We didn’t land on Earth—we glitched into it, like the universe sneezed and accidentally reinstalled us in the wrong dimension.
One second we were stuck between heaven and hell, and the next—boom—we were standing (well… floating) outside a very familiar place.
Our own society.
I blinked at it, my stomach doing that weird non-existent flip ghosts shouldn’t be able to feel.
“No way,” I muttered.
Meena floated beside me, squinting at the building.
“Wow. Out of all places, we spawn here? The afterlife really said, let’s make this personal.”
I crossed my arms.
“Of course, you idiot, we need our society and our locality to find out how we die”
“Actually, how we get murdered”, she rectifies.
“If this were a show, this is where the background music gets intense.”
“Shut up.”
For a moment, we just stared at it—the door, the windows, the life we no longer belonged to sitting quietly behind those strong iron gates.
Then Meena leaned in slightly and whispered, “Wait…”
I glanced at her.
“What?”
“What if there are ghosts inside?”
I stared at her.
“Meena,” I said slowly, “we are ghosts.”
She frowned.
“Yeah, but like… other ghosts. What if they’re scary?”
“You’re scared of ghosts.”
“Yes.”
“We are ghosts.”
“Exactly. I know how unhinged we are.”
I opened my mouth to argue… then paused.
Okay.
Fair point.
Still, pride refused to let me back down.
I turned toward the gate with fake confidence.
“Relax. It’s our society. Nothing’s gonna—”
Meena grabbed my arm.
“You go first.”
“Why me?”
“Because if something jumps out, I need time to emotionally process before I panic.”
“That’s not how survival works!”
“That’s exactly how my survival works.”
We stood there, arguing like two idiots outside a gate of our own society that we didn’t even need, until finally I huffed and stepped forward.
“Fine. I’ll open it.”
I reached for the handle.
My hand went straight through it.
I froze.
Meena froze.
We looked at each other.
And then—
We screamed.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Not a cute scream.
Not a subtle scream.
Full horror-movie, soul-leaving-body kind of scream.
“WHY DID MY HAND DO THAT?!” I yelled.
“WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?!” Meena screamed back.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaa
“I TOUCHED IT!”
“YOU DIDN’T TOUCH IT!”
“THAT’S WORSE!”
We kept screaming like the door had personally offended us, completely ignoring the fact that we were, once again, dead and therefore not bound by basic human mechanics.
Then Meena, in a burst of absolute genius, tried to grab the handle herself.
Her hand went through, too.
She screamed louder.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
“I CAN’T HOLD THINGS!” she cried.
“WE’RE GHOSTS, MEENA!”
“I DON’T LIKE IT!”
Panic escalated immediately.
I tried knocking on the gate—my hand phased through.
I tried ringing the bell—nothing.
Then, in my brilliance, I shouted, “HELLO?! CAN ANYONE HEAR US?!”
Big mistake.
Because apparently, we weren’t just loud.
We were afterlife loud.
Within seconds, shapes started appearing around us.
Ghosts.
Multiple ghosts.
Floating.
Watching.
Judging.
One of them groaned.
“New ones.”
Another covered his ears.
“Why are they screaming like this?”
“They don’t know how ghost life works,” a third one muttered.
“I CAN HEAR YOU!” Meena snapped.
“Good,” the ghost replied dryly.
“Then stop screaming.”
“I’M STRESSED!”
“You’re dead!”
“EXACTLY!”
More ghosts started gathering, as we’d accidentally hosted some kind of supernatural neighbourhood meeting or a gossiping Kitty party, which was my favourite thing to host.
“This is disturbing the entire area,” one complained.
“Someone report them,” another said.
“Where’s the Council For Ghost Safety?”
Meena turned to me, horrified.
“There’s a council?!”
“I don’t know, but now I’m scared!”
“You started this!”
“YOU SCREAMED FIRST!”
“YOU PHASED FIRST!”
“I DIDN’T KNOW THAT WOULD HAPPEN!”
“Oh my god,” one ghost muttered, “they’re both idiots.”
That was offensive.
Accurate, but offensive.
Finally—finally—in the middle of all the chaos, something clicked in my hand inside the gate like air.
I stopped.
Looked at the strong iron gate.
Then slowly stepped forward.
And walked straight through it.
No resistance.
No effort.
Just… through.
Silence fell behind me.
A second later, Meena followed.
Another pause.
Then she whispered, “We… could’ve done that the whole time.”
I nodded slowly.
“Yeah.”
Outside, the ghost crowd began dispersing, muttering things like “unbelievable” and “no training at all.”
Meena crossed her arms.
“We are never speaking of this again.”
“Agreed.”
A beat passed.
Then I glanced deeper into the society gate—the familiar space now feeling completely unfamiliar.
“…Also,” I said quietly, “if there’s actually a ghost inside…”
Meena looked at me.
“You’re going first.”
She gasped.
“Excuse me?!”
And just like that—
The screaming started again.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
To Be Continued… 👀
I listen to I’m a Mess ” by Bebe Rexha while waiting for this chapter