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*****

The streets of my town are too packed with people going wherever they're going to expect not to get a few bruises on the way to school. I used to complain about walking the half mile because it meant I'd have to wake up early, but life tends to give me no shortage of things to complain about. I'm so freaking sweaty that even in winter, I need to hit the showers just so my morning BO doesn't scare off my classmates.

My walk this morning is no different except that I've slept in a little too long, so I won't have time to shower when I get there. I'm at the rear of a crowd of random people I usually see when I'm commuting late. College students mostly, since the campus is across the street from my high school. The light is taking forever, which is to be expected when every second counts.

I check my phone and elbow a boy next to me as I try to shove it back into my tote bag.

"Sorry," I say to him, but he only brushes his shoulders and redirects his focus to the phone in his hands. I recognize him. He lives a street over from me and graduated from my school last semester. Zachariah is the name I remember being announced over the intercom when he left. We're the same age, but he's one of those smart types that rack up credits during the summer. Like he was in a hurry to achieve whatever dream he's had his whole life. I can't imagine being that sure of...well, anything. I have no idea what I'll do once graduation is thrust upon me in a few months. I'm not anything now, I'm not sure how that'll change in a few years, college degree or not.

The light goes green, but the crowd doesn't move. A few sirens are going off in the distance.

Of course.

Once a police car speeds by, the crowd begins its crawl across the street. The red hand is already blinking frantically.

Running out of time, it says.

As if I didn't already know that.

Finally, the back row made up of me and Zachariah, gets to the curb, but by then the red hand is already solid. The light for oncoming traffic is still red. I don't have time for this, I won't even have time for a whore bath with my Victoria's Secret body spray at this rate. I begin my run across the street before the light can change, but I notice Zachariah leave the curb behind me, his attention is still on his phone, and other cars beginning to honk.

A car flies by. Zachariah is still making his way across the street. I turn back and race for him. When I reach him, surrounded by sirens and honking cars, I try to pull him to safety. He looks at me, wide-eyed, like he doesn't understand what I'm doing. He grabs me and tries to pull me in the opposite direction.

The direction that traffic is moving.

I push through his resistance and force us both to cross towards the non-moving side.

I should have trusted him. Even with headphones in, even while blocking out the whole world, he always knew where he was going. He was a smart kid, one that could graduate early. That had everything planned out. Priorities straight. Not like me. I'm wild and impulsive. Certifiably stupid. That's what everyone says.

We fall just as I notice the ambulance barreling towards us.

My hands are still on his elbows when we wake up in darkness. He's completely passed out, surrounded by black earth and tufts of blue glowing grass. Wherever we are, it's impossible to see anything but black in all directions. It's not that it is a type of darkness that makes it difficult to see, like if you're feeling your way through your home at 2 am. This darkness is absolute. My eyes don't adjust. They see just as they're supposed to. Everything is black nothing except for the eerie blue foliage.

"Oh no." I hear someone say. I turn back to Zachariah, but he's still unconscious. The voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere, and nowhere at all.

"Up here," it says further.

I look up and find a boy sitting cross-legged on the edge of a blue tree branch. Good lord, what have I gotten myself into this time?

"No need to feel anxious. You'll be okay once Fate figures out what to do with you. Just give her a moment."

"Wait, hold on, what the hell is going on?" I say. I don't care for this guy's nonchalant attitude. He looks too comfortable with me being here and Zachariah being totally ko'ed.

"That's not my job to say," he says. He stands up and looks further into the black. "Ah, here she comes. May I introduce you to, Fate."

He motions to his side as a woman materializes on the branch beside him.

"Don't call me that," she says, the sharpness in her tone makes me step back.

The boy awkwardly chuckles towards me then looks to the woman and whispers some things into her ear. She shrugs off his hand from her shoulder.

"I don't have time to deal with a wayward soul right now!"

"It's not one. It's two, and you know better than anyone they can't stay here. They need to go wherever they're meant to. Only you can do that."

"I didn't ask for this."

"Regardless, it's your job now. From what I can see, they come from Earth 2178. You've been to that one, right?"

I stomp my foot. "What the hell is going on?"

The woman finally turns and looks at me. I can't make out her features, it's like looking at a specter. They both look hazy and without color, like everything else in this hellscape. Still, there's something beautiful about her, something striking, and powerful. Her gaze makes my knees weak, as if my body knows it should be reverent right now.

"Another pair. Just like the others. Two dead, but only one deserving of being here," she says.

I look back to Zachariah. "Dead? No, that can't be right."

"You are correct. It's not right. He was meant to live, and you were meant to die. There used to be a place for souls like his, but no more," she sighed and looked to the boy. "This one isn't under my jurisdiction. What do we do with her?"

"You're Fate, your decision," the boy says.

"Some assistant you turned out to be." She groans as if I weren't right there. She vanishes and reappears next to me. She reaches out, pinches her fingers together, and rolls them as if something is between the tips. Then she does the same with her other hand. A grin spreads across her face.

"Alora, is it? You are familiar with Zachariah, correct?"

She's asking me a question she already knows the answer to. The woman, this god, I can tell she knows everything. All the fibers that make up my being, every screwup and wasted opportunity that I let pass me by. I can tell she can see through me, even though she avoids eye contact.

"I will take responsibility for the universe's error. In exchange, you and he will be bonded. Destined to live alongside the other until his original death day. A fair compromise, yes?"

My trance breaks and I take a step back.

"Wait, how is that even supposed to work?" I ask.

"Fate, what are you doing?"

She turns towards her assistant. "I'm making a decision, shut up." She turns back to me. "Zachariah wouldn't be dead if it weren't for you. He wouldn't be stuck here if it wasn't for me. We both owe him a great debt, and you aren't ready to die." She takes my hand and pretends to wrap a string around my pinkie. When she finishes the motion, a red band appears like a ring under my knuckle.

"Wear this and he will be at your side. If you ever remove it, well, expect an immediate afterlife for you both. Or I can send you on your way to heaven, hell, wherever, now if you prefer. But we both know what you'll choose. Your life as it ended, was not so great, good thing the glitch brought you here for a second chance, right?"

"So, what you're saying boils down to 'something went wrong, please try again'? What's the catch?"

"Fate, you can't allow that," the boy assistant says.

"You can't call me that then tell me what I can and cannot do. I have all the ties of the universe at my disposal, is it not my job to teach lost souls acceptance?" When her assistant doesn't respond, she looks at me. "Listen, Alora, put this ring on Zachariah's finger and you'll wake up back in your world. Easy as pie. Oh, and if you happen to be approached by a man who questions your situation, do me a favor and ask him if he knows me."

"So, it's all about him, isn't it?"

Before I can even sus out whatever the hell that means, she reaches out a hand and disappears. Her assistant hops down from the tree and lands on the ground in front of me.

"You'll have to excuse her. She's new to this job and still upset about it, among other things. What she proposed to you, it's not as easy as she made it out to be. It might be easier to accept death and get it over with."

"And Zachariah, what happens to him?"

"He'll stay here until Fate decides what to do with him. Honestly, I think she offered what she did because she didn't want to have to think about it."

I roll the makeshift ring in my hand. It's just string, a red string knotted only a single time. It's more concrete than everything else in this weird place. Whatever Fate or this guy has going on doesn't have anything to do with me, that much is clear. My life, as it always has been, is inconsequential to everyone except maybe Zachariah, and he isn't even aware of that yet. He'll be stuck here, and it'd be my fault. That's something I can neither live with nor die knowing.

I go to where he is sleeping and pick up his hand. As Fate had done with me, I slip the red ring onto his finger. A red string grows from the knots on each of our rings and connects at the center. All at once, I feel like I've been hit by a truck.

When I open my eyes, I'm staring at a white ceiling and being assaulted by a steady beep. It's a hospital. I'm alive. I look at my left hand. The red string is still there. Fate was telling the truth. That actually happened.

"Alora! You're finally awake, hold on let me call a nurse," my aunt says from beside me.

"Wait," I croak. It feels like my vocal cords are covered in rust. "Where is Zachariah?"

"You mean the boy you were with, don't you? Sorry honey, he didn't make it."

I shake my head. "No, no that can't, it shouldn't."

"You'll pop your stitches, just calm down."

Of course, she would say that. It's what she always says. It's the same degree of comfort she offered when my parents died. I pull myself up and find Zachariah sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.

"Auntie, why would you lie at a time like this?"

She looks at me bewildered. I'm freaked out a little too. He looks just as he did the day of the accident. Lucky him, it looks like he avoided a hospital stay.

"Zachariah, hey, lucky break, right?" I say. I'm trying my best to lighten the mood, but when he finally looks up to me, he looks upset. I guess it makes sense, this is all my fault, but he shouldn't look at me like that. Like he hates me.

"Alora, there's no one there," Auntie sighs. "Where the hell is that nurse?"

"She can't see me. No one can."

The guilt of knowing he's telling the truth hits me harder than realizing I've been tricked.