Clearing her throat around a lump of something dusty and thick, she asked, “What happened to me?”
They exchanged nervous glances with one another. A black boy in a neat plaid shirt said, “Are you – are you OK? You had an accident.”
Harriet rubbed her eyes. She knew she probably wasn’t fine. She ought to be in serious pain right now. But she didn’t have a single ache or pain. “I was … falling.”
“You remember?” The boy adjusted his tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. There was a smudge on one of the lenses.
Another boy spoke. This one was white and much more muscular, with a rugby player’s shoulders and rakish blond hair. “Why wouldn’t she remember?”
“Well, I don’t remember when I di—” the other boy began, until his friend cleared her throat warningly. He cut himself off. “Di-di-ha. Uh – well, no, not as such…” He trailed off into silence.
While Harriet watched this display, feeling a little perplexed, the rugby player stared at him in disgust. “Chill out, Felix. Jeez.”
“You’re the one who needs to chill out!” Felix retorted.
Harriet didn’t have time for this. She struggled to her feet, feeling just a bit off balance rather than injured. She must have hit her head, because her bun had been knocked to the side, but there wasn’t the tender spot of a bruise.
“You fell from the top floor,” the girl said to Harriet, squaring her shoulders and looking determined. She was wearing a pyjama top that said HERE FOR THE DRAMA! in pink glitter cursive writing.
“But how did I survive? I would have died.” Harriet folded over into a lazy forward bend, testing herself for injuries. She wasn’t hurt. At all.
The girl looked embarrassed. “Yeah. Yeah, you would have.”
“So … did something catch me?” Harriet stretched her back, running through a few other yoga poses as she tried to decide whether it was possible that she was in so much pain she couldn’t feel any of it.
The blond boy grimaced. “You died. You’re dead. Sorry, mate.”
“I’m…?” She must have misheard him. There was a lot going on – it was to be expected.
“You’re dead; we’re all dead,” he said.
Clearly, they were members of a Role-Playing Society or something. What other kind of students hung out in an old abandoned building during their spare time?
“Right. OK. Well, I’m just going to leave, so you can all get back to … whatever—”
“You can just take a look at your body if you don’t believe us,” Felix said, gesturing behind Harriet and then quickly rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a bit gory.”
Harriet sighed. She supposed she could play along, if it would get rid of them more quickly. She turned around. When she swallowed, the dusty lump was back in her throat.
Lying on the floor in a puddle of congealing blood was her body.
Harriet fought a surreal sense of dissociation. The world rolled around her as she tried to resolve what she was seeing with everything she knew to be true about the universe.
She was here. She was there.
She was dead.
Chapter 2
HARRIET
“Where are you going?” the girl called, as Harriet pushed her way towards the exit. Harriet didn’t stop. There might still be time to fix this. Clearly concussion was causing her to hallucinate her own dead body. But if she could just get to a doctor, it would be fine. She was going to be fine.
She tamped down her panic. This would all be treated, and the worst outcome of her whole misadventure would be that she would have to submit her photography coursework a day late. There was nothing for her to worry about. So why did she feel like her life was over?
She forced the feeling away, climbing out of the window. She had lost her phone in the fall, but someone on campus would call an ambulance for her.
“Wait!” the girl shouted, as Harriet breathed in the clean, fresh air. She already felt better now that she was out of that musty wreck.
Three steps away from the property fence, she stopped in her tracks. She ached all over. Swaying on the spot, she tried to push away the pain vibrating through her bones.
The further she moved, the worse she felt. The feeling was an ocean, pulling her in. She was suddenly convinced that it would kill her to take even another step forwards. She wanted to lie down and become part of the world. It would be so peaceful to give up control and just become a mass of atoms, free to move as they pleased.
Harriet closed her eyes, unable to stop the concept from overwhelming her. She could feel her particles sliding free of each other, peeling away and drifting off into the atmosphere.
“HEY! HEY, GIRL!”
The yelling came from somewhere very far away. She ignored it. She just needed to let herself become part of the air and ground and sky.
RIMA
She was leaving! The girl had only just died, and she was already going to make herself disintegrate. Rima hadn’t even had a chance to find out her name. It was such a waste too – the new girl seemed so young and pretty. Though her university experience was probably very different to Rima’s. She looked like she got invited to all of the best parties. Rima had only ever been invited to a private Usenet server.
“We have to do something! Felix, come on!” Kasper hissed. His eyes were wide with panic, his hand tight on Felix’s forearm as the three of them leant out of the window to watch Harriet’s progress. Decades-worth of energy was falling away into the wind, precious golden strands disappearing into nothing.
“What do you want me to do?” Felix asked, the words turned up high at the end.
“I don’t know – something more than gawp at her!”
Rima rolled her eyes. She nudged them out of the way and hoisted herself over the windowsill.
“You can’t!” Kasper said.
“I thought you wanted me to do something?” she said and twisted into a form that was easier to control. If she flew, she could get to Harriet without losing as much energy.
HARRIET
A hand grabbed her shoulder, pinching into the muscle and shaking hard. Harriet opened her eyes.
“What?” she asked, swooning slightly, struggling to remember how words and speech and vocal cords worked.
“Stop! Wake up!” a voice said. “You’ve got to come with me. Now, or you’re gone.”
A hand tugged her backwards, and the movement made Harriet stumble. As she walked, she remembered that she had limbs, and muscles, and as she focused, they made a human body and she could move again.
At the entrance to the hall, she remembered what being Harriet Stoker felt like and recovered her shape completely. It was only then that she recognized the girl standing beside her, who was looking at Harriet as if she was searching her face for some sign of life.
The blond boy helped her down from the sill as she climbed back inside.
“What was that?” Harriet asked. It had felt impossible and horrifying and incredible, like Harriet was so much more than just one person. She had felt connected to everything; every atom and particle on the entire planet.
“You were disintegrating,” the girl said. “You can’t leave. You’ll be gone for ever if you do.”
“Dis—? Gone?” Her brain was fuzzy and tired, but it felt surreal and primitive to have a brain at all, running a consciousness using neurons and muscles. “Who are you? What is happening to me?”