Chapter Text
Well, this is a sick joke.
Mac is standing in the middle of a quiet street. Dawn is just peeking over the horizon, bathing the streets in soft, new light. Her old bike is standing near her. It's glowing ever-so-slightly. She wracks her mind, trying to figure out why this looks familiar.
Ah.
It's part of her old paper route.
She just died. Didn't she just die? She's pretty sure she died. She remembers the cold hospital room. She remembers hushed voices and drawn curtains. She remembers being too sore and too exhausted to hang on anymore. And amidst the end-of-life delirium, she remembers brief moments of clarity. She remembers Alice's soft hands and sad smile; Dylan's hiccuping, barely-muffled sobs. She remembers her dad, his for-once sober face now exposed as it twisted in anguish and turmoil, having pulled himself out of his drunken stupor for one last time to bid her goodbye. She remembers his raspy voice quivering around the words "my baby girl". God. That had hurt worse than any fist. It was all too real, too raw. Mac nearly couldn't bring herself to look at them. But she did. She forced herself to be present for this.
And then she slipped away, quiet and accepting for once in her life. It had been terrifying and painful. And then it had been just like falling asleep.
So how is she here, and why?
At a loss for what else to do, Mac sits down on the pavement. She lays back and gazes up at the hazy blue-and-rose-gold dawn sky. A few stars are still stubbornly glimmering through. In spite of everything, Mac still finds it beautiful.
So, she's dead.
Mac could really use a smoke right now.
She closes her eyes and breaths deeply, eventually drifting into a sort of daze. Her body feels... good. At least, it doesn't really hurt. It doesn't fully feel like a body either, not in the usual sense. It doesn't feel quite so heavy. It just feels light and relaxed. If this is what death is like, Mac could get used to it. It's better than oblivion, anyway.
Huh. What if she's, like, bound to these streets though? That doesn't seem like a fun eternity, being doomed to haunt her old paper route forever. Just as Mac is starting to overthink that, there's a popping sound to her right.
A skeleton appears.
Mac looks on in horror as the skeleton stumbles forward and clears its throat. It's wearing dark robes, a crop top and sunglasses. It's chewing bubblegum and holding out a scroll.
The skeleton peers at her and waves a bony hand. Then it looks at the scroll. "Let's see... 1992... Mackenzie Coyle?"
Mac gawks. "Uh... Yeah. That's me."
The skeleton beams, and Mac gets the impression that this is its customer service face. "Very good. So, Mackenzie. Do you know where you are?"
"Stony Stream."
The skeleton hums noncommittally.
"I mean, dead. I'm dead."
The skeleton sighs in relief. "Okay, good. We won't need to go through the whole adjustment spiel then. I hate doing that. The last guy was full-on sobbing, holding onto my robes and all of that." The skeleton shoves its sunglasses on top of its head and rolls its eery, glowing eyes.
"Wait, are you Death?"
The skeleton chuckles. "One of them, yeah." Death waves their hand and gestures to the road ahead. Two street signs appear - one that says Heaven and another one a bit further up the road that says Mission.
Mission? Mac gulps. She doesn't feel great about that.
Death clears their throat again and shuffles self-importantly. "So. You're a time traveller, yes?"
Mac frowns. "Excuse me?"
Death sighs. "Think hard, Mackenzie. You get back all your memories once you die. The past life ones will come back slower, but any from your recent life that have been erased should come back quickly. Trust me. You're a time traveller."
Mac rests her head on her knees. She's time travelled...? When? She tries to think back, pushing around the blurry images and the pinching feeling in her head. And sure enough, there they are. Memories of her friends, and different versions of them. Her life scattered across different places and different times - the distant past and the far future. Christ, they were twelve? That was before she even got sick.
She doesn't want to think about that or her friends right now.
Mac looks up at Death. "Is there time travel in the afterlife?"
Death waves their hand noncommittally. "Eh..."
"Eh? What the fuck do you mean eh?"
"Time isn't strictly linear in the afterlife like it is for you guys. I mean, we have Heaven Standard Time and all, but that's just to avoid freaking out the newbies."
Mac ponders this for a moment. "Huh. So can you meet your ancestors and stuff?"
"The ones that aren't just previous reincarnations of you, sure."
Huh. Well that one's unexpected. "Some of my ancestors are previous reincarnations of me? Like, how many of them?" Is there a chance she's her own grandma or something? That would be way too weird.
Death pinches the bridge of their nose. "Ugh. Time travellers give me a headache."
Mac bristles. "Hey. I just died of a brain tumor. Don't even start with me about headaches." On that note, what are they even hanging around here for? Surely she should be in Heaven, living it up right now. What she really wants is a nice, warm bath, a fuzzy blanket and a soft bed. Hospital beds are fine, but she misses her own. Maybe she can live in some kind of rich kid room with a glass wall looking into a rainforest or something. Can she live in a rainforest? Surely if she's a ghost or an angel or whatever, she can do anything she wants.
Wait. Did she even make it into Heaven?
"Hey. I made it into Heaven, right?!" she says, voice creeping upwards. If she has to go to Hell after all of this, she's complaining to the manager.
"What?" Death flaps a hand at her. "Of course. We all go to the same place."
"Even dogs?"
"Dogs, cats, plants, you name it. There's one afterlife for all of us."
Huh. So Kaje was right. It occurs to Mac to ask something else. "Is there a God?"
"Sort of. That's a long story, kid." Death pops the bubblegum. It's fucking unnerving. "The librarians send their regards, by the way. They've got a nice spot set up for you on the other side, if you want it."
Mac perks up. "Heaven has a library?"
"Of course. But..." Death hesitates. Mac groans. She knew there'd be a but. "The thing is... You don't get to go there yet."
Mac scowls. "Why not?"
"You have a mission. You have to save the timeline and the living universe and stuff, it's all here in this pamphlet." Death clicks their fingers and a pamphlet appears in Mac's hands. "Normally we don't get involved with things on the living side, it's too much of a pain in the ass. But there are exceptions, and the higher-ups were really adamant about this one."
Mac looks down at the pamphlet. The header says So You're a Ghost. Charming.
"It looks generic, but there's a personalised section in there for you. It'll get updated as you make progress. Oh, and before I forget..." Death points towards the glowing bike. "You get a bike. Heaven-certified and everything. As a gesture of goodwill. It'll let you traverse the earthly realms as easily as a living person."
"And what if I say no?"
Death shrugs. "Well, you'll still have Stony Stream. You can visit all your old hangouts, you just won't be able to talk to anybody. Unless they're part of your mission, and if you say no you won't exactly have a mission, so..." Death prattles on obnoxiously. "It'll be fun for a while, but it'll get pretty boring after the apocalypse."
"When is that?"
"Depends on whether you take the mission or not."
Mac sighs long-sufferingly. Will she ever get a break? God damn. She could really use a smoke right now.
"Go on. Take the mission. It won't be all bad." Death gestures proudly at Mac's new bike. "It's ergonomic."
"I'm dead."
Death laughs. She's dead and Death is laughing.
Mac huffs. "What if I lose the pamphlet?"
Death does a weird head bob that Mac realises belatedly is an attempt at a wink. "You won't."
"Can I have a walkman? And some tapes? Preferably Danzig?"
"Nope." Death makes a popping sound on the 'p'.
"Can I have some smokes?"
"Certainly not."
"But I'm dead already!" Mac wheedles. This is annoying. Death is annoying. She wishes she were alive. Not that she was allowed to smoke anyway, towards the end of it, but still.
Mac sighs heavily and traces her hands on the asphalt. She surveys her surroundings - the soft pink sunrise, the eery, glowing imitation of her old bike, the road sign that says Heaven up ahead and the further away, wonkier one that says Mission. And Death, peering at her expectantly. There are the old memories, too - the time travel ones that she's trying to avoid. The girls that she can't bear to think about right now. She supposes it makes sense that she was picked for whatever this mission is. But she doesn't want to do it. She just wants to go home - wherever that is now - and sleep. She just wants a break.
"If time isn't linear in the afterlife then can't I just... chill for a bit before I do this mission? I've kind of had a rough few years."
Death looks as sympathetic as bones can look. "Unfortunately not, kid. The higher-ups want you to do this while you're still attached to your old life; while you care about the people in it."
Mac bristles, her temper flaring hotly for the first time in a while. "I would never not care about them. Never."
"Then take the mission," Death says seriously. "Things are already going to be rough for them. Maybe you can lighten their load a little bit."
Damn it. Mac must be predictable as hell, because those words strike right to her core. Lighten their load. She should take it. She has to. How could she not, when they've done everything for her?
She groans and buries her head in her hands. "Fine," she grunts out. "Fine. I'll do it."
When she looks up, Death is already gone. It's just Mac and the sunrise once more.
Geez. No waiting around, then, huh?
As if in response, the bell on Mac's bike gives a cheery ding!
Mac stands and wipes her hands off on her pants. She clambers onto the bike and opens the brochure. At the top of the first page, it says, Step 1: Gather essential mission personnel. Under the instruction is a list of her friends' names.
Name: Erin Tieng. Status: Alive.
Name: Tiffany Quilkin. Status: Alive.
Name: Karina J. Brandman. Status: Alive.
Mac gulps. Not for the first time, she finds herself wishing that she wasn't such an asshole. That way, maybe things wouldn't have gone down the way they did. But in spite of the whole time travel thing, she still can't change the past.
She resolves to visit KJ's house last.
Pedalling through the dawn-lit streets, she steers her bike towards Erin's house. She hopes that Erin's mom is fine with ghosts.