Death A New Beginning

Chapter 1

Murdered and Buried

Welcome to the end of my normal life and the beginning of my supernatural one.

Hi, my name is Eris Jade Nickels. I live in Skellington, (Skel-ling-ton) a smallish town in North Carolina. The reason my life is fucked up (currently) is, wait for it, I, who is all of fifteen years old, have just been murdered. I mean what the absolute fuck. A murder hasn't happened here in this town in 200 years. That was when Lord Timothy Gladder found his wife in bed with the newly hired horse trainer. Gladder didn't take that "training session" very well. Then here I go and break the damn 200-year trend. Fucking unbelievable.

Being dead is….. I mean it's…. Ok, I don't know what the hell I mean. I don't really know how to explain what I'm the hell I'm feeling, except very confused, angry, and annoyed. Again, why the fuck did this happen? One minute I'm alive pissed off and I really wanted to hit something. Very hard. Alright, alright, more like someone. Stupid fucking teachers. Anyways, I'm walking through, ok more like stomping through the trees in the redwood forest in my backyard, trying to work out some angrier and avoid assault charges. (Again. It was one time and the pervert deserved it!) Then..

BANG!

I heard ringing through the surrounding trees. I jumped and stopped moving. "God dame it," I yelled. "Who the fuck is shooting! It's NOT hunting season yet, you asshole. Your fucking poaching! Not to mention you scared the shit out of me." I mumbled that last part. That gunshot was close. I'm looking around for the person who fired the shot so I could scream at him or her for being on private fucking property (and for scaring the shit out of me). There shouldn't even be anyone but me in these woods. There are private property signs everywhere, I helped put some of them up, there is no way someone missed them. There are alike two hundred of the damn things nailed to trees and on a ground post.

"Stupid Fucker." I muttered when I couldn't see anyone. But something was different, something felt off. I narrowed my eyes and started to look around some more, trying to pinpoint what has changed. I don't see anything different. I turn to look directly behind me and as I twisted, something at my feet caught my eye. Looking down, they're lying on the damp ground, was a person. A body with a bloody hole in its chest. What the fuck? I stumbled back and fell on my ass. That wasn't there a minute ago. There is no fucking way a body just appears out of nowhere and there's no way I would have missed it. Ok, I take that back. As mad as I was, I would have either tripped over it or stumped right on it, before I noticed. I'm not the most observant person when I'm mad or upset in general.

"Fuck. The cops. I need to call for help." I stood up to reach for my phone in my back pocket, still looking at the body. The body, a girl based on the round lumps on her chest, doesn't look like she's breathing. I stopped just as I touch my phone.

Her shirt.

Her shirt. It looks like mine. It's a dark purple-black with a studded skull. Again, what the fuck? I looked at her jeans and shoes, there familiar too. Black with tears up and down the legs and a pair of black short-heeled boots. That whole outfit looks quite a lot like one of mine actually. Although that has to be a coincidence. Cause, I'm pretty sure almost everyone at school hates me including some of the teachers so I don't believe someone put in an effort into have the same clothes as me on purpose. So, I look up toward the face of the person to see if I know them. (I should have done that first)

Total shock.

"What the fuck?" I whispered. The body. It can't be. It's not possible. That that that... can't be me. I'm standing right here. How the fuck is this possible? I raise my hands and touch my face, arms, and chest but I can't feel them. I can't feel anything. I dropped to my knees and try to touch my body and my hands go right through me. What going on? What's happing to me? Then it hits me like a fully loaded mac truck. I fall back on my ass again in total shock. I'm dead. I'm fucking dead. Grief, shock, and sadness wash over me. The only thoughts that are running through my head are that I'm dead. Dead? Who? Why? Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Was it intentional or an accident?

These questions kept circling in my head until I heard a snapping sound. I turn to my head to see what it was. It's a hunter. A tall, fat balding hunter. He has his rifle on his back. He's muttering about what he's going to do now. He bends down and lays his hand on my chest, checking my neck for a pulse to see if I'm dead or not. He then starts to try and pick me up.

"Thank you!". I practically screamed at him, getting to my feet. He going to take me to the hospital, the doctors will fix me and this will just be weird out-of-body experience. Yeah, that right. Just a weird dream. I'm going to wake up and everything is going to be fine.

The hunter is still trying to pick me up. "I'm not that heavy," I muttered at him. I weigh maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. I'm short too, as in barely five feet tall. I'm also skinny. I'm a pint-size girl.

Since Mr. Weakling can't pick me up, he has decided to drag me, by the ankles, through the woods. That pisses me off. "You asshole! I know you're trying to help, but do you have any idea how hard it's to wash, style, and keep hair as long as mine looking nice?" I scream at him. I have knee-length jet black hair and this weakling is dragging me through leaves, twigs, and mud. My poor hair, I never get it clean again. Not to mention he is also tearing up my favorite black jeans, blackish-purple shirt with a silver-studded skull on it, and my reddish black hoodie. I'm also wearing my favorite scarf gran had made special for me. It's a deep emerald green made of silk. It has my initials inscribed in silver and I love you on it. I love that scarf and now it is being dragged through dirt and mud. Ok, I need to get my priorities straight. My clothes can be replaced and the scarf can be dry clean repeatedly until all the stains come out. It'll be fine, as long as I'm alive everything will be alright. But first, we have to get to the hospital. If this hunter wasn't going in the wrong damn direction.

"Hey, the road is the other way." I tried to tell him. "God damn it, he can't hear me." I tried to grab him again and my hand just goes right through him. "Fuck. This is fucking bullshit. Hey, hey you're going the wrong fucking way." I continue to yell and scream at him and trying everything I could think of to get his attention. I tried grabbing plants, leaves, sticks but I can't touch a damn thing. I even tried grabbing one of my hands. Nothing works, my hands go right through everything I try to touch. He's been dragging me for twenty minutes now. I've been tugged along this entire way too. Any time I try to stop and go another way, all I can go is twenty feet before I'm jerked back next to my body. Why the hell is he going in this direction anyway? The way he is dragging me leads to the Black Rocks and a sheer drop-off, that drops down into a lake. Well, what remains of a lake. It drained down a hole that formed from an earthquake about fifty years ago.

The Black Rocks are just what I said they are, black rocks, huge black rocks. There are wicked weird. Completely black, like obsidian. Smooth with little to no rough edges, almost like someone had sanded them down. There are five rocks, that go in a semi-circle. Nobody knows how they got there. There is no other rock like them around here. There has been speculation on anything from an earthquake bringing them up, to something as stupid as they are meteorite fragments. Scientists have taken small samples and done the whole geology test things they do but they don't have any answers.

Finally, he has stopped dragging me. He looks look's disgusting. Red-faced and dripping sweat. (Not to mention, with all the huffing he is doing, he seems like he is about to pass out or keel over with a heart attack.) Not that I can talk. I look disgusting with all the blood, dirt, mud, leaves, and twigs all over me. My hair has come out of its bun and spread out above my head. Like a very long demented bird nest. My body, not ghost me. I still look the same as I did when he shot me earlier, except I have a bloody hole in my chest. Now that is weird to look at. I have a hole in my chest. Like those hollows' things from the anime Bleach, but bloody and u can't look through it.

"Well, at least he doesn't seem to be about to throw me off the edge of the drop-off." I said. That would just suck.

Mr. Weakling has caught his second wind and knows is looking around for something. He walks over to the rock on the left side of us and picks up a shovel. A shovel? What the hell is a shovel doing out here? Oh, probably left by one of the idiots that think there is buried treasure somewhere near or under the rocks. There's been a lot of rumors over the years, that a bunch of robbers, from one hundred and fifty years ago, robbed almost every bank and train they came across from New Jersey to North Carolina. Until they robbed a train that had five million dollars worth of gold bars. Which is now a day is worth close to two hundred million. It is considered their greatest theft ever. It's said they hid the gold somewhere close to these rocks but before they could come back for it, they were all killed. Nothing has ever been found to prove they buried their stolen goods here, but there are few who still believe it's here's. I don't believe it. It would be almost impossible to hide five million dollars worth of gold bars here and keep it hidden after all this time. Thousands of people have been digging around here and checking the caves. A lot of those people have used ground radars and metal detectors, but nothing has ever been found. Although as a kid I use to play around, digging holes looking for gold. Never found anything. Wait, that's wrong I did find something, it was a weird-looking medallion. It's silver with some ridged lines running a crossed it. I still have it, it's at home in my treasure box.

Anyway, back on topic, how did he even know there was a shovel here? Was he another one trying to find the gold? Great! That's just great. Not only was I killed by a tall, old, bald, out-of-shape hunter. He is also might be a treasure hunter wanna-be. It could be worse; he could have been a rapist/murderer. But still, couldn't I had at least been killed by someone interesting. Like a hatchet murderer. Though gruesome, it would have been interesting.

"….dead. Only took one shot too." The man muttered. I looked at him in shock. Did he deliberately do this? Why? He planned this. Planned to kill me. What did I ever do to him for him to want me dead? I never met or seen this man before today. What would he have to gain from my death? And how the fuck would he know where I would be. Going for a walk through the woods today was just a spur-of-the-moment decision. It's something I do when I'm too mad to think straight. Everyone knows I do that. For the life of me, I don't know how everyone knows that. I don't advertise it. Maybe Gran told people.

But how did this man know I would be here. I didn't tell anyone, nor do I have any friends to tell. I also don't make a habit of walking in the woods. I was only walking out here because Mr. Williams, a chem teacher at school, pissed me off. How dare that fucking asshole to say I cheated on my chemistry test. I study hard for all my classes, so I don't need to cheat.

Did they plan this together? Everyone knows it is easy to piss me off. I have a bad temper. Is that why Mr. Williams accused me of cheating. Too make me mad and to go for a walk after school, to calm my anger, so this man could kill me. Why the fuck? Again why? What would they have to gain? Nobody is supposed to know about the whole being an heiress to a multi-billion-dollar advanced technology company. Even if they did know, wouldn't it have been better to kidnap me and ask for ransom?

Or I could be overly paranoid, and this could all have been an accident. Wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. Maybe I misunderstood what he said. I only heard part of what he said. Hey, I can practically feel you rolling your eyes at me! Cut me some fucking slack, alright! I have just been murdered and I have been quite literally dragged through the mud and now I'm watching some man dig my fucking grave. I have every god damn right to try to rationalize this situation.

It takes my killer about an hour to dig my grave. When he has stopped digging, the hole is about three feet deep and five feet long. Oh, gross he worked up more sweat. His clothes are soaked and his face has gotten redder. My body is right next to the hole he has dug and as small as I am, it'll bury me easily. I can't help that I'm short and small. I'm five foot nothing and as I stated before, I don't even weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. I don't look like a fifteen-year high schooler. I look like a fifth-grader. The man climbs out of the hole, walks around it (and through me), kneels, and with no hesitation just shoves me right in. I hear my body make a thumping noise; you know that noise you hear when your back hits the ground too hard. A little plume of dirt even drifted up out of the hole after my body hit the bottom. Can you believe he buries me face down in the dirt?

"You can at least turn me face up, you jackass!" I scream at him. Now I can add being rude to his list of crimes against me. He grabs the shovel he stuck in the pile of dirt and starts shoveling the dirt over me. His bury me goes a lot quicker than him digging my grave does. Within a half-hour he's done, he stomps the ground to tamp the dirt down, grabs his rifle and shovel, and just leaves. The ass doesn't even look back. He could have a least could say sorry he killed me or why he killed me, maybe a prayer, I don't know, just something before he left. I try to follow him, but like before I get about twenty feet from my body, and I'm popped right back.

"I hope you trip and break your damned neck," I yelled at his retreating back.