The Life You Lived

1 year had past, in the human world. My mom, and my little brother, were a year older. Time passed a lot faster in the human world, than it did in the afterlife. My mom was sitting in the living room, staring at a memorial that was in the house. In the picture, I had a smile on my face, and I was a good bit younger.

My mom had rings around her eyes, and she seems to have lost a bit of weight. While she stared at the picture of me, she looks as though she had a deep emptiness within her heart. "I should've stopped him from walking out the house..maybe if I didn't pressure him into telling me what was going on with him, he would've never..never.." My mom starts to choke over her words, while her eyes start to water, heavily.

Quickly, her husband, and my little brother rush beside her, while she covers her face with her hands and sobs into them. "It is not your fault..for a year you've been blaming yourself for this, but you have to remember that he chose to walk out the house..And it's so unfortunate that he did. But we're gonna have to move on.." Her husband spoke to her, as she removed her hands away from her face, and looked into the photo of me.

My little brother on the other hand, looked saddened as well, as he watched the state of my mother, along with the picture of me.

Meanwhile, in the memory world that I was in. Realizing what I had to do, along with the pressure that was mixed with it, made me become uneasy and frustrated. "Why can't you just take me to the afterworld right now?! Why do I have to come to terms with my life or whatever bullshit that is? How come I don't have to find meaning in it, but I do have to come to terms with it? This seems like a load of shit!" I turned around and faced Heasa, as I yelled all of those words, angrily.

Heasa stared at me for a second, before moving her hands around, in a majestic motion. She shut her eyes, and looked extremely focus. This made me look at her with confusion. "What are you doing?" I ask her, though she continues to make these hand gestures.

Afterwards, a door opened. The door was a very plain wooden door, that stood on top of the grass next to me. "As a guardian angel, I can open doors for you..this door, would be the door to the afterworld, or reincarnation. Depending on what I choose for you. Now, since I'm breaking the rules, I would choose the door to the afterlife. But, if you don't come to terms with your life, this door will be a one way ticket into you becoming a lost soul. It wouldn't matter which door I manifested. So you see? I can open a afterworld door, or a reincarnation door. But if your heart isn't in the right place, you'll become a lost soul. You'll drift off into the human world, where you'll be alone for eternity. The only reason I will open the afterworld door for you, despite if you find meaning in your life or not, is because you're doing the gods a huge favor. Otherwise, they'd be mad at me. The stakes are very high here. Unfortunately, I can't force you to come to terms with the life that you lived, which makes it hard being a guardian angel at times. When someone becomes a lost soul, the guardian angel that watched over them, would be assigned to a new person. Some guardian angels continue to end up with lost souls, over and over again. So coming to terms with your life is the most important thing. Okay Tsuki?" Heasa, my guardian angel explained to me, while I occasionally glanced at the door that was next to me. All of what she said made sense, but it was also a lot to process. If I walk through that door, I'll become a lost so. Well, that's if I haven't come to terms with my life yet. But I'm sure I know whether or not I did or didn't..

"Can you tell when I come to terms with my life, just like if I found it meaninful?" I ask my guardian angel, and she shakes her head in response. "I can only sense if you found your life meaningful, if you answer if you thought it was or not. And I'll open the door for that, despite your answer. Since I'll be able to tell what's in your soul from that answer. Though I don't ask if you came to terms with your life, because there's no way for me to know if you did or not. Which is why you mustn't lie to yourself about it. I want to open a door for you that won't lead to you becoming a lost soul, but I'd only be able to do that if you're truthful. Because people can believe they lived a meaninful life, without coming to terms with the life that they lived. Understanding that they died, and realizing that it's over. So even if you find it meaningful, if you don't come to terms with it, you'll become a lost soul. I'm explaining this a lot, because I want you to understand how serious this is.." Heasa explains to me once more. I take in everything that she says, and understands it. Coming to terms with the life I lived is the only important thing here. Since she's going to take me to the afterworld anyways.

"Okay," I respond, as I turn to face her. "I'm ready.."

In the middle of a festival, it was snowing, and Suruyu was laying in the middle of the festival. She was unconscious, and seemed pretty shaken up. "Wake up! Goodness!" Heasu yelled into her ear, as he tried to vigorously shake her over and over again.

Suruyu started to moan and groan a bit, as her consciousness slowly started to be regained. She flickered her eyes opened, and looked around the festival with blurry vision. There were a lot of warm colors, people dressed in kimonos, concession stands, and games where you can win prizes. "Finally you're up! Jesus I thought you died!" Heasu yelled, as Suruyu slowly sat up, while rubbing the top of her head while groaning.

Once she stops, she starts to look around, and slowly stand up while focusing on her surroundings. "I remember this day.." She mumbled while looking around in awe. "Where is Tsuki?" She questions Heasu, while looking over at me.

Heasu looked off to the side, with a guilty expression. "I don't know..after everything happened, Heasa jumped into the water to save him. Then I tried to save you, but it was harder to find you. By the time I found you and pulled you up, we were here." Heasu responded to Suruyu, while she stared at the ground a bit.

"I would ask you what's the deal with him, or why you seem to hate him, but I do think we have much more serious things to worry about. Like you not becoming a lost soul, and being taken by the god of souls. He tried to take you, why didn't you stop him?" Heasu explains, while Suruyu looks a bit more saddened.

"What's the point..?" She questions, while still looking down. Around her, a younger version of herself, and her bestfriend Tsuki at the time, were running around and playing. "I'm not like Tsuki..I'm not going to come to terms with some crappy life that I lived. A life full of being a coward. Being afraid. Not being able to grow a back bone..you see, I always wanted to help Tsuki." She says, before she starts walking down the sidewalk of the festival. Heasu follows behind, when the world around her starts to shift. As she walked through, she grew older, and older. "I saw that he was in trouble, and I really wanted to help..but it seemed like the closer I got, the more he pushed me away. I grew scared to help anyone because of that. I thought they would lash out, or leave me just like he did. Am I cowardice because of that? Yes..but I still wanted to help people, it's something that my mom taught me when I was younger. I could help strangers, but I just couldn't work up the courage to help my friends. Despite my love for them. Because I thought, that my help would push them

Away..." As she spoke, the memories of every friend that was in trouble, appeared. She seemed to have ignored, or try to act like it never happened. Her friend that was in the restaurant with her, being dragged by her mom then moved schools. They were all forced to say goodbye, and leave eachother on a sour note.

"I'm so selfish.." Suruyu says with a saddened chuckled, as she started to tear up. "Being afraid of being abandoned, rather than being there for my friends. Being there when they needed me. That's why I don't want to do whatever deal Tsuki was talking about. Helping him save the afterworld or whatever, so that I could go back. Because I don't want to go back. After world, reincarnation. Hell, even becoming a lost soul, something I probably deserve. It's all better than going back to a life that I hated myself in. So in a way, I'm coming  to terms with my life. It was trashy, and I wasn't a good human being. The one life that I lived, I screwed up, and there's no going back.." Suruyu explained, coming to the realization about herself. Heasu, her guardian angel suddenly started to smile a bit, though Suruyu seemed unhappy. "Coming to terms with the life that you lived, doesn't mean you have to be happy with the life that you lived." She adds, before everything faded out, and she returned back to the noisy festival.

Heasu, continued to smile. "You did it..you came to terms with your life..whether you're happy about it or not, is one thing. And you're correct, you don't have to be happy about it. But, you can live a new one. So I have a question for you." Heasu says to her, causing her to turn around, and look over at him. Heasu pauses for a second, before speaking again. "Do you think you lived a meaningful life?" He questions, with the same smile.

Suruyu stares at him for a bit, before turning her entire body in his direction. She started to think about me, and what I was doing. And how I was doing as well. "No..I don't think I did.." She responds to him. The moment she did, he did similar hand gestures as Heasa. Suruyu backed away a bit, while she watched the shiny particles move around the space infront of her.

After Heasu finished, a shiny door appeared before Suruyu. "This is it kid. it's been nice knowing you." Heasu says with the smile, while Suruyu stares at the door. While she stares, she thinks about my words in the restaurant that we were at. How I wanted her to help me save the afterworld, so we go back to ourselves.

"Suruyu!" I call out to her in the distance next to her. She immediately turns her head, and looks at me. I stare at her, knowing that she was about to go through with reincarnation or the afterworld. I hoped it was the afterworld, where she'd be able to return to her former self. "Heasu, you're alive!" Heasa yells, excitedly.

I started to run over towards her, while she watched me. "Are you going to the afterword?" I asked, as I stood in front of her. She stared at me for a second. She looked me directly in the eyes, once she responded. "No..I don't find my life meaningful, so I'm being reincarnated." She responds back to me.

Her response made me feel confused, but also upset. "What, why? Just ask your guardian angel to open up the afterworld door for you. Just like Heasa is doing for me...help me, and go back.."  I urge her, before she takes a deep sigh, and faces the door.

Suruyu then grabs the door knob, and stares at the door with a sad-mad expression, once again. "Stop! Come on!" I yell as I move closer to Suruyu, and grab her arm to prevent her from being reincarnated. Heasa and Heasu looked around with awkwardness.

"Let me go!" Suruyu screamed as she pushed my hand away, and slapped me directly in the face. She had tears in her eyes, and clenched teeth, as she stared at me with ferociousness. I turned my head, to look at her with guilt. "You don't get to come back into my life, and control me! Don't you understand that?! WE ARE DEAD! You had your chance to care about me, and care about what I did, when we were still alive. You left me, and that's once thing. But you leave me, then try to control my actions?! I tried to help you, but you pushed me further and further away! Don't you understand how that messed me up? Growing up to believe that I have to help people that I love. I was so scared to even try to help people because of you! Soul mates or whatever, leave me alone.." Suruyu screamed at me, with violent tears in her eyes. I could see the sadness and anger that she was feeling, and it seemed like she's been bottling it up for all this time.

"That's why I want you to come back! So we can fucking start over, so I can not be such a big piece of shit my entire life!" I screamed back at Suruyu with built up frustration. Heasa and Heasu looked at eachother with confusion, while Suruyu stared at me in shock. "I want to make up for something, and not just live a life where I did absolutely nothing good for anyone! So excuse me for trying. You understand how much it would suck to live a life where you didn't leave any good impact?  But instead, you did the opposite? I know you do, otherwise you wouldn't have the reincarnation door. So come back with me." I say, before holding my hand out to her. It was the most emotion that I've felt in a long time. I felt sadness in there, anger, and so much guilt.

"So that's what it is, huh?" Suruyu said quietly while looking down at the ground. She then turned to look at me. "It's about what you want? What you want to make up for? The life you want to live? I see that I'm not the only selfish one, so I can't be mad at you for that. But I'm sorry. I lived my life. Have fun with yours." Suruyu responded to me. At the end of the sentence, she even smiled a bit towards me. How could she wish me the best with my life, despite what I've done?

I wanted to say more. My soul felt more, but I just didn't know how to get it out. So I watched as Suruyu opened the door, and was about to walk through it. "Listen, Tsuki. There's something serious that I have to tell you." Heasa said to me, with a very worried face, though I wasn't paying much attention to that.

Before Suruyu could walk through the door, I was snatched by the god of souls. He grabbed me by my hoodie, and held me up in the air. "There you are! Seems like one of you has atleast come to terms with your fate. It's time for you to as well." The god of souls demanded, while Heasu, Heasa, and Suruyu all panicked. Suruyu even stepped away from the door.

"Tsuki!" Heasa and Suruyu called out to me, before the god of souls opened up a door in the sky. I struggled to break free from his grasp, and even Heasa tried to stop him, but he seemed stronger.

"Let me go!" I screamed as I continued trying to break free. Before I could, the door opened. I could hear it open, and I felt my heart race out of my chest. I didn't know if I came to terms with my life yet. I would become a lost soul! "Let him go!!" Suruyu screamed as she was about to rush towards the god of souls.

But it was too late. He threw me upwards into the door, where I started to fall downwards, down this black pit. There was nothing but black space surrounding me, as I screamed as I was falling.

It felt like hours of me falling, though it was only for some seconds, before everything went black. I couldn't see, or hear anything for a long time.

That's when, I opened my eyes, and I was inside of my living room. I could hear, and see things again. "Is this a memory?" I question as I look, and start to walk around.

As I look around, my eyes makes its way to my little brother. He seemed a couple years older; and he was playing a video game. Typically, video games gave him the biggest smile, but not now. He looked like he was sad inside.

Then I started to question, this couldn't be a memory. He wouldn't be older in my memories. Then my eyes widened, when I remembered some words from Heasa. "But if your heart isn't in the right place, you'll become a lost soul. You'll drift off into the human world, where you'll be alone for eternity." Were the words she spoke to me.

I immediately rushed to my brother and moved a hand on top of his shoulder. "Sora!" I screamed in a panic, but he didn't turn to look at me. His eyes were glued to the tv screen. I desperately tried to shake him, and scream his name, but nothing worked.

I tried with my mother, and even my stepdad. But it was no use. They couldn't see, or hear me. As I stood in the living room, and looked around. That's when I realized, I became a lost soul.