Prologue

The soft hum of the campus quieted as the night deepened, only the distant sounds of crickets and the occasional rustle of leaves filling the silence.

In his cramped dorm room, Aiden sat bathed in the pale blue glow of his laptop screen, typing the final sentence of his term paper.

His eyes burned from hours of staring at the screen. 

With a groan, he rubbed his face and leaned back, the creak of his chair breaking the silence.

"Finally done," he muttered to himself. a sigh of relief slipping from his lips.

It was well past midnight and the quiet hum of his dorm room was the only sound in the building.

As he hit save and closed the laptop, a deep rumble echoed through the silence.

Aiden looked down and patted his stomach and said, "I guess I haven't really eaten anything since lunch."

He glanced at the clock at the corner of his room and said, "It's past 2 AM... Most places are already closed by this time."

Aiden sat there pondering, but the hunger gnawed at him, urging him to find something, anything, to eat.

He glanced at his phone, flicking through Google Maps until he found a glowing beacon of hope. "Yes!" He grinned. "There's a 24-hour fast-food joint and it's only a few miles away."

It wasn't healthy or even good, but at this hour, he didn't care.

Grabbing his keys and jacket, Aiden stepped out of his room into the chilled air.

The campus, so familiar by day, now seemed unsettlingly empty.

He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and walked faster, the sound of his own footsteps were uncomfortably loud.

Every shadow seemed deeper, every movement caught in his peripheral vision made his heart race.

His mind filled the silence with paranoia, 'What if someone was following me?'

He quickened his pace. 'No one's there, no one's there,' he chanted inwardly, but the faster he walked, the stronger the feeling grew.

By the time he reached his car, he yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind him, immediately locking.

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head at his own foolishness. "It's just your imagination."

Pulling out of the dorm parking lot, Aiden tried to relax.

The city streets were deserted, lights flickering in shop windows long since closed for the night.

His fingers drummed the steering wheel as he thought about his order, 'Maybe a burger? And fries?.. Whatever's quickest.'

But an uneasy feeling lingered and his instincts screamed, 'Don't look at the rearview mirror.' 

His grip tightened on the wheel as he drove through the dimly lit streets, his gaze fixed firmly ahead. A thought continued to appear in his mind, 'What if... there's someone in the backseat?'

He could almost hear the playful warning of his friend, Matt had shared on late-night drives like this one. "What if you look in the mirror and see a ghost sitting behind you?"

Aiden shook his head and let out a snort.

'It's just a stupid joke,' he reminded himself, but the chill creeping up his spine said otherwise.

He kept his eyes forward, focusing on the road, pretending he didn't feel the urge to check the mirror.

When the lights of the fast-food joint came into view, his shoulders loosened a little. 'Almost there.'

Then a blinding flash of headlights tore through his vision. "AG! What the fuck!" Aiden screamed from being suddenly blinded.

He slammed the brakes, but it was too late. "Shit!"

The impact hit like an explosion.

Metal twisted and groaned, glass shattered, and his body thrown sideways as the car spun uncontrollably.

For a split second, the world became a blur of noise and chaos.

Pain shot through every nerve in his body-- hot, sharp, unbearable.

Then silence.

When the sirens wailed in the distance, he could barely hear them. His mind was slowing, everything fading.

Somewhere nearby, voices echoed, but they were muffled, distant. Cold crept in.

The last thing he registered was a muffled sound of someone's voice, "Time of Death, 2:47 AM."

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The driver who hit him reeked of alcohol and stumbled as he was pulled from his vehicle, still alive.

Disoriented but conscious, he would wake up the next day in a hospital bed handcuffed with only a vague memory of the night.

His life spared, but forever changed by the tragedy he had caused.

—————————

The world around Aiden vanished, leaving him suspended in an endless, featureless void.

There was no sound, no ground beneath his feat, no sense of up or down-- just nothing.

Aiden couldn't feel his body, but that didn't prevent him from feeling a rush of panic, confusion, and dread.

'Where am I!' Aiden tried to scream, but it was futile-- He no longer had a body.

His thoughts raced as he tried to recall what happened.

'It was late, I just finished my term paper.'

'I was hungry, so I drove to the nearest 24 hour fast food joint.'

Aiden then recalled those blinding lights and the unbearable pain he experienced from the impact.

'Am I... dead?' Aiden asked as if hoping for someone to tell him otherwise.

But the void offered no response

'Is this it? Is this what happens after you die?'

Aiden's thoughts drifted– back to the life he'd just left behind.

'Mom… Dad… What were they going to think?'

'I haven't been able to contact them for a month because of how busy I was with school and the first thing they hear about me is my death.'

His mother's face flashed in his mind, tear-streaked. Her disbelief when the police show up to deliver the news.

His father, quiet and stoic, would try to hold everything together, but Aiden knew the news would destroy him.

And it wasn't just his parents. 'What about my friends? What would they think when they wake up in the morning and realize I was gone?'

Matt would probably try to make some stupid joke about it, laughing it off to hide how shaken he really was.

'You'll be a wreck, won't you?' Aiden whispered to himself. 'You always laugh when things get too real.' But beneath the jokes, Aiden knew Matt would be torn apart.

And Jake… 'Jake would shut himself from the world and disappear into his thoughts.' Jake has always been the quiet type, Aiden was the one helping with getting out of his shell.

And Lily– 'God, Lily would blame herself. She always did that.' She had a tendency to feel like she could have done better. It was a good trait to have, but there are times when it goes against her.

'I don't want to leave them.'

The weight of it all crushed him. His life was over, and everyone he cared about would wake up in the morning to an empty space where he used to be.

Aiden felt like he was suffocating, he reached out, but his hands-- or whatever remained of them-- grasped nothing.

The panic clawed at him, 'This can't be it.' his mind screamed for answers, for a way out.

Then, just as the fear became unbearable, something changed.

*DING*

A soft chime echoed through the void, cutting through the suffocating silence.