
         “Trust me, I have no interest in money.” He almost laughed.
         “Well what do you want?”
         “I want you to calm down and throw the sharp rock away.”
         She didn’t budge.
         Wesley thought about the mirror. He reached in his bag and pulled the rusty thing out. “Here,” he said, and offered it to her, “what do you see?”
         She hit the mirror away. It flew over the rocky ground, landed with a thud, and slid to the edge of a ledge.
         “I’m trying to help you!” yelled Wesley, running after the mirror before it fell.
         “If you want to help me than give me a phone. I want to talk to my parents.”
         Wesley was getting a little impatient now. He had never met someone so stubborn. He walked back over to her and held the mirror up to her face.
         She was a little taken aback at first, then something pulled her in. It wasn’t her refection. It was something Wesley couldn’t see. Something that made her gasp and grab the mirror out of his hand. She thrust her face into it as if it was controlling her. Her hand sprung up to cover her mouth and Wesley could see goose bumps forming on her arms.
         “How did you... Where did you get this? Why are you showing me this?”
         “The only thing I can tell you is, what ever you are seeing in that little mirror, is the reason you are here.”
          “The reason?”
         “Yes, the reason. And I can’t tell you where you are because that would be breaking the number one the rule for new arrivals. It could cause panic or something worse.” This was stupid to say too.
         “Number one what? She handed it back to him. “You are sick,” she said. “I don’t know who you are, what you’re talking about, or how you got those images or whatever, but that is not me. I am not that person. You have got me confused with someone else.
         Wesley remembered a quote: ‘Denial is the first step to insanity.’ He couldn’t remember who said it though.
         Wesley nodded and put the mirror back. Then he pulled out the picture frame. The last of the three objects and handed it to her without a word.
          Now that the curiosity had settled in, she rolled her eyes as took it without question. She stared at it, then after a few seconds she fell to her knees with the frame inches from her nose.
         “Are you okay?” Asked Wesley. He squatted down and tried to force a smile, just like he did for the man with the crown.
         Even though she was making this hard for him, Wesley couldn’t help but feel for her. Which was a feeling he had not felt in a very, very long time. He remembered being in her shoes. He remembered his own picture frame. That was the hardest of the three to handle. That was the killer.
         He reluctantly raised his hand and gently patted her shoulder. He was expecting her to swipe it away but it didn’t seem to phase her.
         Even though she making this hard for him, Wesley couldn’t help but feel for her. Which was a feeling he had not felt in a very, very long time. He remembered being in her shoes.
          He couldn’t remember the last time he felt like crying. But if anything was going to get him to that point is was the look on her face.
          Suddenly, she was on her feet, knife in one hand, picture frame in the other.
         “Please, please, will you just tell me what is going on, Why are you showing me these things. Please, Sir, I want to go home.” She made sure to pronounce every word clearly and articulately.
         She sounded desperate. She still wasn’t getting it.
          “The picture frame,” he started, “shows what you love the most. What, or who you would give anything for. Or, for some people, it shows who you should have loved.”
         She gripped the frame tighter. Her eyes became slits, and like a trouper asked, “Are you going to kill me?”
         Surprised, Wesley laughed. He couldn’t help it.
         “No, I told you, I’m here to bring you to your new home.”
         She looked down at the picture frame again.
         Wesley stood, put the letter back in his suit pocket, and reached out to take it from her, but she pulled back.
         “It’s not a good thing to have that for very long,” he said. “Too much of it can really hurt you.”
         “No,” she said.
         “Please, give it back. I need to bring you back healthy. Not mindless,” He said.
         “No, please!” She begged.
          Wesley reached for it and had to wrap his arms around her to get a hold of it. She struggled to force him off, crouching down into a ball, then trying to spin him away.
         Like a fish on a hook, the picture frame had her hooked. This was common among the guilty. The really really sad and guilty ones.
         She didn’t mean to do it, but when Wesley got a good hold of the frame she jerked away trying to stand up. When she did, the sharp rock in her other hand slit his skin on his thy, spilling a hot line of red.
          He roared and recoiled backwards, tripping over his own foot. For a few seconds everything seemed to happen all at once. The Picture frame flew into the air and ricocheted off a wall. He slammed down on the edge of the ledge then tipped over and sailed down into the dark. Of course Fiddle screamed, she just couldn’t help it.
         He fell about eleven feet before he hit a smaller ridge, breaking his left arm with a crunch. Then he slowly slipped off that and fell deeper into the dark. He twirled mid air then finally came crashing down, back first onto a stalagmite that split through his spine and out through his guts like butter. Blood burst out his chest like a pencil through a water balloon. His heart spun up and slapped him in the face. Wesley felt like screaming but he couldn’t because his lungs were flopping around under his arm pits.
         Fiddle ran to the edge, but she could only make out outlines.
         He laid there, helplessly. A shish kabob held together only by skin. Fiddle came finding her way down. He didn’t know if she was going to try and finish him off or try and save him. Neither would have been surprising.
         Then, just as she got down to his level, the jagged stone broke under him and he landed, shoulder first on the ground with a thud and a splash.
         When she got close enough to touch him, she screamed again. The light was very dim, but bright enough to see a horrific work of art plastered all over the rocks.
         Wesley was trying to muscle the tip out of his chest.
         “How are you still...alive?” She yelled.
         Wesley tried to smile. “It’s just a flesh wound,” he grumbled.
         She watched in amazement as he pulled the rest of himself off of the stone and stood up. His body began to heal itself; fibers stitching back together, bones re-collecting and solidifying.
         Absolute horror was the only way to describe the expression on Fiddle’s face at that moment. She fell to her knees and violently threw up, dousing his nice dress shoes.
         “You should be dead!” She screamed, choking a bit and wiping away hot mess from her chin.
         His stomach snapped together. It made a popping sound that made Fiddle blink.
         Now, he finally had her attention.
         “Am I dreaming? Are you a zombie? A vampire?” she asked.
         Wesley looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
         “You’ve been reading to much young adult fiction, Fiddle.”
         “I’m dreaming, yep, I’m dreaming.” She turned away, sat down, and closed her eyes. She took in a big breath, waited a second, then smacked herself on the cheek.
         Nothing...
         Wesley watched his shirt sow itself back together, then the blood stains fade. He walked over to her and sat down.
         “Fiddle, Can I ask you a question?”
         “You are not real,” she whispered. Her eyes were still closed.
         Ignoring her he said, “ What was the last thing you remember before you were here?”
         Even though she was hoping that she would soon wake up, Wesley knew she wasn’t going to. So he asked her again. Then a third time. Finally she opened her eyes and looked at him.
         Reluctantly she whispered, “I told you, I was driving...”
         “Okay, then what?”
         “That was it, that’s all I remember.”
         He stared into her eyes.
         “There was light,” she said.
         “Yes?”
         “And, a sound, a sound, a loud sound.”
He pulled out the paper from his coat jacket again, read a few lines, and looked back at her. “That’s all you can remember? he said, cutting in. What kind of car were you driving?”
         “Why?”
         Wesley smiled. “Was it a bright yellow bug?”
         “How did you...”
         He looked down at the paper again.
         Her eyes were wide open now, eyes like his own big blues. She looked stunned. Her bottom lip quivering a bit. She reached to grabbed the paper away from him and looked at it. All that was on there was a one little thin black line with a X at the front of it.
         She shook her head. “What’s this?”
         “That’s where you need to sign.”
         She look more confused than ever. Then it hit her. This is when she turned to ice. Any more pale and she would have gone transparent. This look gave wesley the chills.
         “This isn’t a dream, isn't it.” She said.
         Wesley softly shook his head.
         “I, remember... the car flipping, glass was everywhere, and then sirens.”
         “I know,” said Wesley, patting his chest over the paper.
         A tear ran down her cheek. Wesley hesitated for a moment then took his finger and carefully wiped it away. Surprisingly, she let him do this.
         “I’m dead, aren’t I.”
         Wesley smiled again, this time just with one side of his face, how you would when someone tells you that they have cancer, but not to worry cause cancer makes you a better person.
         “You know what they say,” he said. “Death is just another one of those things you have to live through.”
         When he said this, she finally broke down. She started bawling; instant water works show.
         He watched her for a moment. Then he awkwardly put his arm around her, and shockingly, she threw herself into his chest, wrapping her arms around his once, torn up sternum. Wesley didn’t know what to do. though, In a strange uncomfortable way, this was nice. He patted the top of her head as she flooded his silky white shirt. Her cries echoed against the walls. This reminded him of how he used to cry; before he hated everything, before he was numb and dead.
         He gently patted her head again. “Welcome to Hell, Fiddle,” he said. “Welcome to Hell.”

CHAPTER TWO:
A LONG WALK HOME