Chapter 2

DANAELYA HEARS HER alarm clock ringing and she struggles to open her eyes. Can't I just skip today's class? She thought though she knows better.

The clock keeps ringing, but it sounds so far away from her. Her hand reaches for it but all she encounters was empty space. Scratch that. She felt the air.

She searched for her bedside table but found nothing but, again, air. Air? Her eyes snap open. She almost screamed but managed to clamp a hand over her mouth before a sound even came out. She finds herself standing on the sidewalk. Standing. On. The. Sidewalk.

What the-- how-- wait-- why am I-- Am I-- WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING? Her words echo inside her head. She can't seem to think clearly. Her vocabulary is scrambled and in tatters.

She slaps herself to make sure that she is not dreaming. Ouch. She touches her burning cheek from the slap and looks around. Clearly, she is outside. There are towering buildings over her but she can't recognize any of it. She doesn't know where she was (aside from the fact that she's on the side of the road) nor how she got there.

Did I sleepwalk? But she doesn't sleepwalk, ever. Or was it a new habit of hers? Her mom did tell her that she talks in her sleep though so it's not surprising. But to get this far? Somewhere she doesn't know? She can hardly believe it since their house was full of CCTVs.

She looked down and sure enough, she was still wearing her pajamas. Oh wow, I still have the sanity to put on some footwear. She thought as she realized that she's wearing her flip-flops.

She studies her surroundings, trying to make out any sign that might give away her location. However, the buildings don't have any names on them. Like they were made just for design.

She glanced around once again. The chilly night is serving goosebumps on her skin. Strikingly, she can feel the air but she doesn't feel cold. She looked up and discovered that the stars were hiding tonight. Is it going to rain? That's when her eyes caught sight of something. Finally, she thought as she heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of a mark. It was unlike any kind of landmark she had seen before though. One, it is not a name of a street or a direction, it's a sentence. Two, the signage is not pointing at left or right but upwards. Upwards!? I am going crazy. 

THE SHIP IS THAT WAY ⬆️

Instinctively, she peered at the sky. Expecting to see… what? What am I expecting to see? A fucking ship? I am really going crazy. 

All of a sudden, there was a ding sound that resonated around her and what seemed like a traffic light appeared on the opposite side of the road. Or rather, what is supposed to be a traffic light because it looks nothing like one.

It is an enormous rectangular screen that stands vertically, with three circles aligned in the middle. I guess it looks a little bit of a traffic light. The first circle is in red color, and the sentence--the ghost carriage will arrive in 2 minutes--is flashing in italicized letters. The second circle which was colored yellow was flashing the time. While the last one was colored in green saying, the ghost ship will sail once all souls are aboard. 

In Danaelya's head, she is back in bed and all of this is just a dream. But there is something about what's happening around her that is making her believe that it is real. Or, she wants to believe that it is real.

She shuts her eyes, counts one to three, then opens them again. Nothing happened. She is still standing on the sidewalk with weird signs appearing magically around her.

That's when she heard it, the sound of stomping. Unbidden, her head turns to the right where she hears the heavy footsteps. There's smoke coming from that direction preventing her from seeing clearly. She squints and makes out a shadow that looks like… a carriage?!

She pivots to the sign in front of her which now shows her that there's only 30 seconds left before the carriage arrives. She looks from the sign to her service to the sign then back to her ride again which is now right in front of her.

Her mouth is left agape by the sight in front of her. "Hello, I am Pedestal. Your chauffeur for the night." Her chauffeur takes off his hat and bows slightly to her, still on the carriage. "Oh no."

Pedestal has seen it coming even before he greeted her as Danaelya screams her lungs out. He has been doing this job for 100 years now and he's used to souls screaming at the sight of him so it doesn't bother him as much now. In fact, he just lets her scream until she is coughing because of it. 

"I understand that you still need time to adjust but the Ghost Ship is about to sail and I still have 3 souls left to attend to. So if it's not so much of a burden to you, please stop being a burden to me."

Danaelya was too stunned to speak. Even though she has stopped emptying the oxygen inside her, her eyes are still as big as saucers as she tries to gauge her situation. "Y--you… you---you… you're a…"

"A skeleton as you can see." Yeah, she can see that very well. A skeleton who's wearing a suit with a red necktie and a hat like that of a magician's.

"Please tell me---"

"This is not a dream nor your imagination. This is as real as me not having flesh and--WE ARE RUNNING LATE!" He suddenly shouts when he looks at his wrist watch.

Danaelya jumps a little. The yell woke her up from her trance. "What is--"

"Okay, that's it." Pedestal jumps out of the carriage and walks to her. Without giving her time to react, he scoops her up and dumps her inside and locks the door from the outside. 

Danaelya realizes what's happening a little too late. She bangs her hand on the door but it's not budging. "Where are you taking me? What are you doing? What is happening?"

"I really wish I have the right to answer you, kid. But I don't. Don't worry though, they will explain it to you once you're aboard. For now, just enjoy the riiiiide!" Then, they flew. 

Yep, flew. In the sky. It was like riding in an airplane except that it is shakier. Danaelya's stomach dropped when they ascended. It wasn't the take-your-time type, it was the a-quick-swoosh-and-we're-there type of ascend. It took approximately 5 seconds before the thing calmed down. But she is still holding her hands together and closing her eyes, praying that somehow, she'll be back in her bed once she opens her eyes. She did. Open her eyes, but she still wasn't back in her room. She gave up wishing, realizing it is probably futile. Deciding that she has no other choice aside to go with the flow, she calms herself down.

Pedestal felt that the girl in his carriage had finally collected herself. "What's your name kid?" He asks.

She yelped at the sudden question. Okay, maybe not so calm yet. "Uhm… D-da-danaelya."

"What a unique name." He meant that. In his hundred years, he has heard of that name maybe once or twice. "Tell me, kid. What did you wish for?"

"W-wish?"

"Oh you know," he shrugs. "That golden paper that you found."

Danaelya then remembers that paper she found in her room. "You left that?" She asked, aghast.

"Oh no no no no, kid." He shakes his head. "If I did, I wouldn't be chauffeuring you right now." His voice then drops into whisper. "The prince did."

"Prince?" Her brows furrowed.

"Uh-huh. He picks the souls he wants aboard."

"Pick?" All of a sudden, there was a searing pain in Pedestal's skull. He hisses as it intensifies.

"Sorry, kid. Not allowed to say more." The pain soothes, but just a little. A warning. "Just enjoy the ride. The city lights are beautiful at night."

Although she has many questions left, Danaelya just let it go. She proceeds to do what the skeleton told her and look out her window. The sight below her took her breath away. 

She has never seen a more beautiful scenery. There have only been two places that she has gone through in her 17 years of living. Her school and her house. Oh, and the malls too. But they weren't as beautiful as this.

The lights were blinking at her as if they were stars that had fallen on the ground. It's a galaxy of buildings and mansions made of gold and bronze. She once thought that those piles of bricks were everything in the world. Those were the lives of the businessman and woman and kids alike. It's like whoever has the largest and grandest mansion is the wealthiest man, or the one who owns a palace shall own the world too. And yet, as they go up and up and gradually disappear in the clouds, she realizes as she watches those buildings become dots in a landscape that everything is just a speck of dust in this never-ending void.

They stop abruptly and Danaelya hits her head on her seat. "Ouch."

"Trafffick! Oh my skull! Really? MOVE FASTER YOU ZERO-FLESH… UGH!" She hears Pedestal cussing from outside so she peeks from the window. There, she saw a long line of carriages, all wearing identical designs. A skull with a hat tilted to the side and two bones acting like a bow beneath it. "I really hate this type of traffic," Pedestal whispers before shouting, "MOVE IT YOU GHOSTS!"

A commotion followed after Pedestal's outburst. Danaelya slumps over her seat, still unable to believe what was happening around her. Let's just go with the flow, for now. Later, I will wake up and everything will be back to normal.

 After dropping off his 5th soul for the night, Pedestal wasted no time fetching his last three. As he let go of his last, it dawned on him the variation in each soul he escorted. There were others who were disbelieving, others who calmly went with him even though they clearly still had so many questions, some were… Well, they didn't look like they believed in anything but their eyes told him that they could use some escape.

Silently, a smile crawls its way to his lips. This batch will be fun.