Excerpt: Argent

It’s not normally in my nature to run through dark alleys and up the stairs of abandoned buildings without some good reason, so I definitely saw something, but as I was standing there and thinking about it, I realized that I was slowly forgetting the details of everything I had seen. It was like waking up from a dream. One moment, his face was perfectly clear in my mind. The next, it was muddy, and the next moment, I couldn’t even remember what he looked like.

I walked over to the edge of the building and looked over the side, half expecting to see some random person splattered on the sidewalk below. There was nobody there. People walked past the building like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t even existed.

I felt a chill creep up my spine, the kind you get when you’re walking home alone at night and you hear footsteps behind you, but when you turn around, there’s no one there. I swallowed and turned around, about to turn back.

That’s when everything just went to hell in a hand basket.

“Look out!”

A girl appeared out of nowhere, her eyes wide and frantic as she pointed at me. The next thing I knew, an invisible force slammed right into my gut and flung me backwards, off the edge of the building. I screamed and held out my hand, trying to grab the edge but I was too far gone. I was falling backwards, my heart racing as my hands reached up in the air for a handhold that wasn’t really there.

They say your whole life flashes before your eyes. I’m not sure if mine did. I will tell you that time did not slow down for me, thankfully. The three seconds that I fell off that building felt like three seconds and when I hit the ground, I almost didn’t feel a thing. I felt the force of my back hitting the ground, the force of my head smashing back onto the pavement. But pain?

I didn’t have time.

White…it was all white and I was floating in it. I felt like my arms and legs had turned into Jell-o. I felt like I was moving through syrup. I tried to move my arms and legs, but I wasn’t really moving at all. My eyes were closed, and yet somehow…I had the feeling that I was drifting in white. It was like I was dreaming. I was both myself and someone that was watching me.

Was this what death felt like? Or heaven?

Was I even dead? I think I was too dazed to even contemplate that. Sight and sound really seemed meaningless, and colors and sounds wove together until I couldn’t tell one from another. I thought I heard people screaming and talking, cars rushing past on the streets, and one voice above the rest. It was a guy’s voice, and he was talking. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, and I didn’t really care to.

And then even the white faded away…