I open my eyes to the sight of the starry night sky.

Wait, am I dead? Is this heaven?

Well, it definitely feels like it, with how beautiful and peaceful everything seems to be. The constellations make for the finest embellishment to the nakedness of the sky. The moon, in its near-perfect roundness, sheds light to provide a better view of the black canvas—but not too much to steal away from the stars. The clouds are thin and dispersed enough not to distract from the night's opulence. Everything's just... heavenly.

A welcome upgrade, especially after the nightmare that took place a while ago. Or was it last night?

I can't be too sure, as the throbbing pain from whatever it was that smashed my head remains a nuisance like it was just mere minutes ago. No, not nuisance; pure torture. This constant drumming inside my temples makes it feel as if I'm being lobotomized—all while fully conscious—during a pre-Freudian era, in an effort to cure my psychosis.

Awful.

Maybe this isn't heaven, after all.

Shutting my eyes, I try to recall what exactly happened before I lost consciousness. What could have possibly hit me and knocked me out?

Was it the bucket where all the blood was before it went onto my expensive suit? Or was it the roof falling down on us all, with the god of school dances punishing us for not having an original enough inspiration to make ours a night to remember?

Truly, the Carrie bit was contrived and ineffective, since all I could remember was the frenzy that transpired after the coronation; before it was a blank space for me.

It was the moment when Wendy released that blood-curdling scream that stuck with my brain. It was a testament to the amount of pain she had been struggling to keep inside her reaching its boiling point.

As if empathizing with her, the ground from under us shook and broke open to swallow a few students whole. A surge of blizzard-like winds busted open the doors and windows and sent the tables and chairs flying into different directions, knocking out people and properties alike. Soon, the gymnasium was ablaze—how it came to be was beyond me—and those who managed to stay conscious for the time being were presumably burned to a crisp.

It was total chaos.

A tragedy of epic proportions.

Which makes me surviving all of it a huge shocker, and I did, didn't I?

If all those were still part of the prank, of the homecoming farce I didn't know I was starring in, then I should commend whoever was behind the scenes for pulling off those practical effects expertly like some big-budget feature film.

Was it Ashley? Rose? Brent? Someone else entirely? Or all of them together? Right now, it's hard to tell.

I would've applauded every minute of it; except, the part where I got smacked in the head felt kind of unnecessary. The recreation of the literal bloodbath was ingenious enough; going full-on canon with the Tommy Ross death scene was an overkill.

Honestly, I'm fine with being pranked. Maybe it was some sort of an overdue reckoning for the time when I was a prankster myself.

But Wendy? She didn't deserve it. She had obviously suffered through enough from doing nothing but being herself.

Where is she, by the way? Did we drive all the way to wherever this is to spend the rest of the night stargazing while sharing our dreams and frustrations with each other? Are we plotting revenge to whoever they were who hatched this evil scheme to humiliate us?

I power myself to stand up, but I can't.

What is happening? What has happened to me?

My heart beat quickens upon realizing that I can't even move a finger. My hands, my feet, my facial muscles, they're all stiff. Like a robot that has run out of battery.

Please, somebody tell me I'm not paralyzed.

I need to find Wendy. She could be hurt, or in danger, or hurt and in danger.

Wait, so, am I really dead? Is being paralyzed and without Wendy my personal hell?

Not possible.

I've always imagined this other face of the afterlife to be such a hostile place of agony—presumably because of how parents would make horror stories out of the idea in order to keep us in line as children—with never an aspect of it to be even mildly likable. I never thought of it to be this... middling.

On second thought, none of these defining characteristics feel true to me anymore. Who knows if what initially appears to be a utopian society would turn out to be the actual hell, just like Eleanor Shellstrop's neighborhood in The Good Place? Or if eternal damnation for us would mean reliving our worst nightmare over and over again, just like in the Coven and Apocalypse season of American Horror Story?

If the latter happens to be the truth, then isn't my waking life hell enough?

Maybe I'm in some sort of purgatory, like in the 'medium place' or something? I can especially hear the crackle of its fires chewing on something—perhaps souls?

So, while I bask in the soothing temperature of purgatory, a point where warm meets cold in a nice, non-discordant sort of way, a voice I don't recognize emerges from the relative silence. "Guys, he's awake!"

With the voice unmistakable to be that of a woman, my initial hunch is a real-life (or real-afterlife) version of Mindy St. Claire—maybe not necessarily in eighties corporate lawyer attire and with a mug of room-temperature beer in hand, but definitely someone also stuck in purgatory. Since I can barely move my eyes, let alone my neck, I can't confirm if it is her or even locate where exactly she is—although it's apparent that it is someplace nearby.

"Everyone, the boy has awakened!" exclaims another person whose baritone voice would make you want to both trust him and be wary of him.

Could he be this version's Derek?

Probably not. Derek's voice would surely be shitty.

As I hear melding murmurs on top of these voices and rapid footsteps getting closer, I can't help but panic internally. There aren't this many people in the medium place, as far as we're told. Hence, I must be somewhere else.

Then, a young lady appears in my line of sight, standing over me.

Nope, not Mindy. Rather, someone who can't possibly belong to the medium place. Someone whose features are far from middling.

I can't deny; she is beautiful, with light blue eyes and jet-black hair pulled together in a neat bun. She is wearing white from top to bottom, doing no favor in keeping my sight off of her and my mind back into admiring only Wendy.

Crap, I really am dead, and she might just be my guardian angel.

She even has the kind of touch for one—gentle and calming.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, pressing the back of her hand onto my right cheek, my forehead, my left cheek and then, my neck.

Weird, and lost, and hurt, and curious.

I want to voice out all these things, but I can't even manage to open my mouth.

"Thankfully, your temperature has risen back up to normal," she tells me as she sits beside me, while a few others enter the scope of my eyesight, all of them ogling at me like some exhibit of a live alien species. "You were oddly cold the entire time; we would have mistaken you for dead if it weren't for your heartbeat and pulse."

My eyes can't help but look into the faces of these spectators with dread, overwhelming myself with the number of strangers in the vicinity, while I lie helpless and unable to defend myself in case they turn out to be cannibalistic barbarians, a human trafficking syndicate, or a cannibalistic and barbaric human trafficking syndicate.

"Don't force yourself to move yet," an older guy who looks familiar—perhaps a lesser known, past-his-prime celebrity I just can't put a finger on where I've seen exactly—remarks with the same baritone voice from earlier. "You've been asleep for long; it will take some time for your body to fully adjust to making locomotor movements again. Take it slow, boy."

Asleep for long? For how long exactly?

"If we were right," the lady in white says, "and you were another survivor from the Shatters here below, then you had been in a coma-like state for more than three years now. So, your body may have grown accustomed to the prolonged inactivity."

Woah, slow down with the info-dump there, Angel.

Shatters? What Shatters?

And three years? In a coma? You have got to be kidding me.

"We're just glad you have finally woken up," she adds, flashing a sweet smile that reminds me so much of Wendy's. "We were afraid you wouldn't."

Is this some sort of another prank? Perhaps the sequel-nobody-wanted to that one from homecoming night?

What dedication!

"W-who a-are you?" I ask—or at least I try to—as soon as I am able to open my mouth. "W-where a-am I?"

"Chill, dude. We're humans like you, and you're in a safe place," a younger guy, whom I don't remember asking, responds in a manner that's almost begging for me to thank him for going out of his (brooding) way just to answer my questions.

Too bad, I only say the magic words to people who deserve them.

"You're lucky we didn't leave you there to die," he continues, with equal, if not greater, concentration of arrogance in his tone. "You're welcome."

It's undeniable that he's this group's prick.

First, we have this lady in white for the love interest stock character, then the older, grey-haired could-be celebrity for the surrogate parent figure and now this asshole for a mandatory adversary. The cavalry is almost complete.

Seriously, why does every group of at least five people has to have a prick archetype in it? Is that supposed to be the golden rule of casting? And who even authored the rulebook? Because it's not clever. Nor funny.

The archetypal love interest shoots a certain look to the adversary, before handing me a glass of water and speaking to me. "Hi, I'm Peyton Woodward. What's your name?"

I look at her with hesitation, not knowing whether or not I should answer.

"You can trust us. We're here to help you." She assists me while I take a few sips from my roost at this wooden recliner, eventually downing the entire glass.

Whew! I never knew I've been parched until I've had a taste of it.

"I'm Coraline Bundy—Cora, for short," says another young lady, who could be the other love interest, rounding out the requisite love triangle, or the love interest's best friend. She honestly could be both too, considering how her simplistic look—ponytailed brown hair and thin-rimmed eye glasses—fits both molds. "Or just Coraline, you decide."

"She's, like, the vice president's daughter," a pretty boy with a tough build comments, the sass in his voice concealed but unambiguous to me regardless. He puts an arm around Cora's shoulders, before adding, "I'm Bradford Tupper, by the way. Just call me Brad."

I shift my regard from him to Cora and back.

"I know what you're thinking." Cora shakes Brad's arms off, her gaze fixed on me. "No, we're not together. He kind of doesn't play for my team."

Ah, the gay character staple.

"It's supposed to be a secret, Cor." Brad pouts and crosses his thick, hairy arms across his equally hairy chest, which has been peeking through the plunging neckline of his tawny pullover. "Now, the whole world knows."

Cora elbows him by the ribs. "You're fooling nobody here, bruh."

Brad fakes a pained expression—mouth open and both eyes bulging—before the two of them share a laughter. The others join in.

Such weird people.

"Anyway, this is Gunnar," Brad says, pointing to the taller but leaner guy beside him who mouths a 'hi'.

"And this is Alice, Vincent and Jane." Peyton points to the trio behind her who are all waving their hands and smiling.

A few more introduce themselves, their voices overlapping each other's making it hard for me to understand their names. Plus, they're too many too soon; I'm not sure my brain is already functioning well enough to remember them all otherwise.

"I'm Jonathan Moore," says the afore-mentioned parent figure, finally putting a name to the face. "We're glad we were able to save you, though we're completely taken aback by the fact that you have managed to survive that tragedy from where we found you."

Wait, the President of the United States, Jonathan Moore? I knew I've seen him from somewhere; I just didn't think of the White House.

So, that leaves just the arrogant, snobby adversary to make his identity known.

Saving the worst for last, I suppose.

After a nudge from President Moore, he temporarily snaps out of his brooding shtick—which, let me just say, is an overused trope for male characters in fiction.

"I'm Alexander Moore," he voices, with nary a look and emphasis on the last name.

Oh, okay, buddy.

The president's son, who thinks being such is privilege enough for him to be an asshole to anyone he believes is below him. Well, not to me, buddy. Not to me.

"What about you?" Cora asks, as she leans closer, her brown eyes practically twinkling behind those lenses. "Tell us your name and your story."

"She's just kidding," Peyton rebuffs, as she and a few guys help me sit up straight, affording me a better glance of the surroundings which look like a camp site at some ruins, with all these make-shift tents all over a decimated community, broken establishments and all. "Your name would be enough. Something to call you by—you know, other than just 'he' or 'the boy who withstood the Shatters'. Something more distinctive."

Fine. You, your line of argumentation and your charisma win.

"Well, I'm Tom—Thomas, Ross Thomas," I respond, giving them the first fake name that comes to mind, some sort of an homage to the role Rose casted me for in our impromptu homecoming farce: Tommy Ross.

Peyton just said something distinctive; she specifically hasn't said true.

And Ross Thomas is distinctive. Original too.

So, I'm not ready to share my true identity yet, so what?

I'm not even sure I can trust these people.

Maybe in time I will. Just not today.

"Just an ordinary guy. Nothing weird or special," I lie some more.

On a different occasion, this would've bothered me big time. Ever since I can remember, I have never been comfortable with spewing lies, regardless if they're what you consider white lies. In fact, I have been unforgiving to pathological liars myself—Ashley, Brent, Seth, father, to name a few. But it's not too much to abandon the weirdo persona for now, is it?

"Oh, you do remember?" Cora asks, in a tone that's bordering between sarcastic and genuinely curious. "For a minute, I thought you may have had amnesia."

Thinking about it, I swallow a lump in my throat.

Maybe I should have? I mean, if it's true that I've been hibernating for years, something in my brain must have been fucked up.

I think hard to recall my childhood, my days being the golden boy, my fall from grace.

Yup, still there. A little hazy but still there.

"Can you tell us about the last thing you remember before waking up on this bed?" Cora probes, adamant on getting to the bottom of the mystery that is me.

I certainly would be too, if we were to trade positions.

Something tells me I'm going to like this girl. She reminds me of me, only female.

"Or maybe some other time, Cor," Peyton rebuffs her again. "I'm sure he'll be the one to tell us when he's ready."

That is if I'll ever be ready.

"Men, kindly carry Mr. Thomas to his quarters, so he can rest and recover," President Moore orders, and everybody is on their feet obeying him.

Even in the afterlife—life after the end of the world, that is—he still seems like everybody's de facto leader, and I can see why.

"But what if he's, you know," Cora asks her peers, her speculations never ending anytime soon, "one of—"

Unfortunately, I'm unable to get the other half of the sentence as the increasing distance between us made it hard for me to discern everything.

As we reach my assigned quarters, which is basically a lamp-lit space with fallen branches for poles and quilts for the walls, ceiling and door, I can't stop my brain from to trying to process this new reality.

Shatters? What do they mean by that?

And where's Wendy? Mom? Lola?

Could it be possible that they're gone along with most of the world, and that we are the last vestige of humanity?

Did the world just end off-book? Did the cataclysmic event that I kept seeing in my visions actually happen while I overslept for three years? Was that what these people are calling the Shatters?

And was it all courtesy of those white extraterrestrial terrorists? Do they exist beyond my visions now? Are we under-attack, in the middle of their interplanetary conquests? Do we even stand a chance against them and their superhuman powers, especially now that we are reduced to, like, a hundred or two?

Most importantly, was the carnage from the night of the homecoming dance the beginning of it all? Was Wendy and that fit of rage somehow involved? Was she a white extraterrestrial terrorist in disguise all along?

Please, let me be wrong in all of these.

Please.

"Hey!" I call out to Brad, as he walks toward the exit. "What happened here exactly? What's up with all these ruins and camping and shit?"

"Well, that's a story for another day," Brad replies, before stepping out of the tent and closing the tapestry behind him. "Go ahead and rest, pal. Have a good night."

Right, I tell myself. As if those three years weren't enough.