Chapter 21: Death Blow

  Numb and dazed, Lily was sprawled on the muddy ground of the now silent, abandoned construction site. Her body rang with pain as her senses returned to her. The last thing she remembered was her vision going white, enveloped by that truck's headlights. Then an impact that had sent her flying sideways.

  Lily looked to her left, her body aching from even this small movement. The truck was stopped inches away on one side of her. Her eyes then moved to the spot where she had stood mere moments before.

  A gut wrenching scream of horror filled the night air as Lily saw Eve, lying prone and unmoving, her body partly wedged underneath one of the trucks wheels. At the last possible second she had managed to push Lily clear out of the truck’s path before she was hit, but consequently in doing so, Eve put herself directly in it’s line of fire instead.

  “Eve...” Lily gasped, as she made an agonising crawl towards her friend, hoping that maybe, it was a hallucination, or she was in a nightmare or... anything that would make the reality in front of her untrue.

  Lily heard the truck’s engine still rumbling gently, its hum reverberating though the ground as it slowly reversed off Eve's broken form. Once it was fully off Eve, the truck came to a halt behind her, seeming to act like a cat in front of a mouse it had gutted, proudly displaying it’s handiwork.

  This however, had not been Wheeler’s intent. He’d backed up off of Eve’s body not to taunt Eve or Lily, but to try and allow Eve's friend the space to say goodbye.

  Now he was watching the consequences of his missions success play out in front of him. He could sense Lily’s pain, radiating from her every expression and motion.

  “That was a little close. I can’t believe you almost ran over the wrong person, that would have been disastrous.” Abeona chimed in, “But you managed to hit the target without any collateral damage, so...”

  “Shhh.” Wheeler hushed the goddess, cutting her off mid sentence. "Show some respect for the dead.”

  “Sorry I got a bit carried away. It’s just can’t quite believe we finally got her.” Abeona admitted quietly. “Although technically, she’s not actually dead yet.”

  Abeona’s charm pointed to Wheeler’s dashboard display, where Eve’s lifeline was still emitting a small pulse. She still was barely clinging to life.

  “She’s not got long, I better go and prepare for her arrival in the afterlife.” With that, Abeona went silent and her charm went motionless, leaving Wheeler alone to watch the aftermath of their grim sucess.

  Back outside the truck, Lily had reached Eve and was assessing the damage she’d taken. Eve’s tracksuit was covered in dark moist stains. Lily wasn’t able to work out how much of them were dirt and how much was blood. Eve’s limbs were all twisted at unnatural looking angles.

  In her head, Lily was urgently trying to figure out what to do. In a situation like this, was it best to put someone in the recovery position, or were you meant not to move them at all?

  “Wait. Pulse!” Lily quickly reached for one of Eve’s wrists. As she pressed her thumb down on the limply hanging wrist, she found Eve’s weak, barely perceptible pulse. It was faint, but it was there.

  Lily fumbled around her pyjamas, her heart sinking as she realised her phone was sitting at home on her night stand. She then heard the trilling of an alarm from Eve’s tracksuit pocket.

  The sound led Lily to Eve’s phone. Taking great care to not aggravate her friends injuries, she removed the device from Eve’s pocket and inspected it to check if it was usable.

  The phone screen had a deep crack in it’s screen protector, but thankfully was otherwise undamaged and functional. The screen showed an alarm displaying the somewhat ironic message of “Training over.”

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  Lily focused on getting help for Eve as soon as possible, quickly dismissed the alert. She then began keying in the emergency services number. She didn’t know Eve’s pin code but fortunately a pin code wasn’t required for emergency calls.

  Trembling, Lily took a deep breath, composing herself for the call as the phone started connecting her to an emergency services operator. She had to stay strong for Eve. Lily knew if Eve had any hope of survival, Lily would have to make sure the emergency services got all the information they would need clearly and efficiently.

  As Lily made the call, Eve slowly began to regain some semblance of consciousness. She couldn’t see anything, but she could just about hear snippets of Lily’s voice fading in and out as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

  “Ambulance, friend, hit by a truck, hurry.”

  Eve couldn’t move, no matter how she tried not a single muscle would respond, she couldn’t even twitch her finger. Eve had been completely disconnected from control of her own body. She was experiencing the world from a distance, with every sensation muted, uncomfortably numb from the paralysis that had seized her.

  She could feel warmth seeping out of her. From where? seemingly from everywhere. Every nerve rang like a a silent alarm, telling her that something was deeply wrong with her body... why was she so tired?

  From Lily’s words, one had stood out... “Truck”. That was right... there was a truck... it had been heading for... for... LILY?!

  “LILY!” Eve’s internal voice called out as loud as it could. The damage to Eve’s body allowed only the faintest gasp to escape.

  “Li... Li... Li...” The syllables evaporated into the cool night air as Eve strained her shattered vocal chords.

  “EVE? I’m right here, thank goodness you’re alive.” Lily had finished her call, just in time to have heard Eve’s tiny whimpers.

  Eve couldn’t see her, she couldn’t see anything at all. In that moment, all she needed confirmation Lily, her Bestie, was safe. “ar.... u... kay?” she croaked weakly, unable to fully form her words.

  “Yes I’m fine, thanks to you, just a few bruises.” Lily reassured her. She gently squeezed Eve’s hand, but Eve was unable to feel it. Lily explained the situation to Eve as simply as she could. “That truck hit you. An ambulance is on it’s way, please, just hang in there.”

  Lily was safe, that was a relief. Knowing that, Eve felt she could finally rest.

  “No no no, Eve, please stay with me.” Begged Lily. “Stay with me.”

  “I’m exhausted... just a little nap,” Eve thought as she drifted away.

  “No Eve! Please, wake up. The ambulance is almost...” Lily’s distant voice cried before fading out. She had sounded so sad... But that quickly vanished from Eve’s mind, along with everything else as she fell into a deep sleep.

  What seemed like moments later, Eve snapped awake, finding herself in a white room. Bright light pulsated from every surface. Eve, once more able to see and move, carefully picked herself up off the floor, wondering where she was.

  Eve noticed a female figure with rust coloured hair standing a few feet in front of her, dressed in an ill fitting white suit. It definitely wasn’t Lily... maybe it was a doctor?

  Before Eve could utter a word, the woman introduced herself, extending out her hand.

  “Welcome Eve Adenson. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Eve blinked in confusion, trying to work out what the hell was going on. As she instinctively reached out to shake hands, Eve noticed her own hand was ghostly pale and translucent.

  A million and one questions raced through her mind at once. “What’s going on? Who even are you? Where am I? Where is Lily?” Eve asked in rapid, quick-fire succession.

  “Dealing with your last question first,” The strange, unkempt woman shook Eve’s hand, before clearing her throat with a sharp, theatrical cough.

  “I can assure you, your friend Lily is perfectly safe and fine.” The stranger reassured Eve, before her voice shifted to a less confident tone. “Well, she’s physically fine, at least. But she’s obviously quite upset because of what happened to you.”

  “What happened to me? Wait... I was hit by that truck, wasn’t I?” Eve staggered backwards as the realisation struck her harder than the truck had. A final, dreaded, query came to mind. One that even the normally oblivious and evasive Eve was unable to avoid, as much as she wished to.

  “Am I...?” Eve gulped before hesitating. While she didn’t want confirmation of her suspicions, part of her knew she needed to hear it.

  “Yes, you have been transported to the afterlife.” The woman confirmed. “I am Abeona, the goddess of outward journeys.”

  “By transported to the afterlife, you mean I’m...” Eve pushed.

  Abeona gave a deep sigh, “Yes, sorry to say Miss, but you... are dead”.

  “I’m... dead?” Eve gasped in shock. Before Eve could fully process that revelation, Abeona gave a sharp, distracting clap.

  “Yes, now with the bad news out of the way, time for the good news.” Abeona beamed.

  “I’m still dealing with the bad news right now,” Eve muttered despondently, collapsing back to the floor, weeping into her translucent hands. “My life is over.”

  Abeona moved to give Eve a gentle, reassuring pat on the head in an effort to comfort her. “Don’t think of this as an ending. In fact, for you, Eve Adenson, it’s about to be the start of an incredible new beginning.”