This chapter is dedicated to @coolelf who is the quintessential "talented writer without enough reads or appreciation". His School of Shinigami is a fascinating, confusing, complex, brilliantly executed and just plain wacky novel. This story can't hold a candle to his amazing novel. Seriously. It's so good it could be published. Read it!  

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"Maybe there is a beast... maybe it's only us."

― The Lord of The Flies, William Golding

There was blackness below me. And around me. I walked through the wall. I fell. I fell towards the moon and the stars. A vast cosmos stretched out beyond me. And I was falling toward it.

I twisted in the air (twist and slide with the billowy cushions of my wind did eye). Karim was seated in the air beside me, his legs crossed, his hands on his thighs, palms up. He looked like an absurd little sadhu.

"Learn to sit. It is not too terribly difficult." His voice was crystal clear through the din of the wind as I fell.

I twisted and writhed in the air, my ridiculous blue dress twirling and parachuting. I held it down with as much force as I could muster. I sat. Somehow.

"Good." Karim told me. "Very good. If you can sit, the rest of it is easy."

"Is this the underworld?" I asked him.

"I can't hear you. You must learn to speak."

I shouted.

"Speak. Just speak."

I spoke. It worked.

"No." He told me. "That's the underworld." He pointed straight up and I followed his gaze. A desert stretched out above me. Men and women hung from giant hooks, boring into their eyes or their mouth or their navel. I saw death, now without her umbrella. She was walking upside down (for her downside up for eye neither downside nor up) dragging an implausibly huge trolley full of people on hooks. She gently, almost lovingly hung them on hooks. They dangled with the breeze. They juddered as the trolley rolled passed them. They swung like tentacles.

I looked away as quickly as I could.

"Why are we falling into the sky?" I asked Karim

"Because you're not dead." Karim replied. "And I'm a ghost, not a penitent soul."

"There's a difference?"

"Certainly."

The two of us floated, saying nothing.

"What's the difference?" I asked.

"I don't know." he told me.

"Here's the thing about the mouthpiece. You get one question. It better be a good question. Then, he either lets you go, or he kills you. Do not say anything to him. Do not argue. Do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just be still. Alright?"

"Alright."

Karim turned his head around. Completely. "It's almost time. Almost."

My head started to ache. A sharp pain erupted in my nose. The ache boomed like a drum. Sharp, then receding, then sharp again. I screamed. Karim closed his ears.

"Stop shouting!" he said. "Be still. Be still."

I tried. I failed.

Then, the voice began.

It was like five voices in one, speaking in perfect harmony though each own had its own peculiar cadence. It was entirely unearthly.

"...THISTLES AND SPLUTTERS AS RANDOM NOTES OF HIGH IMPERFECTION RENT APART THE AIR AND I CANNOT LISTEN TO THE BEAUTY OF MY HOOKED THINGS AS THEY SHUDDER AND BUCK IN PENITENCE TO ME WHAT IS IT THAT THIS SCREAMING MEWLING THING WANTS FROM ME WHAT CAN IT REQUIRE OF THIS BEAST OF THE ENDLESS NIGHT SKY AND THE DESERT OF HOOKS WHAT DOES IT WANT FROM THE MASTER OF ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN ITS WORLD AND THE WORLD OF SOULS..."

The voice trailed off like as if it were still speaking. Only I couldn't hear it. I looked at Karim.

"Ask now!" he whispered. "Or shut up forever!"

"How do I get back home, out of the in-between?"

"...THE DEVIOUS LITTLE MEWLING THING ASKS TWO QUESTIONS MASKED AS ONE WELL I WILL TELL IT THE FIRST ANSWER TO GET HOME IT MUST SIMPLY CLIMB DOWN THE HILL TAKE THE FIRST RIGHT OFF 28 AND TURN LEFT TWO TIMES THEN IT MUST ENTER THE STREET WITH NO NAME AND GET ITS WAY TO THE CUL DE SAC AND IT WILL REACH HIME THUSHLY AND THE THINGS ONE QUESTION IS EXHAUSTED IS EXTINGUISHED LIKE A CANDLE WICK LIKE A FLAME ITS PUT OUT NOT TO RETURN IT MIGHT FRET BUT I MUST NOT LISTEN TO ITS FRETTING AND ITS MEWLING I MUST BE STRONG BEELZEBUB YOU MUST BE STRONG YOU MUST KILL OR SEND BACK TO THE WORLD OF CATS I DO NOT KNOW I CANNOT DECIDE HOW CAN I DECIDE I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW I WILL TOSS A COIN TAILS TO KILL."

A coin materialized below me and fell upwards, somehow managing to follow normal gravity. It shot straight past me and hurtled back down the desert of hooks. A thin, copper representation of my life. I closed my eyes.

"...IT IS LANDING IT HAS LANDED AND IT IS HEADS HEADS IT IS I AM SO GLADHAPPY AND HAPPYGLAD I LIKE THIS THESE TRICKS THAT FATE IS BLOWING MY WAY I DO NOT KNOW WILL SHE SUCCEED OR WILL SHE NOT I HAVE NO IDEA SHE REMINDS ME OF HER MOTHER EVADING MY HOOKS TO GO BACK TO HER WORLD WHERE SHE WAS BURIED IN THE DIRT AND SHE HAUNTS THERE I HAVE HEARD OH SHE HAUNTS HOW LOVELY HOW PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL A LITTLE WORD STARTS WITH A BREATH LIKE A WHISPER AND GOES HARD LIKE A DEATH HAUNT HAUNT I MUST SAY IT I MUST SEND HER BACK TO THE WORLD OF CATS YES BACK TO THE CATS BECAUSE THE CATS WILL HAVE HER OR SO I AM TOLD YES I AM SENDING HER BACK I AM SENDING SENDING..."

I vomited again and had the rare pleasure of seeing my vomit (t'was the coffee) fly around me and form little shapes in the air . I closed my eyes again. The last thing I saw was the desert of hooks and the penitent souls dangling from their chains.

Then I was back.

It was dusk now, in the in-between. Or perhaps early daybreak. I was on a beach stretching as far as the eye could see on either side. The smell of saltwater hit me and I held my nose (just like her mother's she used to crinkle it the same way).

I waited for something. For some other agent of this strange land to whisk me away somewhere. I waited a long time. No one came. So I walked. I turned around and walked backwards, till the sand of the beach gave way to short, lusciously green grass. I sat down. I thought of my mother.

She was here. I could feel her in it, in this place. In the ocean. Not the ghost. Not the cheap imitation that came to my room and slashed her own throat every afternoon. No, not that thing. My mother. The woman who loved me. She was here once.

I got up, stretched, pulled little, stunted blades of grass from my dress.

That was when I saw the man. He was a short, round, avuncular looking man dressed, absurdly enough in a brown tee-shirt and black jeans. He wore black sunglasses and an earpiece trailed from his ear. He held out a small, silver revolver, aimed straight at my foot.

"Tell Paul not to go to the Cat Club. Screw the mouthpiece. She's right here Bebe. She's at the beach."

I held my arms up because that is what one does when someone points a gun at you.

"You're sure?" he asked. "The boss said alive."

The man listened, his gun still aimed at my foot.

"The left calf, eh?" he asked.

Then he shot.

I fell and the grass held me. Pain crawled up my leg like a ferocious little animal. It scratched at me. It hit my eyes. I screamed. I screamed as hard as I could.

"Shut up!" he told me. "Just shut up. Stop screaming."

The second time someone told me that today.

He hovered over me like a short, round avuncular looking angel of death. His gun was aimed at my face now. I could imagine the exact spot. A bit below my left eye.

"She's screaming like crazy, Bebe! Why'd you tell me to shoot her?"

Undiscernible chatter from the other end.

"Oh. Okay then."

He pulled a little syringe out his pocket. Something green fizzed and bubbled like soda in there. He took off his glasses to show me mismatched hazel and green eyes. Then he poked me with it in the neck.

I saw my short, avuncular angel of death winking at me. Then, I was out cold.

NN