"Ugh, what happened?"675Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKdTs6ReklI
"What do you think, Luis?"675Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuaJW2MBZBO
Great, I collapsed again. This happens every time I got to excited with something. the blood rushing to my head was to much for my puny little brain to handle. Usually when I woke up, I'm always greeted by the smell of the school infirmary or the bright light of a hospital room. Not this time though, this time I woke up in an unfamiliar room, smelled like antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. Susan, my friend, sitting on the side of the bed reading a book.
The sunlight is reflected beautifully by her blonde hair. Her cheeks is puffy, and red. Her brown eyes sitting behind her glasses, focused on her book, look stunning as always. She notice that I was awake and said, "passed out after being announce as the winner, bit cliché don't you think?"
I owed her more than I want to admit. When there are no adults to carry my passed out body, she had to look for help by her self. luckily, Mr. Roman were there with us on the event, to supervise us. 675Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeEn5vWdDy9
"Now, now. Give him a break, Susan." said Mr. Roman as he gave me the water he was getting. Somehow the water manage to taste like an old coin. Finished drinking the water, Mr. Roman took the water from my hand and put it on the bedside table. "Congratulation on your win, by the way. The head of the contest committee want to meet with you when you're ready."675Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLPgguY6Mrt
"Can't we just leave?" I said to Mr. Roman. He knew that I preferred to just go home, and I sensed that he also wants the same thing.
"I'm afraid the committee won't let us go until they gave you the certificate and the prize. And, the head of the committee want to give yours himself." Said Mr. Roman while looking a bit apologetic. I guess there's no helping it, I must get that stupid prizes myself.
The infirmary nurse finally gave me the permission to leave the bed, and I immediately went to the principal office, where the head committee is waiting for me. As I walked through the hallway of the school, I saw what remains of the event. Banner were being taken down. The class rooms that were used as test room are being cleaned up. High school students and staff bumping each other as they frantically helping each other. Susan was sent to accompany me meeting the head of committee. Knowing my condition, she agreed to helped out but won't carry me if anything happens.
"What? You nervous?" Susan said, noticing sweat pouring down my forehead.
"Yea, I don't want to collapse again, you know."
She let out a sigh and proceed to knock on the pricipal room's door.
The voice inside told us to come in. It was a sort of low voice, almost bass-like but with a tone of glee and child-like.
"The student of the hour! Taking the 1st place with an almost perfect score, incredible!" The head of committee said, almost shouting, making us and his peers jumped up quite a bit.
"Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but -" before I can finish my sentence, Susan went close to the head committee, who doesn't look more than 2 year older than us, and said, "look, I really don't understand why you want this to be a such complicated process, but my friend here is in a lot of medication and he would like it very much to leave." She stare at him for a second and averted her gaze somewhere else.
After the committee had given me the prize for winning the contest (and me apologizing for Susan's behavior), Susan and I walked to the parking lot where our teacher is waiting with his car, ready to drive us home. On our way, we chatted a bit.
"Thanks," I said, "for what you did. back there."
"Yea no problem. I already saw sweats coming out of your pores and I wasn't about to let you passed out again." She said, with a smug, but somewhat warm smile across her face.
...
Mr. Roman liked to play old songs in his car. He keeps a wide range of music stocked up in there. You want music from the 80s? He got them. 90s is his favorite decade though. He got everything from blues to rock to even some religious songs. But anything after the 2000s? Nope, nothing. He said 2000s music doesn't really fit his taste.
Susan and I are trying to have a conversation while Nirvana's Smell Like a Teen Spirit were playing on the background. I asked her many questions about the math test we just had.
"Yes I undestand this part, but what about this one?" I pointed at one of the question that I wasn't able to answer. Which apparently, she can. That's always been the dynamic between the two us. That's why we avoid these competition where the question were given to individuals. We can't work that way. But winning this particular test can helped boost our school reputation. So we had to do it, even if we won't get the maximum score.
Mr. Roman stopped at a red light and cars from the other side of the intersection began to move. He take this time to talk abou how we should relax a bit and enjoy the music that was playing. He also talks about his time during high school. So focused on studying, he didn't have time to have fun, and that's why he's really into old music.
"Never had the chance. Focused to much on studying, forgot to have fun." He stopped for a while, waiting for comments from his students. The Chordettes' Mr. Sandman began to play on the music player. As the light turn to yellow, Mr. Roman said, "you know, until I'm 23 I was a vir-" but he was cut off by Susan.
"Oh my god!" she said, and in retrospect, I don't think that has anything to do about Mr. Roman's gross declaration. No, it's probably about the truck. The one that's going 90 km/h, heading towards us.
...
It almost felt like I'm blind, but instead of pitch black, it's bright white. I tried calling out to someone, anyone! But, my voice doesn't came out. Then, the sounds starts pouring in. Sirens, and people chattering loudly about an accident. Oh my god! It's all so loud! The voices keeps building up, louder, and louder every second. But then, it stopped. All of it. The sirens, the chattering, all of it stopped. Now, all I can hear is footstep, heading towards me.
The silhouette starts to becomes clearer, and clearer. Definitely a man, i thought to myself. His build is tall and quite muscular, but the Tony Stark kind of muscular, not Captain America. As the silhouette approaches Luis, it became clear that the silhouette belongs to his dad. But, apparently it's not, because the silhouette said, "no, Luis. I'm not your father."
The man emerges from just a silhouette, to a clear image of a man in his late fifties. His hair and beard are long, and gray. He gazed as if he was about to pierce the heavens it self. White robes covered his body from the shoulder to his knee. Sandals were his choice of footwear, although not flip-flop, but mountain sandals. "He's having fun with his childhood friends." He smiled and looks at me.
The voices that once disappeared began to comes back. But now it's different, there are a lot more echoes, like they're in a hall.
"He lost a lot of blood!"
"At this rate he'll end up like his teacher!"
"I'm not going to let that happen! We, are not going to let that happen!"
"It's all very distracting, isn't it?" The old man said. He snap his finger and the voices stop. The scenery also change. What was once a plain white surrounding, change into his family apartment. The man finds the sofa and sit on it, he signal Luis to do the same.
Luis tried to speak once again, but this time he got his voice back. "Am I, dead?"
"Well," the man said, "not really, no." The man stop and wait for a reaction from Luis, but he was still listening, wanting some answers. "This is more like a waiting room. I guess you can call it that."
The man stands up, and told Luis to sit back down when he also tried to stand.
"When you die, you humans like to do everything you can to bring back the dead. Now, back then, you get immediately transported to the afterlife. But after your medicine and technology improve, people in the afterlife began randomly get pulled out back to where the living are. Some of them spiral into madness because of what they missed in heaven, and what they saw in hell.
"So, Boss Man made the waiting room." He point his finger toward the television sitting across the sofa. "You can see your life through there, even from other's point of view, isn't that great?"
The man pressed a button on the remote control and flashes of images began to appear on the television screen. Some of them are still images, and the other are videos. There's me on my 10th birthday party, surrounded by my friends whom half of them I barely know. There's picture of me and my mom on my junior high graduation ceremony. She was wearing a black dress with leather belt across her hip. You can see her wholesome smile, which Luis barely see again after her father funeral.
And then there's a video of me, "this is your friend Susan's point of view" whisper the man in white. This is taken 2 weeks before today, I remembered, because that day Susan was acting very strange.
It seems like Susan was about to talk to me, but she was hesitant, and decided to walked away. I didn't even notice her. She walks toward her friend, I forgot her name, and she gave Susan an apologetic look.
"He doesn't remember, huh?" the friend said. She walked closer to Susan and held her hand in her own.
"I don't even think he knows." said Susan. She smiled but you can hear the sadness in her voice. She started sobbing and tears are slowly dripping down on her cheeks. Susan's hand-holding with her friend turns to a hug.
"That was my birthday, moron." Susan said, but her voice doesn't seems to originated from the television. I turn my back towards the tv and saw a tall woman with blonde hair, standing beside the entrance door. Her cheeks and lips are as pale as the robe she wore, but the beauty is still there.
I walked towards her, slowly, with a bit of caution. I'm sure that I heard Susan's voice, but she's just a girl, not a woman in her thirties. "Susan?"
"Well I'm not your aunt, am I?" She then hug me tight, enough that I should be able to hear her heart beating.
"But-but-but," the words just fell out of my mouth, "how?"
The man in white walk closer towards us, and explain how Susan turns into a woman. "When you die, you could change your appearance. The one you were once, are, and could've been."
I turn my face back to the older Susan, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know it was your birthday." I tried to sound as apologetic as possible, but I know that it won't be enough. At least, I don't think so.
"It's fine, Luis. The fact is, I care about you more than you care about me. I'm fine with that, that's how it always is." She paused for a second to wipe away her tears, and continued, "and hey, looks like the doctor found out that we have the same blood type." She manage to lift up the side of her lips to form a crude smile.
"That's not true! Susan, I -" then I turned blind again. This time, there's only darkness.
...
Author's note : Hi, Anomalius here. I know that there must be dozens of grammatical error :3 and I am very sorry! I tried my best to make as few mistakes as possible, and have the tenses consistent. If you spot some error or have a critique, please let me know! Thank you <3
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