Amaris' footsteps dragged on the cracked pavement as she walked down the quiet street.
Her shift had ended thirty minutes ago, but Marcellus, her manager had kept her to mop the floors twice because a customer spilled ketchup on the floor.
No overtime pay, of course. But she couldn't just quit when she had no proper education to search for another better one.
She pulled her thin jacket tighter against the cold November wind. The fabric was worn at the elbows, and one of the buttons had fallen off weeks ago. She'd meant to sew it back on, but the needle in her apartment had snapped the last time she tried.
"Well, let's see..." Amaris mumbled as she pulled out her phone from her pocket to check her account balance.
: $4.37
Amaris closed her eyes and counted to ten, the way her mother used to before she died. It didn't help then either.
She had been planning this for weeks. Tonight was her birthday- midnight would mark twenty-four years of existing in a world that barely noticed her. She was going to buy a pack of instant noodles and splurge on fried chicken from the place two blocks over. It wasn't much, but it would've been something.
But Marcellus had other plans.
"Amaris, about that money you borrowed last month, I'm taking it out of your pay." He had said as he counted her wages.
She'd stared at the three crumpled bills he handed her. Barely enough for the noodles, forget the chicken.
"Marcellus, I thought we agreed I'd pay you back over two months...."
"I've got bills to pay too, kiddo." Marcellus had replied sharply.
Now Amaris walked home with an empty stomach and emptier pockets. The streets were quieter at this hour. Most people were inside, warm, definitely sleeping soundly after eating dinner with their families.
Amaris had no family. No friends either, really. People looked through her like she was made of glass. Plain face, plain clothes, plain everything. She'd learned early that being poor meant being invisible.
She crossed the intersection without looking at the light. A car horn blared and she jumped back, her heart hammering.
"Watch where you're going!" the driver shouted before speeding off.
Amaris pressed a hand to her chest and took a shaky breath. She needed to pay attention. She needed to...
What exactly did she need to do?
Work herself to death for minimum wage? Go home to her apartment with the broken heater and the landlord who kept threatening eviction? Wake up tomorrow and do it all again?
Twenty-four years old in less than an hour and she had never had the luxury of been on a date. Never kissed before. Never had someone look at her and see something worth wanting.
The thought made her throat tight and anger bubbled up in her mind. Life was unfair to her.
As her thoughts spiraled, she kept walking...
Then two figures emerged from the alley ahead. They were walking towards to her.
Amaris's instincts screamed at her to turn around, but her legs kept moving. Maybe she was too tired to care. Maybe some part of her wanted whatever was coming.
The men wore hoodies pulled low over their faces. One was tall and thin, the other shorter but broader.
"Hey, nice bag!" the tall one said as they got closer to her.
Amaris' steps faltered and she looked down at her canvas tote, stained and fraying at the handles and quickly replied; "There's nothing in it."
"We will be the judge of that." The shorter man grabbed the bag and yanked it off her shoulder.
He opened it and dumped the contents onto the sidewalk. A half-empty water bottle, a pack of tissues and her apartment key on a rusted ring. The three bills from her wages fluttered to the ground.
"That's it? Fifteen bucks?" The tall one kicked at the money.
"I told you there was nothing." Amaris's voice came out steadier than she felt.
The men looked at each other. Something passed between them that made Amaris's stomach drop.
"Maybe your body would be more useful then," the shorter one said.
Amaris ran.
She didn't think, just turned and sprinted back the way she had come. Her worn sneakers slapped against the concrete. Her breath came in ragged gasps.
Behind her, she heard them laugh. Then footsteps, getting closer.
"Come back here!"
A hand caught her hair and yanked. Pain exploded across her scalp. Amaris stumbled, her arms windmilling as she tried to keep her balance.
Her foot caught the edge of the curb.
And she fell sideways into the drainage ditch, the world tilting violently. Her head connected with the concrete bottom with a sound that seemed impossibly loud.
Everything went white, then red.
When her vision cleared, she was lying on her back, staring up at the night sky. She couldn't move. Couldn't feel her legs. Something warm and sticky spread beneath her head.
The men's faces appeared above her, eyes wide.
"Shit, she's bleeding."
"Let's go. Let's go!"
And like that, their footsteps faded into the distance.
Amaris lay alone in the gutter, the cold seeping into her bones. She could feel her heartbeat slowing. She could feel something vital draining away with each passing second.
"Maybe this is better," she whispered to no one. Her voice sounded strange, distant. "Maybe this is the rest I needed."
She thought about heaven, if it existed. Maybe there she would have what she never got here. All the things she had been denied because she was born poor and plain and forgettable.
Wealth. Fame. Unlimited Pleasure.
The word "pleasure" left her lips with her final breath, a desperate, bitter wish thrown into the void.
And then Amaris Leicester died.
~~~~~~~~~
In a place between existence and non-existence, something stirred.
And the word echoed.
"Pleasure..."
A consciousness that had been dormant for five hundred years suddenly flickered to life, drawn by the desperate, dying wish of a soul.
Blood red eyes opened in the darkness.
"Mhmm, interesting," a voice purred, feminine and ancient and hungry.
~~~~~~~~~
"I have died, right?"
Amaris didn't know where she was.
There was no light, no sound, no sensation. Just an endless void of gray nothingness that pressed in from all sides. She was floating, drifting from everything.
"This must be... The afterlife?" It certainly felt empty enough to be hell.
Then came the voice.
It was like honey and poison mixed together, smooth and seductive and dangerous. It wrapped around her, through her, into her, and Amaris felt herself drawn toward it instinctively.
"I know what you craved badly before you died."
The words resonated through the void, through Amaris' very being.
The voice continued, closer now, intimate, as if whispering directly into her ear despite having no ears in this formless place.
"Wealth, fame, and unlimited pleasure."
Amaris' consciousness recoiled. How did this voice know? Had it heard her final words?
"I will give you all."
The words should have sounded too good to be true. They should have triggered every warning instinct Amaris possessed.
But she was dead, wasn't she? What did she have to lose?
"Who... Who are you?" Amaris tried to speak, tried to form words, but she had no mouth in this void.
The voice laughed then announced;
"I am your salvation, Amaris Leicester. The answer to your dying wish, your benefactor!"
"I am your new beginning."
Before Amaris could respond, before she could question or protest or accept, something yanked at her. A force beyond description seized her consciousness and pulled, dragged, hurled her through the void toward something bright and painful and real.
"What is happening to me? Can the dead die again?" Amaris panicked in confusion.