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beach.
It was night; the white sand reflected the light of a full moon shining
directly above his head. In the distance there was a long pier that stretched
out over the water, its lights mirrored in the surf below.
    Wes stopped and looked at his surroundings. The waves that washed
up onto the beach were small and in the shallow water there were thousands of
bioluminescent fish of all colors and patterns flitting back and forth in the
tide. He found a place on the sand and sat down to watch the fish.
    “What do you think?” a voice questioned. “It’s one of my
favorite places to visit.” Wes looked up and saw the red-headed woman
approaching from the direction of the pier. She stopped by Wes’s side. “This
will be your waiting room while we prepare your body.”
    “What is this place? Am I separated from my body?” Wes was
relieved to hear he could talk.
    “No, you’re still connected to your body. Severing isn’t the
topic of conversation today. I would hope it doesn’t come to that, though I…”
Her voice trailed off as she mumbled to herself.
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Wes stared back
toward the fish swimming in the tide. A blue fish was courting a yellow one,
their glowing skins brushing back and forth past each other. He wondered if
their babies would be green.
    “It’s normal not to understand at first,” she said. “Let’s
walk for a bit.”
    Wes stood, and they started walking along the waterline down
the beach toward the pier; the soft white sand glistened in the moonlight and
the air was still.
    “I haven’t introduced myself yet.” She looked over at him.
“I’m Emily.”
    “Nice to meet you Emily,” Wes said.
    “I’m going on 53 years dead. Fifty-three years ago at the
age of 22 I drowned right here on this beach. When I woke up, I’d already been
collected by AfterLife.”
    “Fifty-three years dead? That’s impossible.” Wes stared,
dumbfounded, remembering the image of the girl that pulled him into her eyes.
He found it hard to believe she had been a corpse for as long as she claimed.
    “It’s true, even though now it may seem hard to believe.
People die every day from ‘natural causes,’ and they don’t become Mortuis. One
day, their mind, or soul if you want to call it that, separates from their body
and moves on. You can die a second death, which is more than you need to know
right now. What you do need to know is that you aren’t a zombie. That would be
a misnomer for what you really are. Zombies are bodies without a soul, and such
a thing can’t really exist. Your soul still resides in your body; it’s just not
a living body as you think of one. We are called Mortuis. Dead bodies still
inhabited by a soul.”
    Emily paused as she revisited her past. “After realizing I
didn’t survive that day at the beach, it took me a while to come to terms with
the fact that I could never see my family again. I was definitely a Daddy’s
girl, and I missed my father terribly.” Emily paused. Wes could tell by the way
she stared out across the water that there was more she missed than just her
father. “With time,” she continued, “AfterLife showed me how to take care of
myself, and I learned to live again. AfterLife became my family.”
    “Is that what will happen to me?” Wes looked along the beach
in the direction they’d been traveling. The pier still appeared as far away as
ever.
    “That depends on what you want. You can become a member of
AfterLife if you choose. It’s a good place to be if you want purpose.”
    “Well, do I really have a choice?” Wes wondered about the
alternative. What could he do as a dead person?
    “Everyone has a choice. Being human is to have choices, and
we’re not here to take that away from you. In spite of what some believe, being
Mortui is still being human. I don’t know how religious you are or were before
you died, but I think you’ll slowly discover yourself becoming more spiritual
now that you’re