My name is
Marina and this is my story. I don’t want to bore you with my life. I want to
tell you the story of how I died and what happened then.
I was
nearly 21. It was one week before my birthday and all my friends were excited
about it. We’d been planning my party for almost two months. There was a
catering service that was to come and no less than 30 guests. Not that you
think I was especially popular. One third of these guests were my friends, the
rest was family and “plus ones”. My parents bought 200 green balloons. Green
was my favorite color. No one expected what was going to happen that day. I
think even the gods, if there are any, couldn’t have expected this. Otherwise
they’d surely have prevented it.
I was on my
way home when it happened. School was over earlier than usual. It was the end
of the year, so more and more teachers had to cancel their classes for
corrections. It was barely 1pm when I got to the highway. There was still 10
miles ahead of me. It was a beautiful day, the weather was fine, not one cloud
in the sky; although it was dark at once. Back then I feared that I had
suddenly gotten blind, now I know that this was when everything changed. I
tried to stop my car but it continued to drive. I even pulled the key out of
the ignition. The next thing I remember is that I crashed. I heard how my car
begun to hug a tree or a lantern or something like that. Now I didn’t only not
see a thing, I also didn’t hear anything anymore once the hug was completed and
I couldn’t move. It was as if my body had become a stranger. Then at once
everything was normal again; except one little detail. I was standing beside my
car, staring at my dead body in disbelief. Had I become a ghost? Was it a bad
dream? I would soon know that it was far worse than that.
My first
reaction was to reach for my cell-phone that lay on the board behind the wheel.
I wanted to call an emergency, an ambulance, anything. I was actually surprised
to be able to touch something. The person at the other end of the line could even
hear me.
-
Please
state your emergency.
-
I…
I think…
How was I
going to say that I’d had a car-accident and that I was dead?
-
Someone’s
had a car crash near the highway 49. She’s not breathing and she’s stuck in the
car.
-
Hold
on. I’m sending someone. Please wait for the ambulance to come, don’t leave
her.
-
Okay…
So now I
was going to have to explain to the emergency team why I looked exactly like
the dead girl.
When they
arrived, two of them started to saw the car to get me out. The third one had a
phone and said:
-
No,
I think she’s gone. There’s no one else here. Again someone who’s worried about
the consequences of finding a corpse…
But I was
right there! Didn’t he see me? The thought of being a ghost got back to my
mind. But that couldn’t be it, I had just made a phone-call. What was going on
with me?!
I turned
around and saw Raphael. HE had been in my class last year. He died… in a
car-accident. I couldn’t say anything, I just followed him.
After a
while we were deep in the forest. There was a fallen tree. HE sat down on it
and motioned for me to do the same. I sat and he started to talk:
-
I
really don’t want to point out the obvious, but you just died. This is real,
it’s not a dream. You’re not a ghost. And you’re not a lost soul. You are what
humans call “vampires, werewolves, goblins, trolls” or that other stuff.
They’re all real and now you are part of it. You’re not one of them, you’re all
of them at once. Humans have known about these creatures, but they never
realized it was just one creature. You’re a Shape-shifter, Marina. This happens
to all people who breathe their last breath before their time. But that’s not
everything yet. You have a job. You are a sort of bodyguard. You have to do
your best to prevent these accidents from happening. I was supposed to save
you, but I came too late… You can talk to humans, they can hear you, but you
must never tell them what you are. Did you understand everything?
I nodded. I
was unable to say anything. Raphael was talking to me; my ex-boyfriend who died
a year ago. I remembered the love I had felt for him and the pain I had felt
when he died… although, at that moment I didn’t feel anything. I was
emotionally empty. It seemed I had lost the ability to feel. I thought it was
sad, though I wasn’t sure what sadness was. The more time went by, the more I
forgot what had made me human: my favorite color, my emotions, my favorite
music… I slowly lost all of it… And with the last bit, a sort of empty relief
filled me. I felt somewhat light and inconstant. Raphael looked at me and said:
-
It’s
done. You can change your shape now. Go on, try it.
I wasn’t
sure whether I should do that. I tried to concentrate on a werewolf and felt
like goose bumps going down my spine. When I opened my eyes, I was standing on
the floor, on my four legs, and I could even smell the scent of my car though
we were at least a hundred yards away from it. He changed to a werewolf too and
spoke again.
-
Follow
me.
I hadn’t
noticed it before, but when he spoke, his mouth was shut. He spoke in my head.
He didn’t say the words aloud. Otherwise we’d probably have risked that someone
would hear us. Imagine you hear a guy talking but there is no one.
This is how
my story started all those years ago. But it was far away from ending.
