Wet Eyes by Callie Catherine Brice (best books to read in life TXT) 📖

hands. I see a small glow of light between her fingers but couldn’t really tell what it was.
“I like my eternal form. It’s fun to bounce around. I can’t wait to see what you get.”
She opens her hand and a stream of light moves out of it. She moves it to the ground. How was she doing this?
“You have to get through the woods though. It test’s your fear and survival skills. Even though you are dead you can still be hurt in this world. You can still feel things. People in the world kill the things that can kill and hurt them, and then they come here. These things can’t kill us, but they can hurt us, and we can’t kill them.”
She makes a few other ribbons of light and set them in a square shape. Soon there were eight. She walks to the edge of the square.
“Just like before, the faster you get through this the faster you will move on. I can’t really help that much either. “
Charlie starts to move her hands like she is stroking the air in front of her. Little streaks of light start to appear. The streaks start to get thicker and thicker. She moves her hands above her as she holds the light and walks to the middle of the square. I don’t move or speak. She starts to pull the light, it stretches. She pulls then pushes it to a stream of light on the ground. The light sticks to each other. She does this a few more times until we are surrounded by light.
“Well, that should hold us for the night. Sorry we don’t have a real tent, but at least we have something. Most people have to figure out shelter by themselves.” She sits by me. I look around not being able to believe what she just created. It was so beautiful. “I guess it’s kind of bright to sleep with.” She looks up and blows. The light dims down to what looks like a candlelit atmosphere.
“Charlie, how did you do that?”
“I’m dead, I can do anything.” She pushes my shoulders to lay me down. Her head lies on my chest. “Goodnight.”
Ten

I wake up feeling a rough and spiky texture under me. There were leaves below me; I almost forgot where I was. I sit up, eyes droopy, and body tired. It was still dark outside leaving the only light to be the dim dome Charlie put around us. I look around for her but don’t see her. Was she just an illusion? The last time I woke up was when she led me to this world. Maybe I was dead.
“Oh!” I turn my head around swiftly to see Charlie walking towards me from out of the woods. “You’re up!” She came at me with a smile. She kneels down to push back my hair and kisses my forehead. I close my eyes and lay back down. “I bet you are hungry. You haven’t eaten in a day and a half.” She sits next to me with her hand on my chest and her eyes looking into mine.
“What? How long was I asleep?”
“Well we spent half a day getting here. So I’ll say about a day.”
“I slept through the entire day?”
“Yes. Well no. It’s never day here. So I guess the answer is no, but viewing it time wise, yes. I think.”
“It’s never day here?”
“Yup. Remember what I told you. This is the challenge. The test. Darkness is a part of it. It’s always dark here. Now come on, get up. We need to get through this so you won’t starve to death. Oh damn it! I completely forgot about water. You are probably parched.”
“I haven’t really thought about food or water.” I start to lick my lips and notice how dry my mouth is.
“Well of course you haven’t. You have been sleeping.” She gives me a look like I am stupid. I smile at this. She always gave me that look. I missed that. “There is a small creek along the way. Try to hold up till then.” She stands up and walks towards the woods. “This way.” I stand up.
“Wait, don’t you want to take this down.”
“The light? Nah.”
“Why not?”
“I’m too lazy.”
She guides me through the thick darkness. With her hands she makes a stream of light. The glow coming off her fingers and relaxing in the air around us. It was extraordinary.
I couldn’t believe I was here. I couldn’t believe this was the world that dead people go to. Everyone who died has been through here and I’m not even dead. They have touched everything around me. They all have smelled that amber smell that is going throughout the air and into my nostrils. I don’t know if I’m lucky or crazy for thinking I’m lucky. I am also still in shock that Charlie is right there in front of me. She is right there. For the past year I have been craving to hold her and kiss her and I finally got it. I was so happy but so confused at the same time. I didn’t know how she got to me. She did say something about breaking a lot of rules to see me. So I’m guessing she is breaking a lot of rules to let me see all of this too. I didn’t want to ask her any questions because I knew that would ruin everything. I wanted to be with her while I could and let everything go by smoothly; then again we are in a different world. I don’t think ‘smooth’ is the right word. I have so many questions for her; I just didn’t want to mess up this miracle. I am the only person that gets to see someone after death and I truly don’t know how to feel about that. My head is winding with questions, I feel like I am going crazy. Take it slow.
“Charlie, if everyone who dies comes through here… why are we the only ones here?”
“Everyone does come through here but we can’t see them and they can’t see us. We can’t feel them and they can’t feel us. Yes it’s the same place and challenge but everyone is alone. “
“Oh.” I didn’t really understand but I am too scared to go on with the question. As I followed her I watch her body sway as she walks. I want to hold her like I did last night. I start to smell water. I never even knew that water had a smell but the second it hit the atmosphere I could tell water was around us.
“Here we are.” We are at the creek. She guides the band of light around so the entire creek lights up. She kneels down and cups her hands with water and drinks. I do the same.
“You eat and drink? Even though you’re dead?”
“Yeah I know isn’t it crazy? Instead of it being like the movies make it out to be- dead people actually eat and drink, and no we don’t eat innocent humans and drink their blood. We eat food and drink water.” I stop talking. When I finish drinking I saw her standing on a rock looking into the woods. I walk up to her and hug her from behind resting my chin on her shoulder. Her hands wrap around mine.
“I love you, Ray.” She turns around in my arms and strokes my hair. She gazes into my eyes. We kiss. Just one kiss. It is so magical. So meaningful.
“I love you too.” I kiss her nose. She closes her eyes for a moment then pulls away from me.
“We have to go. It won’t take long, I know where to go.”
“Are there going to be creepy creatures that come at us?”
She laughs “No. All this is is finding your way. You have an entire world of trees and no light, and you have to find your way, but no one knows what their looking for or where they are supposed to end up. Also they are alone. That’s the challenge. Fear, loneliness, and one of your senses are gone. Sight.”
“How long were you here for?” I ask wanting to hear the answer but with a tone of embarrassment.
“The first time you saw me in the woods at your house. I got out of here about 5 weeks before that.”
“You were here for a year?”
“I was in The Void for six months. It took me a little bit over a year to accept all of this. This world we are in right now, for me, it was hell. I thought I died and went to hell. This part just killed me. It’s called The Mass. Ray; you don’t understand what it was like. The average time to be in here is two months. It took me eight.
“I was lost; everywhere I went I was lost. I couldn’t see. I had to make fire from two sticks. That took me three weeks to master. I had no food. No water. Which I don’t need to live but even though I am dead I still have the taste buds and the feeling in my throat. I still have a stomach that can feel empty. No matter if you can die from starvation or not, the feeling of being hungry, and the feeling of being thirsty, makes a person so tired. So worn out and exhausted. Even though I am dead I still have emotions and I can feel loneliness and I can feel death. That’s exactly what this obstacle made me feel. This was hell for me. Hell.
”I finally found this creek after a few months. It helped me get through the rest. It let me know there was something I was looking for, and there would be somewhere to end up.”
She looks at me to make sure I am listening. I am. I want to feel what she felt. I want to feel more pain then she felt so I could comfort her, but I couldn’t. I hate that.
She starts to walk. I fallow. We walk through the trees and leaves. I see the trees silhouettes and feel the leaves below me, but when I felt the trees it was something different. I touch a tree, and yes it does feel like a tree. However, it feels cold. Ice cold, though the air was warm. As I realize this I stop to touch the leaves on the ground, they were just as cold. It was like a layer of ice growing over them.
Charlie turns around to look at me. She stops and holds out her right hand for mine. I put my figures through hers and feel her smooth skin against mine.
“It was a shock for me too.” She says this in a quiet tone.
“What