New Beginnings

Part 1

Darkness. No sound, no smell, no feeling. Only darkness.

Where am I?

I'm trying to remember, but my head is fuzzy.

A faint sparkle catches my eyes. My chain is thrown on the ground, torn and dusty.

This is the necklace I asked for for our anniversary.

"Do you understand the price of this necklace?"

"It is expensive, but worth every penny."

"I'm not talking about money. I’m talking about the hours I'll have to work for it. Time we could spend together."

A red-blue light pierces the darkness. A blinding white flashlight. A gloved hand puts the necklace into a sealed bag.

"Hey, that's my necklace!"

He doesn't hear me.

I can't hear me.

I follow him and see...

A wrecked car.

No, no, no. It can’t be.

**

"Hey, Soul. You look lost."

"Who are you? What's going on here?"

He points towards a distant intersection.

"Remember?"

I was on my way home at the end of another day. I could have taken Route 135, but I chose the southern route, over the hills.

Mistake?

I want to cancel this choice, but life only writes in permanent ink.

A new road opens before me and he signals for me to walk on it.

"How could that be? I was so alive a few moments ago."

"You seem like a good soul," he says, "but there's no turning back."

"Can I take the necklace?"

"No."

I sigh, "Can I stay here for a minute?"

"No."

I think about all the things I still wanted to do.

See Madrid. Celebrate Mia's fifth birthday. Move into our dream home. Talk more with my parents. Apologize to Michelle. Wear the necklace.

But most of all, I wanted more time with him. To tell him that he is dear to me.

"You have to go. Now."

"Wait," I shout. "Just a moment."

But he doesn't wait.

Time does not wait.

Life doesn't wa-

Part 2 

I drift, formless yet conscious, through an unseen world. A spectral witness to the living, I hover in the margins, where whispers of my past mingle with the echoes of now. I am unseen, unheard, unfelt—yet I linger, a ghost adrift in the remnants of a life abruptly halted.

I watch him, every day. He moves through our home like a shadow of himself, his eyes hollow with the grief that I too feel but cannot express. He sits often by the window, the broken necklace in his hands, turning it over and over. I long to reach out, to comfort, to say everything I left unsaid. But I am nothing more than a wisp of memory, dissolving in the daylight.

Our home, once filled with laughter and dreams, now echoes with the silence of my absence. Mia's room, vibrant and chaotic, remains untouched. Her drawings still cling to the fridge, her giggles a haunting melody I yearn to hear just once more. I hover in her doorway, watching the dust motes dance in the shafts of light, an invisible guardian watching over what was once my world.

Days, weeks, months pass—a meaningless measure of time for one such as me. I can’t believe I’ve been gone for so long.

I witness the changing seasons through the window, the leaves turning from lush green to fiery oranges and reds, then withering to browns and greys. Time, which once ruled my life with an iron fist, now mocks me with its irrelevance.

Sometimes, I visit the places I once dreamt of seeing. Drifting across continents, a ghostly spectator, I see the vibrant streets of Madrid, the sun-kissed plazas, the artwork that I had yearned to witness with my own eyes. But the beauty feels empty, the experience hollow without the joy of sharing it, without the warmth of his hand in mine.

In my wanderings, I encounter others like me. Souls trapped in the in-between, each clinging to their own fragments of life. We share silent camaraderie, understanding the depth of each other's loss without a word. But our interactions are brief, fleeting. We are but ships passing in the night, bound to the memories that tether us to the world of the living.

One evening, as the sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold, I find myself drawn back to the intersection where everything changed. The world moves on around that fateful spot, oblivious to the tragedy that unfolded there. I see the flickering of another presence, a soul newly unmoored from life, their confusion mirroring my own from what seems like an eternity ago.

"Where am I? What happened?" the spectral figure asks, their voice a mere tremor in the air.

"I remember asking the same," I reply, my words less a sound than a whisper of thought.

"How do you bear it?" they ask, their form shimmering with unshed tears of the soul.

"Some days, you float. Other days, you learn to fly," I say, thinking of the days when I watch Mia grow, each milestone a bittersweet pang in my non-existent heart. "You learn to find peace in watching, in hoping, and in the love that never fades."

"But I had so much left to do," they lament, a cry of every soul severed from the thread of life.

"We all did," I respond, a sigh of the wind. "But our journey is different now. We watch, we protect, we love from the shadows. And perhaps, in our own way, we guide those we left behind towards their tomorrow."

The figure nods, slowly fading into the night, another whisper in the vastness of eternity.

Returning to the home that still holds my heart, I watch him and Mia, my loves, my regrets, my joys. Even as a ghost, my love remains, a beacon that I hope, in moments of quiet and reflection, they feel in the softness of a breeze, in the warmth of a sunbeam.

For now, I am here. Watching. Waiting. Loving. A ghost in the world of the living, bound by the chains of love and memory, floating in the hope that, in some small way, I still exist in the hearts of those I left behind.

And so, I drift.

Part 3 

I drift, a silent observer, until an unexpected moment shatters the stillness of my world. 

In our living room, where memories hang thick in the air, he sits, the necklace in his hand, gazing into the encroaching darkness. Suddenly, his voice, barely above a whisper but clear, cuts through the silence. 

"I feel you. You’re still here, aren't you?" 

The words strike me, real and raw. This acknowledgment from him, a beacon piercing through my endless night, ignites something deep within the core of my being. Tears streak down his face, a mirror to the sorrow and love in my own spectral heart. 

In this moment, under the fading light, our worlds intertwine, and I realize that while life writes its stories in permanent ink, love engraves its tales on the soul, transcending even death.

It's a different chapter, one written in the unspoken language of the soul. His recognition of my presence, this merging of past and present, sparks a profound transformation. I am more than a mere echo; I am a continuing part of their lives, unseen but undeniable, guiding them toward their new beginnings.