The room was dark and cold. I sat shivering in the corner. I did not know what was happening.
A couple minutes ago, I had been lying in bed when she heard shouting. Her conscious had faded in and out a few times. She remembered flashing red, blood, screaming, and stars circling on the ceiling. She recalled a nurse putting a mask on my face, and then more shouting. Then sobs. Then everything was black.
Now I was in this room, cold and shivering.
The room wasn’t really that cold. It had a somewhat neutral temperature. But I could not stop shivering. Maybe it wasn’t because of the cold.
There was a knock on the door. I froze as the door opened.
Standing there was a small girl, about six or seven years old. She giggled at me. The girl walked over and took my hand. She was gentle, but firm.
“Come on,” she said.
We went through the door and walked through a number of dark corridors. They were lit by metal torches hanging from the ceiling. The small girl, whose name was Abigail (she had told me countless times) was chitterling away at no end.
“Ted said I could do it just this time. Just this one time. He said that if I didn’t do it right, he’d rip my skin off. But I think I’m doing fine. Just fine. What do you think? Well of course you don’t know because you’re the newest one. That’s what Ted said. He told me everything. And I said, ‘Absolutely! I will do just what you ask, Ted!; And look at ne: doing everything right!”
I looked at Abigail strangely. “Aren’t you scared?”
Now she was the one to look at me strangely. “Why would I be?”
I looked around. “Well, we’re in a weird corridor and could easily get lost. There’s no food or water. You’ve obviously been wandering around here for ages and have invented an imaginary character named Ted.”
“Ted is NOT imaginary!” Abigail shouted. She stomped her foot. “He’s real and he sent me to get you. And I have NOT been wandering around for ages. I know the way.”
And with that, she turned from me and went on her way. I followed her but from a safe distance. At last, we came to a small white door. It just brushed the top of Abigail’s head and I had to crawl through.
I gazed up at what was before me. There were so much people. That was the first thing I noticed. It wasn’t crowded but there was so many people. All different ages. Some were babies with young women nursing them. Others were toddlers running around screaming after one another and playing their childish games. Most of all there were elderly people. Everywhere you looked, there were hundreds of elderly people.
The second thing I noticed is that there was no sun. Light was coming from everywhere. It was not a bright light that you needed to shade your eyes, but not too dark that you needed to squint for more light.
The third I noticed is where we were. About three hundred or so people were in a glass dome. I knew it really wasn’t glass but what else is clear and shiny? There were thousands of glass domes. Millions, as far as the eye could see were glass domes with around three or four hundred people in them. Golden gateways connected the domes, and on top of all of the domes was a glass path that could take you far distances from dome to dome. There was a ladder on every dome.
Abigail took my hand again, turned left, and took me along three rows of domes, then we went down into the field of domes. We passed about three of them and then she stopped at a really big one. REGISTRATION was written in black marker on the gateway. Abigail took me in.
Right behind the gateway was a boy of about fifteen years old. He was shuffling some papers. Behind him was about thirty shelves with papers stacked all over the place. Abigail marched in proudly and cleared her throat.
The boy didn’t look up. “Papers,” he grunted.
“Ted!” Abigail cried.
Ted looked up and smiled. “So you got her here alive, huh? Good job, Abby.”
Abigail grinned from ear to ear. “Do I get my reward?”
Ted sighed, and then grinned. He tossed her a chocolate coin. He looked at me, pulled out a pencil, and a fresh sheet of paper. “Name?”
“Lily,” I answered. He scribbled it down.
“Age?”
“Eleven.” Scratching on the paper.
“Gender?”
I looked at him. “Female.” Ted chuckled as he wrote it down.
“You’re all set,” he said. “Please enjoy your stay.”
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” I asked furiously.
“Abby!” Ted exclaimed as he glared at the small girl. “You didn’t tell her?” He turned back to me. “Sorry to break it to you, sweetheart, but you’re dead.”
My mouth fell open, even though I was not surprised.
“It happens to everyone,” Ted said as he brushed his hand away as if it was no big deal. “Get over it.”
“What happened to me?”
“Well, most people die from old age which explains all the elderly people here, but you were special. Extraordinary. You were stabbed in the neck by an extremely sharp knife carried by your mother. An accident, of course, but nevertheless death.”
My hand flew to my neck and I did feel a small indentation just below my chin. Tears began to well up in my eyes. I missed my parents. But then I saw Ted’s grin and Abigail’s sheepish look and I thought, Even if it takes me a million years, I know I’m going to get used to this place.
So I walked with Abigail off into the Land of the Glass Domes, my new home.