Knowing when you were going to die seems like a handy ability to have. If there were a counter above your head telling you that had 1,580 days to live, you'd know you had four more years to write that novel before the world came crashing down on you. Literally.
Well, sort of.
But before we get to that insignificant detail, let's get to our protagonist, named Miriam Summers, called Mireh by everyone she knew. Young girl, long pale hair, seen wearing headphones almost as often as she was seen looking up at the sky when sighted alone. Just your average run-of-the-mill high school girl on a little white planet known as Shishiru.
This story begins with her at high school one morning. She cracked open her locker and found this tiny, little envelope sitting on top of her binders. There was nothing written on it, and holding it up to a light revealed a tiny, little card inside. With any luck, it had money. With her luck, it didn't.
Your guess was as good as Mireh's. Her birthday wasn't for another five months, and last she checked, people in this day and age communicated via cell phones, email, and shouting obscenities in MeTube comments. Nobody else seemed to have a card, so she knew it wasn't a club advertising an activity or charity event or what have you. Which meant that this card was written for her and only her.
There was fifteen minutes before first period began, and she was dying to know if some kindly soul was dying and had willed her one or two or seventeen thousand menos bills, so she peeled open the envelope and removed her inheritance.
“Whatcha reading there?”
“!!!” Mireh nearly passed her inheritance onto somebody else. She didn't scream, externally, at least, but internally, an entire city block was making calls for window repairs. One heart attack later, she managed to say to the teleporting miscreant, “How many times do I have to tell you not to scare me like that?!”
“If your reactions weren't so hilarious, then I wouldn't do it,” the miscreant, more commonly known as Retta Aram, said with this huge grin.
“You're awful. The worst.”
“You know you still love me,” Retta said as she threw her body on Mireh's shoulders to give her a hug. Retta was a scrawny thing, but somehow she wasn't a light thing. “Anyway, whatcha got there, huh? Is it a love letter?”
“That's what I was trying to find out when you tried sending me to the ER,” she said as she flattened out the crumples on the second casualty of Retta's ambush.
“It doesn't need to be perfect for you to read it,” and then she reached for the card, an action which erupted into a brief fight which ended with Retta obtaining the card—further wounded, poor thing—and flipping it open to read.
For those who watch death,
Many thanks there are to be,
Purpose, you've given.
“That's, uh.....unique?” Yeah, let's go with that.
“That's not romantic at all,” Retta said, deflated.
“I don't think it's a love letter, Retta.”
“Boo! That's boring.” She returned the unromantic card to Mireh and then relieved her from her duties as her personal body rest. “What's the point of giving someone a letter if it's not a love letter?”
“I don't think anybody actually writes love letters.”
“Why not? I can think of at least ten people off the top of my head who've broken up over text. I don't see why nobody can't write a letter confessing their feelings.”
“Hm. I guess you have a point.” Though if a guy were after Mireh, she'd prefer him to confront her directly rather than teasing her with a letter.
“Well, since it's not a love letter, that means you're not obligated to go on a date with them, which means you're still coming with me to the festival tonight, right?”
“Of course. Even if the cutest guy in school asked me out, I'd tell him some other night.”
“That's right! Sisters before misters!”
“But only because it's the festival tonight. Otherwise, you'd be on your own.”
“Mireh! I can't believe you'd abandon me like that. I thought we were BFFs forever...”
She shrugged and smirked. What was there to say? The cutest guy in school was pretty cute, after all. It's a damn shame that hunk isn't in this story.
“You guys are going to the festival tonight?” the voice of a ghost mumbled behind Mireh, who, so shocked at the emergence of this supernatural entity, screamed. And not one of those “Ahhh! I'm going to die!” horror movie screams. It was more one of those “Eeee! A spider!” screams. One of those cute screams that make you want to go, “I want protect this pure dame.” No windows broke, but now you know why Mireh preferred to keep her screams on the inside, especially in the middle of a classroom right before homeroom.
“Good job!” Retta said to the ghost. “It takes me months to get that out of her, but you did it in one try.”
“I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry,” the ghost said to Mireh, who hid her reddening face in her hands.
Just kill me. If you're here for my soul, take it. I want my suffering to end.
“Miriam?” the ghost said.
“...Yes?” Mireh said.
“Are you all right?”
No. I want to die. She sat up. “Yes. I'm all right.” She turned around and saw that the ghost was no phantom sent to drive her to madness but her classmate Temera Kachou.659Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxsWmMC4Tig
Short, long black hair, lean—a little too lean—preferred mumbling to actual talking, and probably the type of girl who stayed up late writing poetry.
“I didn't mean to scare you,” Temera said again. “I'm sorry,” she said again.
“Forget about that,” Mireh said. And don't you ever remember it. “What were you asking?”
“I couldn't help but overhear that you guys are going to the festival tonight?”
“Yeah, Retta and myself are walking over after school lets out. Are you going as well?”
“Um...”
“?”
“...”
Um, are you going to say anything? “What's the matter?”
“Do you want to go but your parents won't let you?” Retta asked. She leaned in closer and hid her mouth with her hand as she asked, “Do you need us to carry out an infiltration mission and sneak you out of your bedroom?”
“That's not the case,” Temera said. “It's just...Um.....”
Here we go again with the ums.
“.....”
“Hmm....” Uh-oh. Retta had her thinking face on. “Ah! I get it now,” she said a little suggestively. “You wanna go to the festival and meet a certain someone, don't you?”
“I—I do want to go to the festival, but I don't understand what you mean by 'meet a certain someone.'”
“There's no need to play coy with me,” Retta said and wrapped her arm around Temera—no, that's not accurate. Here's the more accurate statement: “There's no need to play coy with me,” Retta said and put Temera in a headlock. “There's a certain boy—or girl, if that's what you're into—who's going to be there and you need our help talking to him—or her—don't you?”
“That's not the case, either,” she said, trying to break free from Retta's grip. “I just wanted to...ask...to know...if you wouldn't mind if I came along..........”
“HUH? SPEAK UP, WOMAN, I CAN'T HEAR YOU WHEN YOU MUMBLE LIKE THAT.”
“You don't have to yell at her,” Mireh said.
“Then how else am I going to get her to confess that she needs us to be her Cupid?”
“What is it with you and trying to ship everybody today?”
“What better way to celebrate the festival than by seeing two people fall in love?”
“How about stuffing our faces with deep fried bazookas?”
“Ha! You're right. Nothing beats a deep fried bazooka to the face.”
Temera wiggled herself free from Retta's choke hold. “Deep fried bazookas?”
“It's an inside joke of ours. It'll take a while to explain,” Mireh explained.
“Oh. I...see?”
“If you don't need our help sneaking you out of your house or talking to a boy—or girl—then what are you trying to say?” Retta asked.
“..........I—I.....Is it all right if I went to the festival with you two...?”
“I thought we had this conversation already, Temera. You. Need. To. Speak. Up.”
“I think she's asking us if she can come with us to the festival,” Mireh said.
“Oh. Is that all?”
Temera nodded.
“Why didn't you say so?! I'm all right with it if Mireh's all right with it.”
“It's fine with me.”
“Then that settles it. It'll be us three girls heading to the festival! Temera, are you excited? Can you feel the excitement in the air?!” and then she put her in another headlock and rattled her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
“Would you stop torturing the poor thing? She's going to have brain damage by the time class starts.”
“I'm sorry,” she said and released the tormented soul. “I'm just so excited for tonight.”
“Yes...I can tell...” Temera said as she tried to stay on two feet while stars orbited her.
“But remember this one thing,” she said, holding up one finger to represent this one thing. “Saying you'll join us tonight is a promise. Got that?”
“Y-Yes...”
“Say you can't make it and it's curtains for you,” she said, drawing her finger across her throat.
“Y-Yes!”
Wait, that was a normal speaking volume, Mireh observed.
“Good. As long as you understand, meet me and Mireh out front after school ends, all right?” Retta told her. “And don't forget what's going to happen if you don't show,” and then she reminded her, and Temera gulped.
The bell rang, and Retta headed for her seat, and Temera stumbled her way back to her seat with shaky knees.
I wonder if she'll realize that Retta's messing with her, Mireh thought. Eh, I'm sure she'll figure it out.
The teacher came, and he talked, and Mireh did her best to pay attention and not draw stick figures beating each other up.
She took out the card at some point and reread it. She still wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean or who wrote it or why they had to write it in such a vague way, but the first line did stand out to her more than anything.
For those who watch death...
Death, she thought as she looked out the window at the moon.
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