*** Author's note: "Wide Awake" is an original, previously unpublished, fictional story that I wrote. It will be told in multiple parts. If you've yet to read any of the prior parts, below are the links to do so.
Part One: http://kamikae5.blogspot.com/2009/09/wide-awake-part-one-crazy-talk.htmlPart Two: http://kamikae5.blogspot.com/2009/09/wide-awake-part-two-haunted-house.html
Part Three: http://kamikae5.blogspot.com/2009/09/wide-awake-part-three-new-believer.html
Part Four: http://kamikae5.blogspot.com/2009/10/wide-awake-part-four-education-in.html
Part Five: http://kamikae5.blogspot.com/2009/10/wide-awake-part-five-thomas-story.html
Part Six: http://kamikae5.blogspot.com/2009/11/wide-awake-part-six-curse-of-ring.html ***
It was as if I were waking from a deep sleep. Gradually, I recalled my shooting. Yet, now I was suddenly free of pain. My vision had become clear. Standing up from my position on the stairs, I felt relief. Maybe, I wasn't hurt as badly as I had initially thought. If the bullets had caused a lot of damage, then surely I'd still be in pain and not able to stand up so easily.
These were the thoughts that flooded me in those first moments, but as I looked around me, fear and horror replaced my relief. I was standing, but somehow I was also lying down. I was conscious, but I was still sprawled out on the stairs, my body filled with bullet wounds. Blood was covering me and had pooled beneath my prone body. I stood above, looking down on myself.
"How is this possible?" I wondered aloud. "How can I see myself down on those steps, as if I were looking at someone else?"
Of course, the answer was right there. It had been since I'd first awoken, pain free, despite my injuries. It was just taking me time of process the idea. Shocking reality and denial were fighting a war within me. Despite a valiant effort, denial was quickly losing.
Lying in front of me, my body was very still. I didn't look good at all. Besides the ugly wounds and all the blood, my face was horribly ashen. I'd never before seen it that particular shade of gray. I looked completely different from any view of myself that I'd ever seen in a mirror.
I spoke aloud again. "I look dead."
Dead. I wondered about this. Was that the explanation for why I could look down and see my body, as if I were completely apart from it? Was it why I could suddenly stand easily, free of pain? Was I dead? Really, and truely, dead?
Yes. Yes, I was. I am dead. That explained everything. Someone had ambushed me and shot me on the third floor stairway of my office building. I'd been murdered.
I was dead. Newly dead, yes, but dead nonetheless. Being newly dead is, in some ways, like being the new kid in school. You don't know your way around. You feel lost and afraid. Everything is at once both familiar and also unfamiliar. You hope that the people you meet will befriend you, take you under their wing, and show you the way. With the help of others, perhaps it will be possible to navigate your way through this strange new reality.
I was fortunate to realize, from the start, that I needed to connect with other spirits. I met several, and it did help. Learning about other ghosts, I discovered that most who die move onto something else, something better. They don't get caught in the limbo of ghost-hood. It is a very difficult existence. You are not alive, but not fully removed from this world of the living either. Most of the dead don't attend their own funerals, as I did, and they don't follow the course of their own murder investigation.
It was beyond frustrating to watch the homicide detectives attempt to solve my murder. It wasn't their fault, really. They did their best with it, given the circumstance. There were no leads and robbery was the only presumed motive. Yet, it was clearly not a random crime. The killer had targeted me.
All in all, I know that it wasn't that long after my shooting, that my body was discovered. It felt like a long time. . . It felt like a very, very long time, but it wasn't. The building had security guards, and, as you might imagine, gunshots in a stairway echo loudly. My body was found just shortly after I stood up and took those first steps away from it.
Both of the building's main elevators were discovered propped open on the third floor. The killer must of stopped them there, below my floor, expecting that I'd give up waiting for them and take the stairs. This, of course, it exactly what happened. Whoever killed me had been watching me. They knew I had purchased the ring. They knew about my dinner reservation, and that I'd have the ring on me that evening. Not that I'd made any secret of it. Many people could have found out these things, and I'm usually at the office working late and alone in the evenings.
All of these things the police figured out, easily enough. Taking my wallet was only an attempt to throw the investigation off track, but it was unnecessary. The police knew that the killer had targeted me because they were after the ring, but they had no idea who might be responsible. While investigating my case, the detectives spoke with everyone who knew me. They even spoke to Martin Dobbs, the estate executor who had arranged my purchase of the ring, by phone from his London office. Nothing came from any of it.
Despite all the efforts of the detectives on my case, there were no suspects in the investigation. The whereabouts of the cursed ring, after it was stolen from me, has also never been determined. Did the killer sell the ring on the black market? Was the killer a hired hitman who obtained the ring for someone else? Or did the killer keep the ring? Considering the ring's famous curse, even if the killer intended to hold onto it, it's entirely possible that it's passed through many hands by now. Perhaps, it has left an even longer string of bodies behind it than anyone knows. Whatever the ring's fate, someone got away with stealing it, and that same person also got away with my murder.
***To Be Continued***
Until I type again,
Kami
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