See Me
to the tiles. My legs were like lead. A whimper escaped my mouth. “Why are you doing this to me?”
    Next, a weighted feeling pressed against my chest, pushing hard, and I was helpless to stop it. “Please . . . someone . . . help.”
    My mouth had moved, but no sound came out. The halls were empty anyway. Nobody to save me. I tried to run, wanted to escape, but invisible pressure shoved into me like a ten-ton bulldozer. It was all I could do to keep myself upright.
    My purse slipped from my grasp and hit the floor. My backpack fell off my shoulder and joined it. Fiery air burst inside me like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking harder and harder until I was weightless.
    It was dark now.
    Cold.
    And I no longer had my body.

Chapter Three
    Everything went pitch black and for a moment I forgot where I was. Darkness surrounded me except for a pinhole of light where I could see the school hallway below. I wanted to go lower and just as I had the thought, the tiny hole swirled open in a blinding flash.
    The empty hall was fully visible beneath me now. A girl stood, a little slouchy but frozen stiff, just inside the high school entry’s double doors. Her auburn hair hung in messy waves to her shoulders. She wore a black sweater, jeans, and boots. The same thing I’d put on this morning. . . .
    Agh! She was me .
    That’s right, I was floating above my own body.
    Oh, man . . . had I died ?
    Heart attack? Aneurysm? Had those spirits killed me? Or had they known I was going to die and had been hanging around to take me to the great beyond?
    Why hadn’t I confided in Brynne and Nicole about the spooks? Begged my friends for help? I’d wanted to but then I had choked, too worried they’d think I was losing it. Now I’d lost everything and I was completely on my own, not sure if I was alive or dead. Pretty sure I was dead.
    I looked around for a white light. Golden arches—not the fast food restaurant kind. Or was it supposed to be a golden staircase? Either way, there was nothing glowing or calling me to cross over. I was stuck floating with nowhere to go.
    Suddenly, I shot upward through the ceiling and into some kind of dark crawl space. Ick. Then, as my mind pictured descending, I dropped back down into the hallway, circling the Amy Love mannequin like the rings around Saturn. The hall spun, only I was seeing it through my mind and not my eyes.
    Controlling my movement was a pain without my body. I zipped thirty feet at the thought, tumbling out of control, much as an astronaut might in space.
    One of the spirits must have knocked me out of myself. I wanted to cry, but tear ducts weren’t part of my nonexistent anatomy.
    I couldn’t feel them anymore. Couldn’t feel much really. Just a cool, emptiness. At the mere thought of my body, I bobbed lower and lower like on the string of a yo-yo until I was in front of my own face. Blue-gray eyes stared at me vacantly.
    Was I really dead? Sure looked like it. That was a dead body in front of me. My dead body.
    No. I couldn’t be. I mean, I was thinking, wasn’t I? I’d just separated from my body somehow. Was it a minute ago? It felt like an hour. Or more. Time was immeasurable in my state of nothingness. I had to get back inside my body.
    In a sudden, nervous frenzy, I rushed at my body—trying to pop myself back in. Maybe if I got back inside it would come alive again. Because I sure didn’t want to be dead! I rammed into a solid barrier that exploded hot air, sending me tumbling to the other end of the hall. I bounced to a stop, then hurtled myself back toward my body, flying at full speed.
    I hit something hard, the force punting me to the floor. It didn’t hurt though, since I didn’t have nerve endings or a body. Why couldn’t I get back in? It was scary how dead I looked. The frozen cheekbones. The locked lips. The lifeless eyes that suddenly blinked.
    The emptiness tightened around me as I watched my eyes open and close. My shoulders rolled backward. My head bent

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