"Ah!"
Eardrums could burst after hearing Raquels' frightening shout for help.
She jerks like she was being cleared with a high voltage.
Her eyes flash open and widen, and her pupils look like they would pop out anytime.
She breaks into a cold sweat, her chest-thumping as her heart races faster than that of a dog's.
She turns her head and looks left and right, as she tries to process her entire situation and the scenario from earlier.
However, something seemed off.
Unsettled, she asks herself.
'Where am I?'
The room she woke up to, was nothing to write home about; it was plain, literally an empty white space save a brown park bench.
At first, she decides to ignore the bench and check for herself if her hypothesis was true.
She had two thoughts in mind.
It was either she was dead or kidnapped, but she seems to be more convinced it was the first.
During her tour, Raquel paused on her track.
She could still feel the traces of the warm hand that pressed upon her neck and recalled how frightened she was when she saw the look in Harry's eyes while he strangled her, that small glimpse of the smirk he wore while sending her to the afterlife freighted her more than anything.
Vividly she recalls how she struggled to gasp for even just a second of air, she could give anything and everything for even just a split second of air, but that, unfortunately, became a luxury she could not afford.
To think the air she took for granted all these years was the thing she wished for the most upon her dying moment.
After walking a distance, she finally concluded that no matter how far she would walk, she would still arrive at the same location, so defeated, she got tired and decided to take a break, after agreeing with herself that there was no way out.
Besides that, the pain she was experiencing as a cancer patient died the moment she woke up.
Although she could not see her face, the withered beauty of hers made its way back to her and her face glowed to the point where it was blinding.
She was stunning.
That aside, her cracked lip felt moist and soft, "it has to be the afterlife," she thought.
'I'm dead!'
Finally, the first stage of grievance stroke is realization.
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
She asked herself where she stood.
Knowing full well what the answer is, after all, it's not every day that one gets to see the grim reaper next to them as their eyes closed.
Her knees began to tingle, and in no time it went numb that she could no longer feel her leg muscles, a familiar feeling of paralysis it was, that she collapsed on her knees upon the face of the earth.
Her hair ruffled as the strands of her hair covered her face giving off a ghostly feel, she supports her body from reaching the floor with her arms.
What followed next was a series of sniffles and tears, and when the real tears began she could almost flood the place with her never-ending tears.
Nothing could comfort her, especially not the fact that she was in a room that had no end or beginning.
Raquel couldn't tell if she was in the afterlife or just being messed with.
Finally, she dried her tears with her shirt and in that process she found herself dressed in the same outfit she had on her before she died.
'it'd be better if it was white or something.'
She mumbles angrily to herself.
She drags her legs with her and sits upon the park bench, looking up, staring at the white atmosphere that was not a wall, nor a cloud, just a white something that did not seem to end.
After much thought, she closed her eyes, bending her head back to rest upon the edge of the bench.
Clack!
Clack!!
Clack!!!
Automatically, her senses came alive, as she listened to the hollow sound of footsteps that seemed to increase as they got closer.
"Hmm, there was no sound of a door or anything? How did this person get in? Was someone else in here before me or is that person just waking up as I did?"
Questions swam through her mind as she desperately tried to decode the answer.
"Let's just ask." She said to herself as the footsteps drew close enough before coming to a halt.
However, something felt strange.
She couldn't identify the location of that person, from the moment the footsteps stopped.
Suddenly, a mysterious aura like an ocean drowned the entire room, sending shivers down her spine that caused even the strands of hairs on her body to lay low.
She could feel it, a murderous gaze right above her that made her tremble, that she dared not open her eyes, her palm became sweaty, cold sweat dripping down her face as she prayed, 'whatever you are, please go away' because she felt that her life was on the line.
After five long minutes of holding breaths, trembling and sweaty palms, the disturbing gaze stopped.
Rather all she heard next was a creak on the bench behind her, causing her to remember that the bench was a double bench.
"You seem dreadful." A playful, relaxed male voice said.
Taken by shock, Raquel was not expecting to hear such a fine gentle voice as the producer of that intense discomfort, and yet here it was.
The first thing she did was try to find the owner of that voice, but she found herself caught in a trance that her body failed to obey her command, it was almost as if someone was controlling her.
"I thought you were going to kill me." She subconsciously blurted out, only to click her tongue in the end out of regret.
"Hahaha."
He burst into laughter, she could hear him stomp his feet to the ground as he laughed hard.
"Kill you?" He said after calming down. "And why would I, you're already dead."
"Well no one said you can't die twice, I don't even know where I am, am I dead am I not, this is a useless waste of time." She said with a frown.
In Raquel's head, she was battling between breaking out of his control and gaining her will back, but she felt worse than a child.
"Well for starters you're in my space, and dying isn't that bad, at least you won't have to suffer anymore."
At first, she questioned the meaning of the word 'space' but then out of nowhere, she felt a warm hand placed upon her shoulder that felt surprisingly calming.
"Well sorry to be in your space but when I woke up I was here, and although, indeed, dying isn't so bad, I'm afraid I won't get to see my child again, my sweet son."
Like someone drenched in red colour, her cheeks became red, her eyes were puffy as water strolled down her face from the end of her eyes, escorted by another at the beginning.
Her tear streams failed to flow in one direction, and they parted ways along the line, some coming off her face, some still strolling towards her lip and some invading another tear's territory across the nose.
"Is that why you're crying your eyes out?" He chuckled lightly.
Suddenly she felt something soft, fluffy and dry slide upward the wet surface of her face toward her eyes.
"How can that not be reason enough for a mother to cry, plus, he's going to be miserable."
She cried, sounding like she was being forced to sing when she had no voice.
"Those two timing wrenches are going to make my precious child work his ass off like a slave.
If only I wasn't naive."
"It's not your fault." He said, still wiping her tears.
"It is, I can still remember how stupid I looked when he said he liked me, the feeling I had like the world had a different colour.
I pressured my parents into saying yes and ended up marrying my bastard husband.
Now I find out after being married for a long time that I was being played.
Now all I want is to deal with those too." She cried the most.
The man's handkerchief was already drenched in tears so much that it could fill a bucket, and upon seeing that his move to reduce her tears wasn't helping he eventually gave up and retracted.
"Jeez, you're dead and you still want revenge, to think I've been worried about the wrong reason and the wrong person." He complained.
"I just want justice." She yelled out of her insecurity thoughts that the man would walk away after thinking her thoughts were trivial.
"I want to witness their karma hunt them."
"Oh reeeallllyyyy." He said.
"Yes, all my life, I've been used and fooled by them, I just want to see justice done and be a part of the process."
At his silence, Raquel grew worried.
She could not tell where he was, even with a hand wiping her face, it felt weird. The man was on a whole different level.
"You know, I can help with that." He finally spoke.
"You can!" She yelled with excitement.
"Yes. Let's say if you were suddenly given a second chance, what would you do?" He asked.
"I've already told you, let justice be done."
"Na that's too easy, but you might do that even sooner.
So we'll try to be fair, okay."
With a laugh he hummed a tune to himself, once again his footstep sound began and again she could not tell where it came from.
"If I help you with your life afresh then you'll have to do what I want.
You will have three years, but during that period you'll have to do a little something for me, for your main assignment. If at the end of the three years you fail to bring those people back with you for judgement then you'd be stuck in this room forever.
If you succeed you'll have the opportunity to make one wish come true."
She gulped hard, unsure of what to say, freighted to her bones, every bit of her screaming to just say no and let bygones be bygones.
But, out of all the parts of her body, in and out that said to bury the hatchet, only her heart refused to give in.
"Well, I don't need that wish if I have what I want." What she wanted was not Karma, it was revenge.
"Say what you want but I'll still let you know in case you might need it." He generously said.
Now she was ready, her mind was made up, and her eyes were itching to be opened as well.
"So, what is your request?"
"I won't let you know that easily, I'll let you have a kickstart, then tell you what I want later."
As soon as his words ended, her eyes opened.
She springs from her seat, in a hurry to turn around to see her mystery helper's face,
"Wait, don't go….!"
Before she could dare complete the sentence, she felt a pressure suck her backwards with great force that her feet did not touch the ground and her hands felt like papers without life on them, her insides felt like it was being ripped from every part, she felt air sick so much so that she wanted to throw up, her mind became hazy.
The moment the movement stopped and her senses returned, she returned to thinking.
'Who is that person?
If I could see his face just once…'
Suddenly she felt a cold hand upon her cheek and something wet dripping upon her face, a sound of wailing and sniffles and the buzzing voices of humans.
Slowly she opened her eyes, desperate to know who it was that held her so warmly that made her heart melt and craved so much for that person, she wanted to know why she felt eager to meet this person until she heard something she was unfamiliar with.
"...the...
…ith...
Lilith… please open your eyes."
As she awakened to the unfamiliar building, hearing herself being addressed as Lilith repeatedly, like a trigger her brain began to reset, and in no time she found herself wondering.
"Who? Am. I?"