Where am I? What place is this? What am I doing here? Am I dead?

She asked herself whilst she lifted up her feet to find them standing on soft clouds. Her hands were glowing and sparkling. A white cloak was worn on her. She examined herself and as she walked on the clouds.

She saw animals of different kinds playing and running through rainbows. The sky was so blue. So very blue. She was tempted to play with the animals on the clouds.

Music, heavenly music was singing in her ears, they were tranquility to her soul. Her heart was at peace. Her mind was feeling anew. Everything felt so light and so free. 'This place must be heaven'. she thought to herself.

"Amanda? What are you doing here?" A voice she knew too well asked. Amanda turned around to see her sister, Anna. Anna had never looked so happy and cheerful. Her hair was long to her back, she was also adorned in a white dress. Her dark skin glowed as the word ebony itself.

Anna ran towards her sister and hugged her. Amanda was too shocked to move, was too surprised to hug back but the sudden joy she felt in her heart was so much that it almost became heavy. She cried and cried and cried but surprisingly, not a single tear fell.

Anna looked at her little sister and smiled but the smile was quickly replaced with a frown. Amanda noticed her change in expression and wondered what went wrong. Wasn't she happy to see her?

"Amanda, what happened? How did you get here?" Anna asked feeling agitated.

"I got tired of living without you. I got tired of walking past your picture in the living room and pretending to be over what happened. I GOT TIRED Anna. I got tired."

Anna hugged her sister once more. And this time, the latter hugged her tightly. "Sister, it is not yet your time. You have to go back. I can't be at peace with you here. Did you think of mom and dad before making this decision? Did you reason how much this would affect them.? I left due to reasons I couldn't control. Your case is very different." She gave a pause and continued.

"You are all that they have. Did you even think of Efe? The poor girl is basically alone. What if she came back to find out that you're no more? She'll instantly break into pieces. Don't you get that?"

Amanda immediately thought of Efe. Efe was the only thing that was close to filling the void that Anna left behind. Efe was literally the only person she could call a sister but she(Amanda) was just too blinded by grief to notice this.

"You're right Anna. But I really missed you. Life became very different after you left. Besides Efe, I became lonely, mom and dad were became a bit edgy and overbearing. I couldn't take it." Amanda said.

"I understand you my dear sister. When I came here years ago, I was also worried. But God assured me and I assured myself that as far as you're with them, they have every reason to smile. They were just filled with grief and fear of losing you. Now that you're here, I pray that they don't lose their senses already. They love you very much. And that's why I'm saying that you should go back. It's not yet your time."

"But I really missed you and that was why I came here. How do your expect me to leave again?"

"Did I really leave you? I did not. I always watched you. I always saw how you would prepare for school early in the mornings, how you would take care of Efe's mum, how you would celebrate whenever you passed a test, how you would cry when you failed, how you would stare at my picture in the living room, how you would hold yourself not to cry over me. I was always there but you just never saw me." Anna said while holding her sister's face.

"I love you so much. You've grown into a beautiful girl, one day, you'll join me. But not now. You have a lot to fulfil on earth." And then, without a reply from Amanda, they both hugged each other and their foreheads touch each other.

"I love you too. How can I go back?" Amanda asked her elder sister.

"Just lie down exactly where you were when you first came here, close your eyes and when you see a light, go through it."

And she did just that.

•
•
•
•
•

"Achoo!" Came a sneeze as it echoed in the brightly lit morgue. The pale white walls gave off a peaceful yet eerie aura. The middle aged mortician was busy applying embalming fluid on the corpse of an old man when he heard a sneeze.

Panic filed his senses as he was literally the only person alive in the room. At least ten corpses were in the room, all on separate iron beds spread around the room. He looked around and thought that maybe he was just hallucinating or hearing things(which rarely happened).

He continued about his business when he heard it again. "Achoo!" Only this time, it was louder and followed by discordant shuffling. This time, he was sure that someone or something sneezed. He looked around the room and to his shock, one of the corpses on the iron beds, seemed alive. It wriggling and turning since the body was wrapped in a tarp and belted down to the bed. He slowly walked to the wriggling corpse and checked the tag on the bed and it showed that it was a 16 year old girl who died as a result of suicide and the body was brought in hours ago

With confusion and fear set in him, the man clad in an overall quickly scurried out of the room and the body was wriggling with more force. He ran to get a doctor at the other side of the morgue.

They both ran to the room and at this point, the body had somehow unwrapped itself off the tarp from only the head to the stomach, revealing the young girl who was breathing heavily and sweat was filled all over her body.

"Where am I? Did I die? Can you please get me out of this tarp? Maybe put me in some clothes? Please?" Her voice was soft and hoarse, cracked to say the least. The doctor and mortician were astonished. Never in their entire lives had they seen nor encountered  such a thing.

The girl started to take control of her limbs, she dragged them sluggishly from under the belted tarp and after a few minutes, she managed to drag our her arms and uses them to cover her bare chest. The two men still too stunned to move.

"Please can you get me out of this? I really need to see my parents!" She screamed at them one last time. And at that moment, the doctor unbuckled the belts and removed the tarp. Immediately, she almost fell from the bed since she was her body was still limp and numb. The doctor held her and quickly asked the mortician to bring in a hospital gown from his office. The doctor still held on to her as her breaths became steady.

In a few minutes, the mortician came back and gave the doctor the hospital gown and he quickly wore it on her. Her breathing was heavy but she could still sustain herself. 

"Call Nurse Madukwe and Nurse Osinachi, tell them to report to the morgue with a stretcher and oxygen mask and tank now!" The doctor yelled. The poor mortician fumbled with the phone and did exactly what he was told by the doctor.

The nurses rushed into the morgue and to their own astonishment saw the girl that was brought in dead this morning sitting down and breathing?

"Well don't just stand there, carry her on the stretcher and fix the oxygen mask on her now!" The girl's head was beginning to ache from all the shouting. Her body was still heavy as she struggled to carry herself, but the nurses whisked her onto the stretcher. The whole hospital was in a state of pandemonium.

The news of the girl coming back to life spread like wild fire. Patients(those who could walk or move), visitors, doctors, nurses and so much more came out to see the girl. No one had ever seen or heard such a thing and even if it was heard, it only seemed like a tale, not something that one would witness or experience.

"Call...my...parents...please." She mustered. The noise, the rush, the panic was overwhelming. But one thing was sure, she was grateful, grateful for another chance. In the midst of all, she was happy to be back, she was happy for her sister, she was happy for Efe and she was happy for her parents.

As she was taken to the emergency room, she remembered all that Anna told her, knowing fully well that what she saw was not a dream. It was real and even if it may take time to do all that her sister said, she knew that, she would be happy. And happy she would be.