The Death's Game

8. Game of Second Chances

Percy woke up in the middle of the intersection, amid clouds of smoke that made her choke. She opened her eyes, trying to understand what just happened. Every move felt at the same time heavy and incredibly easy to make. She managed to get up, noticing Trevor's completely wrecked car nearby. Seeing the massacred bodies of her friends made her freeze, feeling as if her whole world had just exploded. The headlights of cars shone all around in the dark, including the damaged truck, the front of which was crashing into their mangled car.

"Millie, no, Millie!" She ran to her friend, whose hand was sticking out from the car lying on the roof. But the moment she tried to catch it, Millie's body dissolved into thin air.

Percy lay down on the ground trying to get to her other friends. Only then did she see her own blooded body in the passenger seat. When she stuck her hand to touch it, the car, along with everything that had been inside, disappeared as well.

She stepped back, surprised by this unusual phenomenon. She did not understand what was happening or why there was no one else at the intersection.

"Percy Spring."

At the sound of her name, Percy slowly turned around and gazed at the man with black holes instead of eyes, a thin emancipated face and sunken cheeks. He was wearing a long black robe that seemed to change into shadows in the place of its meeting with the ground.

"That's... Me?" She looked around like she was checking if there was really nobody else with them.

"Are you aware of what happened?"

Percy frowned, but everything inside her head seemed blurred. She took a breath and looked behind. The car was again there, along with the bodies of her dead friends. She closed her eyes, focusing on the images that flitted through her mind at an accelerated pace.

"I was at the party," she recalled. "We wanted to go home. Blake was driving. The brakes didn't work, and we were hit on the intersection." Percy opened her eyes, feeling a sadness that took over her body. "I died. We all did."

Along with this realization, she was overtaken by a tsunami of different emotions and thoughts. She wasn't the only victim of the crash. All of her friends died as well. Millie, Trevor, Blake, Veronica. This evening wasn't supposed to end up like that. Something was wrong with the car, and it couldn't be a casual accident.

What will her parents do? They almost lost her four years ago, also in a car accident, when she was hit by a car. And now, they really did lose her. Again, in a car accident. They will never be able to get up after such a tragedy, and there was nothing she could do to help them.

To help her friends, who also didn't deserve this fate. Who still had such a long life to live, and from whose it was all taken away.

Where were they? Why was she the only person at the place of the crush? Shouldn't they be here too, as ghosts, like she was?

"Yes, all of you died in the accident."

Percy looked at the man in the black robe. Death. That must've been Death. Not knowing why, she felt so much anger at him. He wasn't responsible for the accident, but somehow all Percy's feelings towards him were negative at this moment.

"Someone stole your scythe?" she asked bitterly, but to her surprise, Death smiled at that comment. "What's going to happen now? You will walk me to the light so I could leave to the other side with peace? Or I don't know, weigh my heart to check if I belong to Hell or Heaven?"

"No and no."

"So, I am doomed to wander the earth forever as a ghost?"

Somehow, it didn't seem like such a bad fate. This would give her a chance to see her parents again, and she wanted that badly. Even more she wanted to hug them and assure that she's not gone entirely.