Page 158 of The Fifth Life of Alicia
Kalon.
I looked down at my hands. Was I dead? Had the monster gotten hold of me? Or was it the light that’d come from me that’d finished me off?
Oh, no.
If I was dead, did that mean the timeline was resetting again?
Wait.
Where did that thought come from?
“Ah.” I grabbed my head as a sharp pain shot through it. Images flashed through my mind in quick succession—a handsome ethereal man, Marilyn Monroe, a sign that said, ‘The Department of Reincarnation.’
What a strange bunch of memories that was.
But… they were mine. From before I became Alicia Vermillion.
Or were they? Something about that statement didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Ah. I was so confused.
Who was that person? And why did they turn into Marilyn Monroe?
Hmm.
It took me a few tries thanks to the soft, dry sand, but I made it to my feet and brushed the sand off from my dress. I was still wearing the dress I’d worn to the hunting competition, and a thorough check of it showed no sign of bloodstains or tearing. Unless that was a hinky afterlife trick, was it possible I was alive?
Afterlife.
Were those memories from a time between my lives?
Yes. That felt right.
I pulled off my shoes and socks and gathered my skirt so I could walk onto the wet sand. Would I be able to feel the ocean here? Was the water wet?
I stepped into the foam of a wave that was just creeping back out and smiled.
The water was, in fact, wet.
Small wins.
Hmm. None of this answered my questions though.
“Am I dead?” I asked the ocean.
Sadly, it didn’t answer.
“Yeah, that was a long shot.” I sighed and looked down at my feet, taking slow steps so that my toes would sink into the wet sand.
At least it wasn’t hot, despite the sun being high in the sky. In fact, everything was perfectly pleasant and comfortable, perhaps the very weather conditions I’d describe as my ideal.
Yeah.
I was totally dead, wasn’t I?
“Well, the weird man in my memories said the world resets with my death, so am I in some kind of holding pattern?”
“Weird man in your memories? I take offense to that!”
