Afterlife Academy

by Admans, Jaimie

  The computers are different here. If I thought the computers in our school were old and clunky, then these are almost fossilised. They run an operating system that I’ve never heard of. It’s probably a Death-World-only thing.

  Eventually the computer boots up and I open the Internet browser to log in to my email account. I type in the address but all I get is a “Cannot Find Server” notice. I try a different one and I get the same thing. Damn it. I try Google. Again it says that it can’t find the server.

  This is bloody ridiculous.

  I look at the desktop of the computer and find the Outlook client. I have to try contacting Wade. I open it up and start a new email. It won’t have my name on it, but I’ll have to tell him where I am and explain how wonky things are here.

  As soon as I start typing, I realise I have no idea what to type. How do you tell someone that you’re dead and stuck in a school that looks just like your own but is actually for dead people?

  Instead I just type a quick note.

  Wade,

  I know you won’t believe me, but it’s Riley. Some really weird things have happened and I can’t explain it now. Please just let me know that you’re okay and that you get this email. I’ll write again soon.

  Miss you and love you, babe.

  R.

  .xxx.

  I type in his address and hit send.

  Before I’ve even had a chance to read the error message that pops up, the librarian is standing right behind me.

  “Miss Richardson, that’s a prohibited address.”

  I’m startled by how quickly she can move. She was behind the desk across the room not three seconds ago. I spin around to look at her.

  “How do you know my name?”

  But she doesn’t answer my question.

  How does she even know who I’m sending email to?

  “I know you’re new here,” she continues, “so maybe there are some rules that we need to go over. Contact with the living is strictly forbidden.”

  “How did you even know?”

  Again she ignores my question.

  “I understand that it must be hard to adjust, but you have to stick to the rules.”

  “Why can’t I get into my own email then?” I ask her. “How come even Google isn’t recognised?”

  “This is our Internet, Riley,” she says, sounding slightly kinder now. “Our Internet is different from the one you are used to. Websites created by the living world aren’t available here.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “So please, no more attempts to email the living. They are not a part of this world and contact with them could cause serious consequences for everyone.”

  I sigh.

  “Fine,” I mutter. “It’s not like I can get through anyway.”

  “No, you can’t. Now, is there anything else you wanted the computer for?”

  I glance at it like it holds the answer.

  “I’d like to do a bit of research for school work,” I lie. “Does this world have a search engine I can use?”

  She leans over and types in the address and then before I’ve finished blinking, she’s back behind the main desk halfway across the room.

  This place is creepy. You can’t even type an email without people breathing down your neck. If they even breathe. God, I hadn’t thought of that. Breathing, I mean. I concentrate hard and realise that I am still doing it. Do I need to? Is it just out of habit or do I really need air? It’s not like I can die if I hold my breath for long enough, is it?

  I turn my attention back to the search engine on the screen in front of me. I type in Afterlife Academy and press the search button.

  I don’t really know what I’m looking for, so I click through a few results. Mainly official-looking rules and regulations signed by Mrs Carbonell.

  I add the word escape to my search, hoping that the bloody librarian isn’t watching that as well.

  That’s when I find something in the results. It’s a forum, and I click on the thread called “Anyone found it yet?”

  I scroll through it. There are hundreds of posts. They all must be from students here. And judging by the comments, this thread has been found and shut down by “officials” a few times but it keeps popping back up.

  The gist is that there is a way out. An exit. No one seems to have found it yet, but one person writes, “Someone disappeared yesterday. Maybe they found it.” There are a hundred questions: How do we know it exists if no one has found it? Where does it exit to? And the obvious one: Where is it?

  There are no concrete answers. The posters seem to know that there is an exit but nothing more. Nothing important.

  But surely if this thread has been closed down, then it must mean there’s something to it. No one would care about a forum thread if there wasn’t an exit to find.

  That’s good enough for me. I can’t stay here, no matter what. If there’s even a chance that I can get out, I have to find it.

  I’m lying in bed that night, thinking about everything that has happened. I’m thinking about Wade. Holding my rose necklace in my hand, like I usually do when we’re apart. Holding it makes me feel slightly less alone. Almost like I could pick up the phone and call him, there would be a signal, and he would pick up like normal. Not like this, where his name is blocked out and I can’t even send him a bloody email.

  The acrylic rose feels warm in my hand and I squeeze it even tighter. It connects me to Wade even though he’s not here, and it—

  Oh my god, that’s it! It connects me to Wade. That’s why the rose is still pink. That’s why my hair is still my own colour. I’m still connected to Wade. Clearly our love is too strong a bond to be broken. Our love defies boundaries. I must still be in touch with the living world. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for me to fit in here.

  And if I’m still connected to the living world, then the living world must still be connected to me.

  I concentrate really hard on Wade. If we’re still connected then he should be able to feel me. He must know. He has to know.

  It’s all starting to make sense now. Wade can feel me. We’re still connected. Afterlife Academy hasn’t worked its grey magic on me yet because I still have a connection to the living world.

  He knows I’m not really dead.

  He’s going to come and rescue me.

  I’m sure he is.

  That would be a totally Wade thing to do. Rescue a girl, I mean. He’s a total hero. Rescuing people is right up his street. Okay, in a way, it’s his fault that I’m here in the first place, but it’s not like he intended it to happen. But it doesn’t matter now because he’s going to make it right. He knows where I am and he’s coming to help me.

  I just don’t know when.

  I concentrate even harder. I’m trying to send a subliminal message to him, and half expecting a teacher to burst in any moment and forbid me from communicating with the living.

  But no one comes.

  The only sound I can hear is Caydi snoring lightly in the top bunk.

  I try to get the words Afterlife Academy through to Wade. After all, if he’s coming to rescue me then he has to know where to come. I’m sure he’ll understand the message because Wade is surprisingly cleverer than he looks and what his grades say, but that’s beside the point. He can look up Afterlife Academy on the Internet and find out about it. He might be able to locate the way in and out without even coming here. Maybe he can telepathically communicate to me where the way out is. Or, more likely, he will come here, ride in on a white horse, which is much more Wade’s style, although possibly without the horse as I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have one, but he could always borrow one. Anyway, the point is, Wade is very good at being the knight in shining armour. He can ride in, snatch me away, and we’ll go home together.

  My parents will be so happy that he effectively brought me back from the dead, they’ll instantly like him forever and ever.

  Although I doubt my dad would ever let me get in a car with him again.<
br />
  I wonder how Wade is. I mean, it’s all very well and good thinking he might rescue me, but what if he’s hurt too? I have no idea how badly he got out of the accident. He could be seriously injured. An accident that killed two people couldn’t have been a walk in the park for the other person either.

  Poor Wade.

  It’s okay for me, being dead and all. I don’t have to recover from my injuries. Mine were just gone. I don’t even know what killed me. Whatever my injuries were, they vanished when I got here. I guess death is like the fastest healing process in the world. Anthony’s too. I saw Anthony’s head crack open on the windshield with my own eyes. God, Anthony’s blood splattered on me through the passenger window, and he’s perfectly fine now. He was perfectly fine the moment we arrived. I mean, he was dead, but uninjured. Unless you could class being dead as an injury in itself.

  But poor Wade must be hurt. Maybe badly.

  I guess I’ll just have to be patient in waiting for him.

  The important part is that I know he knows I’m still alive and I know he’s going to come and rescue me.

  I just don’t know when. But that’s okay. The main thing is that I know he’s coming. It doesn’t matter when as long as he does.

  I just wish I had some kind of sign that he got my subliminal messages. Wade isn’t exactly overly attentive when it comes to listening.

  Caydi is not very impressed with my plan when I tell her the next morning. She doesn’t believe some “silly plastic necklace” can really be a line of communication with the living, but it is. I know it is. I don’t think the object is as important as the connection that comes with it. The necklace just happens to be something Wade gave me. It could have been anything. It could have been a book or an MP3 player. It could have been a piece of paper. It just has to have been something that was important between us when I was alive. I used to hold the necklace in my hand when Wade had gone home or when my parents forced me to stay in and do GCSE coursework rather than go out with him. I would stroke my fingers over the pink acrylic and it would make me feel better.

  CHAPTER 10

  I head down to the canteen for breakfast. If I can eat whatever I want and not get fat then I fully intend to make the most of it. I might not be here long, depending on how long Wade’s injuries take to heal. Our first Visualisation class is this afternoon, and I’m really hoping I might get the chance to see him, just so I know he’s okay. Maybe he will feel me watching him and our connection will be even stronger. And knowing how severe his injuries are might give me a timeline, just so I know how long it will be before he has a chance to rescue me.

  The canteen is as gloomy as it was yesterday. Grey, everywhere. The only flash of colour is the red horns on the demon woman’s forehead and my reflection in the windows.

  Nobody so much as looks at me as I walk in. I’m not used to being ignored like this, although it doesn’t feel like a bad thing now.

  I can’t believe I’m glad to fade into the background.

  But that’s the thing about Afterlife Academy. Everything fades into the background. Everything except the girl with skin-coloured skin, highlighted hair and a pink necklace.

  Here, I am the one that stands out. I am the one who looks different.

  Much like that kid with red hair and freckles who started at our school last year. Soph and I picked on him because he stood out. It’s not that I didn’t care about all those times he went to cry in the toilets. It’s really not. But people thought we were hilarious when we pointed at him and said funny things, so we kept doing it. And if people laughed at us, then it meant they liked us. Somehow it was more important to be liked than to be nice to nervous new kids.

  I’m beginning to reconsider that.

  The tall girl who was in front of me in the queue yesterday is sitting at one of the tables just inside the door with a gang of her mates and when I walk in, she bangs the table for attention. When everyone is looking at her, she points over at me and says, “Oh look, it’s Little Miss Prissy,” at the top of her voice.

  Everyone stares at me.

  “Screw you,” I tell the girl.

  If I know one thing, it’s that showing the bullies they don’t bother you is the best approach. I know that making fun of someone is only fun for as long as it bothers them. Especially new kids. Once they make friends and get a bit more sure of themselves, they laugh off anything you say to them and you move on to someone else.

  “You think you’re better than us,” the girl responds.

  “No, I don’t,” I snap.

  “Yes you do. Always prancing around and flipping your pretty hair, trying to make us jealous.”

  “I’m not,” I protest. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to stand out and be different from everyone else, it’s just the way I am. It’s not something I can change.”

  I suddenly get a vivid flashback of the red-haired Year Seven saying exactly the same thing to me and Sophie.

  “Why don’t you just sod off back to where you came from, then?” she asks. “It’s obvious you don’t want to be here.”

  “Okay, who does want to be here?” I ask, trying to keep a lid on my temper. “Being here means you died. Who wants that? Who wants to leave their friends and family behind?”

  “Some of us do, actually,” she snaps. “Some of us chose to be here and we don’t like stuck-up little cows like you coming in and thinking you’re too good for this place. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to some of us, so why don’t just shut your trap, Blondie?”

  I try to respond to that but really, what is there to say?

  It hadn’t even crossed my mind that some of the people here may have committed suicide.

  I go to walk away. I can rise above this and not get into some stupid little argument in the cafeteria with a girl who can’t even thank the woman who serves her food.

  As I walk past her, she pulls the old trick of sticking her foot out and tripping me up.

  It works.

  I go flying. I trip right over and land flat on the floor, smacking my chin on the rough tiles hard enough to rattle a few teeth. Ouch.

  My bag has slid out in front of me and hit someone else’s feet.

  Oh God. I can’t believe this is happening. This is the sort of thing I do to other people, not have done to me. I never thought about how embarrassing it is before. Or how much it hurts.

  I try to pull myself to my feet and am surprised when someone holds a hand out and helps me up.

  It’s Clare. It was her feet that my bag hit.

  “Ignore her, Riley,” she says as I stand myself upright and brush my clothes off. “She’s just jealous.”

  “Oh yeah, right,” the girl pipes up. “Jealous of that bitch?”

  “Shut up, Gloria,” Clare tells her.

  And there was me thinking Clare hated me.

  “Thanks,” I mumble to her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says and she pats me on the shoulder as she brushes past.

  “You had better stay away from me, Little Miss Prom Queen,” Gloria growls as I walk away.

  I’m walking with my head down and my hair over my face because tears have sprung to my eyes and I’m so embarrassed my face must be completely flaming red and my knees and chin are throbbing.

  I go and lock myself in a cubicle in the toilets.

  I swear to God that if I ever get back home, I will never ever pick on people again.

  I can’t believe how much it hurts.

  Tears are pouring down my face as I sit on the closed toilet lid with my head in my hands.

  Karma really is a bitch.

  I can’t believe this is happening to me. How can I have gone from being me to being the person that I pick on?

  CHAPTER 11

  I don’t know how much later it is when there’s a knock on the stall door.

  I ignore it.

  “Come on, Riley,” a voice says gently. “Everyone’s gone now.”

  It’s the horn
ed dinner lady. I realise that I don’t even know her name. I can’t keep calling her “horned woman”, can I?

  I scrub my hands over my face again and gingerly pull the door open.

  “Hey.” She smiles at me. “Everyone’s gone to class. Will you come and have some breakfast with me?”

  “Okay,” I mumble. It beats sitting on my own in the cold toilet for another hour. I pull myself up and quickly wash my face at the hand basin, then follow the woman out of the room.

  “What’s your name?” I ask her as we walk back towards the canteen.

  “Narcissa,” she says. “But don’t go telling people that. I’m scarier if I don’t have a name.”

  “Are you supposed to be scary, then?” I ask.

  “It’s preferable,” she says. “I would rather be scary than disrespected.”

  “But people are still cruel to you,” I say. “I saw that girl—Gloria—being horrible to you.”

  “Gloria is horrible to everyone,” Narcissa says. “Don’t pay any attention to her. Kids will always be cruel because I look different, but they know that if I tell them to do something, they do it. They’re afraid they’re going to get roasted with fire breath if they don’t.”

  I laugh. “Well, you seem utterly unscary to me, but don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word of it.”

  Narcissa smiles. “Come on, I’ll show you my secret. I know you want to find out.”

  “What? How you run this place all by yourself? Yeah, kind of. In my old school there are like twelve people in the kitchen and here there’s just you.”

  “But I have a secret weapon,” she says.

  I follow her around behind the counter and am rather surprised to see a staircase. We go down into what must be a basement under the canteen. But it doesn’t look like a basement. It’s bright and white and open-plan.