When she unexpectedly dies, Mackenzie Bowen lacks the paperwork she needs to pass into The Beyond. To avoid sitting in a waiting room for centuries, Mack is paired with Leon, a miserable Reaper, and hopes to either undo her death or earn her spot be...
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I tumbled through a – well – I didn't know what it was. I'd have said a waterfall, but I was dry. Rather, the barrier was a cascade of air which formed a wall between the waking world and The Beyond.
Gracelessly, I rolled across a gleaming floor. When Leon had pulled me out of my body, the world around me had felt wrong. Distant. There'd been an invisible sheen between me and it. Clearly, we'd no longer been connected in any kind of tangible way. Here, that wall had vanished. I was fully connected with the large grey and tan tiles. A fact which might have filled me with some sense of relief and joy had I not fallen onto them. I could already feel bruises blossoming across my arms.
I pushed myself into a sitting position and turned my head and found myself flanked by rows of terracotta brick arches supported by stone pillars. The cascading portal towered over me, framed by an arch doorway. There were doors, wooden with steel reinforcements, but they didn't close behind us. Leon had stepped through without issue and didn't seem at all concerned about the dog that'd chased us. The Reaper's scythe shrank, and the blade folded into the shaft. Leon holstered it on his belt and marched toward me. Without breaking stride, he stooped to grasp my upper arm and hauled me onto my feet. I stumbled as I turned around and found myself dragged at his pace as I fought to take in my surroundings.
Sleek silver benches sat against a glass wall beneath a concave ceiling made of blue steel and glass. A white light shone through and illuminated everything below. It glanced from a few figures huddled on the benches and cast long shadows behind important-looking strangers in crisp black suits. A colossal statue towered over us, but there was no plaque affixed to the circular stone plinth. Even if there had been, Leon was marching far too quickly for me to take it in. Beyond the glass walls were platforms where modern trains waited patiently for their passengers.
Leon ignored the vehicles and took us to a glass elevator. We waited barely thirty seconds before the doors parted and I was brought inside. There were only two buttons: one for the platform level, and another for the ground. No one joined us on the short ride that, honestly, felt rather lazy. We could've easily taken the stairs. Once we'd stopped, the doors released us out into something like a mall. Sleek, modern storefronts lined the wide walkway. Although they were all illuminated, the doors were closed, and no one was inside. Their displays were stuffed with everything from snacks to luggage, yet the passers-by didn't even turn their heads to glance at what was on offer.
"Wait," I said, as Leon steered me onward. He didn't because he was a jackass. Not even when I tried to twist out of his grip. "I said to wait! Are you deaf?"
"I heard you. I just don't care."
My bare feet squeaked against the tile as I dug in my heels. More benches sat in the middle of the walkway, but only a couple were occupied. The figures in the seats were hunched over and muttered to themselves incoherently. Nobody looked up as we passed by, as though they were completely oblivious to our presence. Beneath the steel and glass staircase sat an unoccupied piano. It was old and scuffed and made of dark wood. It looked out of place in the otherwise sleek, modern space, but I had the nagging feeling that I'd seen it before. Signs hung from the ceiling offering directions, but the language wasn't one I recognised. In fact, I couldn't even be sure that it was real. It felt like one of those dreams when everything seems off somehow.
