This New Dimension

Ray opens his eyes and feels very weird. There’s a strange itch on the upper part of his back, from the back of his neck to the end of his shoulder blades. His feet hurt as if they were martyrs of unknown rituals. His fingers burn, his chest is empty. Fortunately, there’s his still curly hair and his still light skin, and he looks down at himself and everything seems normal. Ray takes a deep sigh and, then, a step forward.

He walks around the city for some time, seeing other people but sensing that they can’t see him.

He thinks about his wife and future wedding, scheduled for next year, and how they are excited to finally get married after seven years of dating, ten years after the first day they met. It isn’t exactly peaceful to think of her when she’s not around, and especially when he doesn’t know where she is, but Ray tries to convince himself that he will get to her in no time. He feels very weird, weirder than before, as even old friends and job partners don’t respond to his waving movements
and his calls.

Then, a voice sounds and interrupts his thoughts,
“They can’t hearrr you.”

Ray turns around instinctively.

It’s a man, a tall man, hoodie over his head and Ray can’t look at his face. His hair seems dark and somewhat long through the fabric, tucked behind his ears protectively, but also falling over his forehead and covering it shortly. His dark clothes seem wet as they clamp firmly to his body, that impression of having taken a bath or having gone for a swim with them on. His hands are pale, deadly pale, as the man keeps them in fists against his chest. Suddenly, he looks up and Ray finds his face. There are two strict lines forming a mouth, the regular small nose, the infinitely hazel eyes, darkened by ruined lines of eyeliner.
That man is shivering.

Ray wonders if he’s always looked like that, because the soft and purring voice he heard doesn’t match the stern peculiarity of the figure of that man, but Ray can’t think of any description to how amazed he is that finally someone talked to him.

“They can’t see orr hearr us,”
the man repeats, staring at Ray and apparently studying his figure, until his lips close again and there are no more sounds coming from his throat. That’s when reality destroys Ray’s amazedness, because silence won’t explain to him what’s going on with him, this man and the rest of everyone, who apparently can’t notice their presence.

“But you can…”
Ray tries, in order to get some answers about the whole situation. He doesn’t know the man, but since he’s the only one capable of telling him something for real, Ray lets go of all the creepy feelings in his body, all the uneasiness nearly killing his capacity of staying awake.

“Yes.”
the man starts again, after some seconds of silently staring back at Ray. There’s something wrong with that man’s eyes, they make Ray uncomfortable, but Ray can’t think about that or he will lose the crucial opportunity of talking to someone;
“Because I’m dead too.”

“Too?”

“Yes, my frrriend, and if you can hearrr me,
it means only one thing…”
the man clarifies Ray, never changing his tone of voice, as if he’s been training that speech for months. Their eyes meet again and no electricity runs through them, but the man’s voice wears an understanding and somewhat wise attitude that Ray can’t explain, or feel in his own.

“So, you’re basically telling me that I’m dead?”
Ray insists, only to make sure that this isn’t a silly joke from someone who’s trying to hypnotize him in his real life. Ray consults his left wrist to make sure he has his watch there. In fact, the device is there,
but it doesn’t mark any specific hours;
the digital numbers run freely in front of his eyes.

“It’s worrrthless,”
the man says, coming closer to Ray and making him take steps back. There’s a very weird blankness in Ray’s head, so he doesn’t know if he can exactly trust the stranger.
Who knows what he can do to Ray?
“Watches don’t worrrk herrre, because the time is not as linearrr as it is in the living worrrld. And this is not a drrream eitherrr, so you won’t wake up by starrring the numberrrs flashing by. You’rrre just-“

“Dead?”

“Exactly.”
Those are the last words from the unknown man to Ray before he clasps their hands together.
“Come, I’ll trrry to show you and explain you.”

“Why should I trust you anyway?”

“Because I’m the only one who can hearrr you
at the moment,”
the man only says.

Ray knows he’s right by saying that they’re the only ones in here at the moment, even if there are various other people walking around the street. No one can see or hear them, and therefore Ray has to trust the one, only one,
able to tell him something.
“Now, tell me; what’s the last thing you rrrememberrr beforrre finding yourrrself herrre?”

Ray thinks properly for some seconds about the question, as the man lets go of his hand and just stands there, ready for nothing but an answer. And Ray will give that to him, as soon as he can organize his head and keep his memories in place. It’s all a terrible mess, though, and Ray is ready only after a few minutes of struggling with his mind.

The man clicks his tongue and it works as some gunshot for Ray to put it all together and start talking.

“I remember the lights and the noise,”
Ray hesitates within his words, trying something with his mind that he had never heard of before.
“And I remember the clashing sound, and the glass coming closer to my face and chest before that.”

Ray’s speech is light, and somewhat paused, because he’s making sure his backwards sequence is correct.
The man is silently allowing Ray think.

“I remember how my hips hit the wall, or whatever was behind me, and someone shouting “-other car” before th-
oh!, and I remember someone else screaming before that.
And the lady with the baby that sat next to me; I didn’t know any of them, but I do remember they were on the bus I had taken. I always take the bus when coming home
from work…”
Ray smiles the last words, and looks up at the man, still silent, by his side; the hoodie still over his head, and the clothes still wet around his body. Ray doesn’t understand the peculiarity of that situation, so he shrugs and makes a noise with only his throat to announce the end of his memory exercise. He’s done for the moment.

“So, it was an accident,”
the man simplifies all the reminiscences in one single sentence. Ray nods and shrugs again, since nothing is very clear in his head. There’s only that slight hint of confusion, but the main part inside of him is just pure blank.
“Do you think you werrre-”

“Oh,”
Ray interrupts,
“I think I woke up in a hospital bed.”

“Hmm…”
the man mumbles and Ray lifts his eyes to see him look forward, but in a very awkward angle, head tilted to one side and mouth scrunched up on the opposite side. Ray sees it as a sign of balance, but he can’t reach that man’s mind,
so he sticks with his blankness.

“You took the bus, a public trrransporrrt,”
the man says at some point, after what seemed to be a moment for a thought, and he suddenly turns to Ray,
catching Ray’s eyes with his own;
“It might mean they took you to Centrrral Hospital, since it’s the biggest in town.”

The man looks too comfortable with his mental progress and spoken words, but his body’s still shivering, obviously from the wet clothes. It’s too weird to see him like that, because it probably has an explanation, and Ray wants to ask him about it, but he decides against it. No one knows how the man will react and Ray prefers the ignorance, as the blank background inside his head isn’t that unpleasant.
For a second, Ray thinks he heard the man whimpering, but when he looks, Ray finds him just staring back,
impatience written all over.

“You wanna go therrre and see if we can find you?”
The man inquires sternly, and Ray finds something bizarre about that figure. The man causes him pity, due to the soaked hoodie, and the clothes, and the trembling from the cold, but at the same time he gives Ray the chills about that creepy sense of I-know-better-than-you that Ray wants to respect. So much that he only nods and says
“Okay.”

Ray follows the man and they walk towards Central Hospital, the main place on that man’s suspicions; Ray won’t let him down. So they walk, first in silence, but then Ray’s mind-clouds start opening up and he’s able to talk to the man about his wife and their life together. Ray speaks of how he met her out of town, and brought her to live with his parents since she had officially decided to move out of her past home, and how he bought her their own house some months, almost two years, later.

Ray tells the man that he’s in love and wants to marry her, have kids with her and spend many Christmas with her by the tree… Ray says everything he can remember, and he has again that double sensation, one-part positive and one-part negative, towards the only person he found
since he woke up here.

As he talks, the man is silent, unless he interrupts Ray with a particular question and this-or-that understanding noise; Ray starts to enjoy the company of that man, all creepiness and peculiarity fading away, as every almost-fluttering step
takes them close to the Hospital.

As they get there, Ray missing the sensation of being watched and heard, he confesses that he misses his wife and his eyes show the sadness that only changes after the honesty and cruelty of the man’s only comment,
“It’s all too late now.”

Ray can somehow sense a mist of a very deep, very saddening tone in that voice, but he looks at the man with his widened eyes, and catches the unknown man’s gaze on his own, until silence falls over them.

The man seems to know the Hospital pretty well, as he flutters from corridor to corridor with that delicatessen Ray hasn’t seen in many people, let alone recognize it in a stranger. But here he is, surprising Ray’s eyes, guiding them both to the right ward, first the ICU, then the Post-Surgery Care, and then some others Ray has no time to recognize the name in their quick visit.

The man is obviously aware of what he’s doing and, even that Ray can’t find a reason in himself to be following that man’s lead, he does. It’s a high level of trust Ray has just fond out. Is it possible that death, if they really are dead,
can carry such nobility in everyone’s mind?

Ray puts a stop to all his questions and mental entertainment when the man peeps through a certain door, after having done the same to dozens of them, stands up contentedly and purrs. Ray finds it weird, but he just peeps in and he swears he recognizes someone in that room. There are the doctors and the nurses around the bed, where someone with hair just like Ray’s, curly and messy, and comfortable at times, is lying down motionlessly; Ray checks and it’s his face.

Damn, he really is dead.
“I really am dead,”
he speaks out loud, repeating the statement over and over again inside his mind until he’s interrupted just like that.

“Hey, you okay?”
the man asks calmly and Ray nods, stopping all the questions for now. The strange man looks at Ray weirdly, questioning eyes piercing out of his sulks and
greasy locks of hair meet the man’s face.

He puts them back behind his ears, before pointing to the speaking nurses, to a very one in particular. She holds what can be Ray’s file and the man silently offers to slide himself behind her figure and read whatever is in the file, as Ray asks himself if living humans can feel
anything from them.

Them… Ray thought about it.
He focuses his mind on the strange man reading over the nurse’s shoulders, trying to figure out how he can be so sure that they’re dead and not sleeping in a coma, or just out of their minds for long months. Ray tries to dig that idea, but the nurses start to leave the room and he practically throws himself at the nearest empty wall to make sure he doesn’t interrupt anything in the ‘real world’. However, a sudden idea washes over him up to a strike of thunder lights and Ray props an arm forward, waiting to see if the nurse will crash against his unseen figure, of if she will walk through
his hand and forearm.

No; the nurse stops before getting to him and looks back. Ray doesn’t know why or what for, because she’s there, and he can see her breathing movements, but she doesn’t move.
What can she be looking for, or at?
Ray doesn’t want that answer, so he puts his arm down and watches the nurse turn around and walk out of the room,
for real this time.
What the-

“They can’t see us,
but we can interrrferrre in a way they don’t notice,”
the stern voice says again and Ray takes a mental note to ask that man about the singularity of his speech. Frowning, Ray just looks at him, feeling empty in the chest and not knowing what to say, but he doesn’t have to worry
as the man opens his mouth again;
“You wanna know what I rrread?”

Ray nods.
“I don’t remember much, because apparently I’ve been in a hospital, and I don’t feel much either. Everything is just-“

“Blank, I know,”
the man finishes Ray’s sentence.

Ray frowns even further, because he always knows what Ray is about to say. And it’s weird, because it looks like the man reads what’s inside Ray’s head, but really,
is that even possible?
Can Ray feel that blankness because the man stole all his ideas and emotions, or even his insides?

“Don’t worrrry,”
the strange man continues,
and Ray emits a strangled sound of frustration.

“Are you inside my head?”
Ray asks, feeling… very weird.
Again.

“No, I am not inside yourrr head.
It’s just that I’ve been therrre, and I know how it feels. Serrriously, man, it’s verrry wicked, but it will make sense whatsoeverrr,”
he answers, not giving any kind of inner security to Ray. The man is just too strange, and too wise, too wicked.
“Soon.”

Ray shrugs and sighs, ready for the “tell me what you read”
he wants so much to request.
“Tell me what you read.”

“Apparrrently, you’ve been herrre forrr thrrree weeks, with severrral damages frrrom that bus accident, including in the hearrrt and brrrain. It said that you werrre in a coma, and one of the nurrrses was saying that she saw you waking up and went to get help, only to come back and find you this way,”
the man says and his voice does tremble
for a reason only he can know.

“Why would I wake up to die?”
Ray just asks, entangled in the confusion he feels,
but really can’t understand.

“I don’t know,”
the man responds in a defeated tone Ray is sure he tried to disguise. Maybe, for this man, not knowing things is a bad premonition for something Ray can’t know.

They remain silent for a long time, but it doesn’t affect Ray in any specific way; he’s just empty. Ray thinks he can only agree with that man, because during his teenage years, Ray wondered many times how it would feel like to be dead, and now he can only conclude that it just feels blank, empty, unoccupied of everything else. Ray studies that feeling, or lack of it, for some moments, but he gets nothing specific because he just can’t determine what examination can be done; there was just nothing in there.

“What’s wrrrong?”
the man questions, snapping Ray out of his thoughts.

“It’s nothing,”
Ray replied,
“Seriously.”

It’s true.
There’s nothing, or at least that’s the only sensation Ray feels from the blank in his insides.
He looks up at the man, and tilts his head to the left side.
“What’s up with your accent?” he asks.

“Oh,”
the man smiles, apparently softly,
as his eyes focus on Ray.
“It’s not an accent,”
he simply says, leaving Ray even more confused, and wiggling his eyebrows in very impossible angles.
“It’s purrrring.”

Ray blinks.
“Why would you-“
he tries, but the man stops him with a stern look
and a strong chuckle.

“It’s been happening to me since the firrrst time my most loved one was told that I had died. It will happen to you eventually, if someone announces to the perrrson you most love that you’rrre not with them anymorrre.”

“What are you telling me?” Ray asks, with some fury running out in his tone. He isn’t particularly enjoying that part of the tale, so he has to ask all the questions he can.

“It’s that simple, hm…”
the man hesitates, until Ray pronounces the only word the stranger is looking for,
“Ray.”

“Gerrrarrrd,”
the man smiles.
“It’s that simple, Rrray. When you die, you come herrre; it’s the hidden sense of Purrrgatorrry, I guess. Then, everrrything happens, and yourrr death becomes a path of phases, and the time between them depends on what happens in the living worrrld.”

“Oh,”
is Ray’s answer. Uneasiness creeps up to his mind level and abandons his essence to a concept he doesn’t understand, and he can’t be sure if he wants to. He still asks,
“What happens when -
you mentioned something about my girlfriend,
or my most loved one,
being announced that I passed away to this side of life;
what happens, then?”

Gerard doesn’t hesitate, but he waits for Ray to swallow the awkwardly huge lump in his throat. It gets stuck in Ray’s esophagus, inflating his chest,
but the stranger doesn’t know about it,
so he’s already speaking when it dissolves:
“- finds out, an animal frrrom Naturrrrrre, dead orrr alive, chooses you and you get some of its charrracterrristics. So, I purrrr…”

Ray echoes his
“You purr,”
as the man seems to finally hesitate. Their eyes lock.

“Yeah, I guess a feline chose me, and I have this image of a leoparrrd constantly at the back of my mind, some sorrrt of a tattoo I didn’t need a needle to puncturrre into my skin,”
the man clarified with a little smile.

Ray nods.
And there’s nothing else.

He sits at one empty corner of the Hospital room, eyes stopped on his lying figure that he observed previously, even if only through the corner of his eye as they talked. They’re silent now, and Ray is blank, and no words leave his mouth, no sound of any kind. Gerard doesn’t say anything either and the silent Hospital consumes the distance between them, because Gerard’s still standing on the same spot, feet glued to the floor and eyes fixed on the lying Ray.
He finally goes closer to the sitting Ray,
who’s very quiet, still empty and very weird,
and so is everything else, until the still stranger speaks;
“It gets scarrry.”

They return to their silence for only seconds, because Ray can’t stand how Gerard is sitting against the wall, knees against his chest, and hands against
the underside of his thighs.
“What?”

“It gets scarrry to be dead. And my head floods with questions no one can answerrr, because I can’t find the courrrage to ask them eitherrr.
I’m too frrrightened of the answerrr…”
Gerard seemed to be confessing his inner feelings and Ray feels he can sink along with that man, but that’s because Ray just doesn’t know what to think. Or feel.

“What’s the worst question?”
Ray asks innocently, looking at the man by his side, carefully jumping in surprise at the sound that emerges from Gerard’s throat. The man brings his hands up and opens them to bury his face there, and insert the fingertips inside the hoodie over his head. Ray can see his knuckles moving under the fabric, but he just waits. There’s nothing else he can do, anyway.

“It’s just…”
comes the very tiny, very murmured voice from the figure by Ray’s side. Gerard finally lifts his head, removing it from the confines of his hands, and looks at Ray. There are locks of hair on his face and he removes the stubborn ones to behind his ears again,
and he says,
“How long am I - What’s gonna happen to me?”

One more second of staring at each other, one more second of silence, and Gerard backs away; he goes back to his curled-up position, but now his forehead falls on his knees, and his arms wrap around the legs.
“I just don’t know, and I-”

“Hey,”
Ray interrupts softly, putting a warm hand on his shoulder and feeling the wet clothes for the first time. Gerard shivers even more and Ray wonders if it’s from the cold, or the touch, because it’s all just so confusing. His own body is now shivering and Ray gets his hand back,
remaining quiet until his shivers disappear.
And then, two eyes over Gerard’s saddened figure,
“How long have you been here?”

“Thrrree yearrrs,”
the man mumbles and Ray blinks.
How can Gerard be here for such a long time and still keep his sanity, or his body integrity since his clothes are so wet and he’s shivering so much since Ray saw him
for the first time?

“Why-”
Ray tries, but Gerard interrupts him by lifting his head and looking straightly at Ray.

“I’ve talked to so many people, sharrred so many opinions, hearrrd so many differrrent verrrsions of Heaven and otherrr storrries about angels and a God I think it’s female, but I neverrr got to verrrify any of this.”

And so they talk; Ray starts by saying that he feels so weird, so unexplainable, so out of himself and without any guidance about what to do. Ray just opens up and reports how confused he is about everything related to that dead state and, even though he’s got Gerard, it doesn’t seem enough because Ray can’t get answers for anything
if he can’t find the right questions.

And Gerard agrees by saying that he’s seen so many people come to him and many others fade away without even looking at him. Gerard admits he hadn’t thought that death still couldn’t make people grateful about whatever and declares that he still doesn’t understand the point of being here, that hidden sense of Purgatory, if it isn’t to get better as a man and fly away in freedom.

And Ray remains silent, as someone comes into the room and wheels his body out of there;
he still stays with Gerard, though.
And the stranger tells him how he can start manifesting changes now that people knew about his death.
Ray just nods.

Gerard only stares at his clothed knees and gets up, and waits for Ray. He gets up too and asks,
“What now?”

Gerard doesn’t know.
“I don’t know,”
is his confession, and Ray can understand that he is confused too. No matter how many years people stay in here, Ray thinks, before he voices,
“Yeah, it just gets weird to keep living, even if in a new dimension, when your body is wheeled out of the room.

“Motionless,”
he concludes.

“Yeah, dead,”
Gerard adds and they go back to silence.
That silence isn’t new, as they have spent other moments in awkward silences that almost take away their vocal cords, but now it doesn’t consume them, because it’s a mutual knowledge that they just don’t know what to do.
Or say. Until…

“I feel different,”
Ray states, twitching his neck to both sides and welcoming Gerard’s inquiring gaze with his unknowing one. Ray can really sense signs of a relief in all the weirdness he felt before, and he can really acknowledge different peaks of attention that his body requires.
He can also sense Gerard’s question coming,
so he anticipates it by responding,
“My feet don’t hurt anymore, and they’ve felt martyred since I woke up in here.”

“But you neverrr complained…”
Gerard slightly whines, in his weird tone and soft purring.
Ray smiles a small portion of smile.

“My fingertips were burning and now they feel fresh,
even if there’s no breeze in here,”
he continues, staring at his palms,
at the back of his fingers and, then, at his palms again.
“I don’t feel warm anymore, and when I touched you before, your shivers trespassed to me for a moment, but it was so different; now, there’s this, this, an awkward sense of a coldness fulfilling my insides, especially my head.”

Ray closes his eyes for a minute and he can hear Gerard sighing, and imagines him shrugging too, but then his mind changes. It’s not so blank anymore, not so empty any longer, because now
“There’s an image of an eagle, and I just don’t feel warm anymore; I don’t feel human,”
Ray tries to explain, and he manages to make himself understandable, but his voice has changed. He notices it while talking, and so does Gerard, the stranger, but only Ray arches his eyebrows; Gerard wears a very subtle smile on his own merit.

“Does my voice sound different to you?”
Ray finally asks and Gerard only has time to nod, and try to open his mouth, because Ray is talking again;
“Why is my voice so severe, so cold and high-pitched?”

Gerard chuckles;
“You have an image of an eagle, rrright?”
he asks, and Ray nods his answer.
“Yourrr voice is higherrr because vowels arrre the chant of eagles in Naturrre, at least accorrrding to old Discoverrry Channel documentarrries,”
Gerard finishes with a true smile now, and it is good that Ray smiles back. Gerard’s still shivering, but it seems that the fact doesn’t affect him in any way,
but out of a sudden Ray drops his smile.

“Does this mean that my girl-”
Ray can’t continue his question, but Gerard understands what’s going on and his smile also fades away to his usual peculiarity of stern looks.

“I wanna see her,”
Ray says and storms out of the room. Gerard follows.

Soon enough, they’re making their way through the Hospital corridors, trying to think of and discuss where Ray’s girlfriend can be, but it’s not long until they find her. Ray’s father and Ray’s mother are holding her in the same ward they are in, but in the main lounge, and there’s a doctor with them; Ray’s girlfriend is crying in silence, but her shoulders react to sobs, so she’s not as calm as she wants to look. Ray knows that.

“She’s not as calm as she looks,”
he voices his thoughts, and Gerard touches his arm in a possibly understanding movement. Ray looks to the side, catching Gerard’s hand in his immediate eyesight, and Gerard’s face in his peripheral vision,
through the corner of his eye, that is.

In Gerard’s hand, there’s the wet and shivering feeling again, and it invades Ray now much more than before, probably because he’s weaker by seeing his family so sad, and possibly because he’s more attentive now. There’s the cold in Ray’s body, and he sees the goosebumps on the skin in front of his eyes, so with his free hand, Ray covers Gerard’s, thinking that the cold can go away, but instead the still existent warmth just disappears. Ray looks up at Gerard, eyeing him properly, and removes his hand, getting a proper and watching response from the still stranger.

“She’ll be okay, Rrray,”
Gerard says calmly, or trying to sound calm, though stronger shivers compete with Gerard’s body integrity. Ray sees them, and whimpers quietly along with Gerard’s louder ones, before saying,
“Thanks. Yeah, she’s strong.”

Ray’s hurting more now, and he feels empty for a little while, but that’s only because of his girlfriend and how destroyed, broken she looks. Ray sighs and closes his eyes, focusing on his girlfriend’s crying moans, and on Gerard’s purring breaths, which he actually hasn’t noticed before, and also focusing on that natural eagle in his mind, right at the back, longing for him, just like Gerard described the image of his leopard one. It’s still strange for Ray, very awkward, weird, totally unexplainable, because he thought that death was just darkness, but now he knows that it also includes companions, not loneliness, and feelings, not a total blankness anymore. He sighs again.

“Gerard, I-”

“Shh, listen,”
Gerard shuts him up and points to where Ray’s family is talking to the doctor, there’s a nurse there too, and Ray’s girlfriend doesn’t seem so broken now, but Ray looks closer for her eyes and he just has to back away; there are too many shadows, too much pain and too many memories to catch in only a moment, but he has no courage,
because they’re all very vulnerable.
“Listen,”
Gerard repeats.

And Ray obeys.

“We don’t authorize the autopsy and there are legal matters protecting us. We already know he d-”
Ray’s mother was talking, but she gulps.

“Died, I died, mother,”
Ray says, making Gerard look at him and, then,
back at his talking mother.

“We know it was from the accident, and we just want to give him peace. He deserves it, we can do this and-”

“It’s what he would want,”
Ray’s girlfriend interferes and Ray smiles,
tears in his eyes because he already misses his favorite girl.

“It’s alright,”
the doctor says and gestures towards the nurse,
so she leaves with steady steps.
“We can’t do the autopsy, if you don’t want us to, you do have a right to forbid that, and we’ve discussed this enough, so I’ll just ask you to sign the official papers and, when he’s ready, you can take your son’s body.”

Everyone seems to grimace at those words, even the stranger Gerard, and Ray’s girlfriend is just restless again, but from then on, the rest of it is quiet and calm. Ray stays there and listens to his family mourning him, sometimes crying, sometimes in silence, sometimes delineating details and everything else.

Gerard stays with him, but not close; he’s in another corner of the lounge, watching Ray, but not really paying attention, because his eyes aren’t focused, and his shivers are stronger. His whole body convulses wickedly, coldly, and his hands are on the inside of his hoodie again. Ray remembers how Gerard’s knuckles moved in that same position not so long before, and he can see them now curling and stretching out under the wet fabric, but Ray also watches his family closely and carefully. Soon, he can’t take it any longer, because they’re talking about funerals and other kinds of memorials, and Ray doesn’t want to listen to that,
so he gets up and walks over to where Gerard is.

“Gerard, you okay?”
he asks and Gerard trembles strongly one last time, before returning to his purring breaths and his regular shivers. At some point, Gerard nods and Ray tells him
he wants to get out of here;
“The night will come soon and I don’t think I wanna see my girlfriend like this.”

Ray’s tone tastes of defeat and Gerard can only get up in agreement, because apparently he looks defeated by himself and his eyes are so red and deep that Ray can see
the other side of the world.

Sooner than later, they’re out of the Hospital, in silence, as though the previous images in their private minds need some time to fade away. Gerard shivers, trembles, whimpers by Ray’s side, but it doesn’t seem to be just the cold and the wet clothes; there’s something deeper in his movements and sounds, and Ray wishes he could save Gerard from all that, but he has his own boat and the heavy weight on his own shoulders, and Ray now wishes he could live again, or just die for once, to not remember his girlfriend’s face anymore. Ray sighs of desperation he wants to get rid of, and Gerard follows him from deep within his thoughts.

There’s a bright shadow in a closer horizon and Ray narrows his eyes, trying to see what it actually is. So, he takes his first step to get them out of that silence, asking,
“Gerard, what’s that?”

Gerard snaps up from his trance, looks at Ray for a second and follows the direction Ray points at, with only his head. Yes, he’s dead, but he still needs to be subtle for the uneasiness still lingering inside of him. Gerard looks, and tilts his head just a little to one side, and says,
“It’s someone else.”

So, they walk faster and meet a man in very bright colors, smiling at them and telling them how he had a car crash, something so usual, just after a thematic party, but it doesn’t bother him anymore. Ray eyes him awkwardly while the man says he’s coping with it because he feels at peace now, no matter how hard it is to see his family in the living world so unhappy; he misses them,
of course he does, it’s his family!,
but they’ve always dealt easily with death.

Gerard widens his eyes strangely as he speaks, because the man seems too at-ease with that fact, but Ray can accept the idea of people reacting differently to death. The man never stops talking and they soon know that he was just happy, deadly happy, all pun intended, because they were the first ones he met here; and he hugs them, and kisses their cheeks, and shares with them how his hands are fluffier since the image of a bear assaulted his mind.

Ray and Gerard just blink, pretending to celebrate his contentment, and then they know that
he’s gonna be buried today.

“Do you know what happens next?”
the man asks; Ray shakes his head ‘no’ and Gerard leaves them alone for a moment, his head low in an angle that Ray interprets as the defeat he started to feel at the Hospital. He’ll respect that, and Ray talks to the content man for a little longer, until he complains about a sharp pain on his back, asking Ray to check it out. He does, and the clothes are ripping off right beneath his shoulder blades; Ray looks at Gerard, wanting to ask him for help, and Gerard is looking at them, but his aren’t focused again, so Ray gives in.

Turning his attention back to the stranger, the second one in his… well, death, Ray seems him shirtless now, good-looking feathers falling randomly over his face and chest, and suddenly there’s a wide strong thump. Ray takes a step back, closes his eyes in an instinct and, when he looks again, there’s a pair of long and large wings on the man’s back, Persian-red feathers covering them in half-circles, giving a schematic and graphic balance to the man’s body. Awkwardly, but honestly, Ray doesn’t know how to react, so he just watches as the man smiles at Ray, thanks Ray and deserts the street in a deeply natural flight, feathers winging behind his figure and winding at Ray’s face. Soon enough, the man is flying and fading away to a Persian-red sparkle into the furthest horizon.

Ray’s feet stay glued to the ground for some time as he tries to regain his composure from what he just saw, but then there’s a hand on his elbow and he jumps to the air
in surprise.

“Hey, it’s just me,”
Gerard says, and he leans closer to Ray and purrs softly against his arm and half his body, just a comforting sound.
“Arrre you okay?”

Ray nods at first.
“Yeah, I’m okay; I just didn’t know how to react to
what I saw.”

“I know, Rrray,”
Gerard mumbles and his purrs now come strangled, but also exhausted. Ray looks at him and finds failure in Gerard’s eyes, until he looks the other way.

“What was that?”
Ray only asks, in a tiny tone of voice, because Gerard’s purring really sounds feline, in that low, comfortable way, giving Ray new, clean thoughts and feelings.

“I don’t know forrr surrre, but I hearrrd storrries and I saw things, too many things,”
Gerard answers, in a voice Ray can’t interpret, and Ray really wants to ask what things did Gerard see, but no;
Ray decides to wait.

And Gerard decides to keep talking.
“I’ve seen thrrree differrrent colorrrs in huge wings just like those; I’ve seen that deep-Perrrsian-rrred, I’ve seen the darrrkest black and also the occasional white. I honestly don’t know what they mean, but once a woman told me those colorrrs mean the final destination of yourrr soul; I’ve only hearrrd fantasies about the thrrree types of Heaven, but should I believe in fairrrytales when I won’t everrr rrrecognize them?”

“What do you mean, Gerard?”
Ray dares to ask as Gerard’s purring diminishes to only his words and those don’t hold any more delicatessen.

“I don’t know what I mean, but when you die, you come herrre, and things happen in phases, and only some people get wings and fade away frrrom this madness!”
Gerard releases his anger out in a loud roar, the true leopard within his soul suddenly coming out, revealing itself. Ray sees it all, but he just doesn’t understand.
He wishes he could have something more.

“Give me something more,”
Ray requests, earning another stern,
now truly leopard-y, look from Gerard;
“Tell me your story, why you’re so angry, and why you were so upset just now and before, back at the Hospital. Tell me, Gerard; it can’t hurt you.”

Gerard is looking at Ray, breathing in heavily and breathing out his purrs, and he surely doesn’t look serene or wise like he did when they met. Gerard curls his fists against his chest, just like in that very first moment, and he seems in pain, and Ray panics slightly because he doesn’t know what to say.
Or do.

“Gerard, you okay?”
Ray asks simply, and Gerard kneels on the ground and roars again, only to calm down at last and release tiny groans of displeasure.
“What’s the matter?”

“It’s been too long,”
Gerard whines in his strangled purrs;
“It still hurrrts me.”

There are whimpers now, mixed with purrs, entangled in his already too-known shivers, but those still worry Ray, who grabs one of Gerard’s fists in his hand, out of instinct.

There’s an instant blow at the inside of his chest, as if he suddenly has a heart again, and there’s a content purr right at the center of that feeling, but Ray can find his reason
in the middle of that chaos.

There are cold breezes and winds wrestling with Ray’s mind, but he feels Gerard’s wrist in his hand and he understands they’re just sharing feelings. And Gerard has been in here for too long, so he must have seen so many things that
he’s really hurt.

Ray can understand that,
“But why don’t you tell me what brought you here? It can’t be worse and it might help if you share what’s in your mind all the time. It sure helped this dude we just met,
why won’t it help you too?”

Gerard seems to calm down, his fist relaxes to an exposed palm on Ray’s hand and he just lies down on the ground, people walking around, but it feels like they haven’t been there, because Ray feels them here only now, not before.

Ray tries again.
“Gerard?”

“Yeah, yeah,”
Gerard says only and he gets up from the floor, looking defeated, but acting as if he hasn’t been so desperate before. He looks at the sky and seems to analyze
the sunset, before he speaks,
“Come with me, we may still find them.”

Rays feels confused; he directs his eyes toward the light orange sunset and he still doesn’t understand.
“Where are we going?”
he asks, but gets no response from Gerard. He’s the strange man again, now quiet and looking awkwardly caring; maybe a leopard in defense, Ray thinks.

Following Gerard, also in silence, Ray just observes the city he once lived in, but is now dead in, and he thinks about his wife, mother and father; what can they be doing, saying, feeling at the moment?
Do they miss him?
Do they think of what death means,
or of what Ray is doing now?

The eagle at the back of Ray’s brain screams visibly and makes him feel wild and free, so all his thoughts run away from his mind; this may be his defense secret, and also what Gerard needs to do and feel in order to fight whatever is corroding his natural sense-of-reality.

Ray has no courage, at first, to suggest that, so he struggles within his own mental processes to find the right arguments and beat all possibilities of rejection. However, when Ray feels brave enough and a certain point of geniality in his head, he clears his throat to speak,
but Gerard’s faster:
“We’rrre herrre.”

Ray looks and there’s a house; a regular, cozy house, and Ray recognizes the simplicity of a family home;
“Where’s here?”
he asks and, when he looks at Gerard, searching for an answer, Gerard’s quiet and calm, purring softly and somehow louder, as a small smile creeps up to his mouth corners, even if sadness invades his eyes. Gerard’s shivering even stronger and, then, he’s whispering things, making Ray think that memories are assaulting his mind and giving him a lot to think about, remember and miss.

“We’rrre home,”
Gerard finally replies and his voice quivers so much, because his body is shaking just as much. Ray touches his shoulder, extending a comforting hand, but Gerard’s wet clothes make him sensitive to all the memories inside Gerard’s head, but Ray can’t recognize them or order them in any sequence, and to all the shivers in Gerard’s body,
so Ray is now trembling with him.

And Ray’s clothes seem damp too, so he removes his hand from Gerard’s shoulder and waits for the reminiscences and the chills to fade away; Gerard waits too, patiently and,
when the time comes, he speaks:
“Let’s trrry the back yarrrd.”

Ray doesn’t say anything else, he just obeys and follows Gerard, his head low and thoughts completely stagnated, until Gerard stops, and Ray stumbles on his feet,
and Ray hears,
“My parrrents just went inside.”

Ray looks up and he still meets the profiles of two elder people, the kind-looking ones he would respect all the time and honor with his most considerate self.

His eyes, though, don’t focus on the old couple, as they close the door to the house where they’re in, because Ray can see a man and a little girl, a dark-haired man and a blonde little girl. They’re playing together, in a homely playground by the house, and they share small smiles as the man talks
and the girl nods.

“That’s Frrrank,”
Gerard says and his purrs mix with his breaths in a complete mess that shows only affection, and Ray immediately understands;
“And that’s London.”

Ray can’t smile at the name, like Gerard seems to do in the middle of his I’m-a-leopard-so-I-purr sounds, but nothing is conceited or cheesy; the echoes are tender. Ray can read the emotions behind every line, as though the hands he keeps on Gerard’s forearm transmit them all to
the deepest of Ray’s core.

“I call herrr Cookie,”
Gerard continues to purr, loudly and almost deafeningly, and it doesn’t fade away as the man by the house takes the little girl’s hand and walks her inside, after one last view of the outstanding setting sun on the horizon.

Ray doesn’t know how to feel, because he does love his girlfriend, as if the world’s gonna implode tonight, but the feelings coming from Gerard’s mind through Ray’s touch on Gerard’s wetly clothed forearm invade Ray’s insides as rockets, pure rockets of a never-ending love,
and of never-ending purrs.

“She’s beautiful,”
Ray finally says, when the door is closed and Gerard’s purring becomes strangled again, sounding like Gerard’s not breathing. Ray looks at him, though, and sees him there, with tenderness on his face but a deeply low crush in his eyes, and Ray just wants to hug him.

Gerard walks closer to the house, through the back yard gate, and invites Ray to see his family too.

Standing by the still open window, they look inside and watch another family dinner, and Gerard grimaces
before talking.
“I’ve always met Frrrank, since kids, and we grrrew fond of each otherrr and got togetherrr twelve yearrrs ago. We came out to everrryone and they accepted us easily, and eight yearrrs ago the laws came out and we adopted London, my Cookie.”

There are no words to speak in that momentary silence; Ray waits for the end of the tale and Gerard releases only a sigh before the rest of his memories.

“We all went on vacation; Frrrank, I, Cookie, my parrrents, and Frrrank insisted in swimming at night. I said once that I would die forrr him, and I did. We werrre in a house just by the lake and my parrrents woke up to my yells of panic when Frrrank’s foot got stuck in the rrrocks while he was playing something; I dived and got him out of therrre, but a fish bit me and I couldn’t swim. My fatherrr helped me too, and Frrrank was desperrrate to get me out of the waterrr, but the goddamn sweet-waterrr fish was too poisonous…”

Gerard stops talking, his voice is grave and sad, his shivers are back and his purrs are gone. Ray is just too emotionally unstable to even say something,
so he keeps listening.

“I would die forrr him again, but not to come herrre.
It’s scarrry and lonely.”

Ray’s quiet and he nods, understanding Gerard, but words still don’t come out, so he puts both hands on Gerard’s shoulders and squeezes them in support until
the silence is unbearable.

“Why are you still here?
Why didn’t you get your wings?”

“They can’t find my body and, no matterrr how many memorrrials they say to my soul’s honorrr, I can’t tell them that I’m still herrre. Cookie can’t know herrr otherrr fatherrr’s still watching herrr, and I can’t be anywherrre arrround them forrr too long,
because it’s just too painful,”
Gerard confesses, opening his insides to Ray in a book
he could have never imagined.

“I’m so-”

“No. I saved Frrrank,”
Gerard just says and they fall in silence again, watching how the following night embraces the house and everything, everyone around them.

**

After one night of walking, being silent or talking, never feeling tired and finding some other dead people, Ray and Gerard establish a pact in the morning of never forgetting each other. By living lunch time, they talk with no long silences between them and they share secrets, or thoughts, they have only recalled while living,
ending up calling each other friends.

Then, it’s time to Ray’s funeral, as he remembers hearing his family talk in the Hospital the day before, so they walk and talk in their way to Ray’s living home.

They find more people; one too afraid to talk to them, another running away from them due to memories Ray can’t understand, and another wining his wings and fading away, red wings again, as the dead body was being burned as his living wish had once been. The moment brings nostalgia to Gerard’s face again, and Ray remembers the last time it happened, so when the man fades away,
“Don’t stop believing, Gerard. You will get your wings!”

Gerard gives Ray a little smile as they friendly shake hands, and it makes them both share soothing images of their totems; for short moments, Ray enjoys the sensation of purring, vibrating against his vocal cords, and he watches Gerard enjoy the freedom of eagle wings, and admit it. They smile again and Gerard says Thank You because he thinks it’s appropriate, but Ray shrugs him off and squeezes his hand again before letting go and acquiring
his own eagle-totem fully again.

As Ray announces him that they’re almost there, and points at Gerard the roof of his house, a mad man comes to them and grabs Gerard by his hoodie. Gerard emits a defensive roar and tries to fight back, but the man seems too strong. At first, he doesn’t say anything coherent, only whispers nonsense onto Gerard’s face, but soon Ray struggles with him and releases Gerard, who roars and purrs loudly again, in defense, attack and enjoyment. Ray pushes the man to the ground and calls him insane,
an accusation to which he only laughs at.

“You’re wrong,”
the man murmurs crazily and they can barely make out the words. He laughs again, a wide and loud hahaha that makes Gerard shiver some more and,
when the man calms down at last,
he pauses and tells them,
“You’re wrong. You’ll never get your wings, and you’ll end up mad, insane, lunatics like me!”

And the man laughs again, he never stops laughing and mumbling frantically, even as Ray gets Gerard by the arm and drags him towards his house.
Gerard’s struggling, though.

“Gerard, what’s wrong?”
Ray asks, smoothly, to not infuriate Gerard or make him uncomfortable. At first, Gerard says nothing,
but then he speaks,
“What if he’s rrright?”

Ray doesn’t know if he must furrow or wiggle his eyebrows, because Gerard’s outburst is just unexplainable.
“Gerard, no, he’s insane!”

“Okay, but what if he’s rrright? What if it’s worrrthless to keep my faith and love my family this much? What if this is a lesson I need to learrrn?!”
Gerard groans, screams and roars, everything at the same time, as his words come out.

“Gerard, no; that man’s insane and he doesn’t know
what he was talking about,”
Ray defends his theory, for both his and Gerard’s sake.

“He might know; he might have been living herrre, facing his DEATH, forrr so long that he went crrrazy! He looked so surrre of what he was saying,
so securrre, Rrray…”
Gerard’s words turn into whimpers and he lets himself fall back in defeat again, right against a traffic sign, and buries his face in his hands and his fingers inside his hoodie. Again.

“Gerard, no. He was trying to confuse us, making sure he wasn’t alone in his crazy mind,”
Ray says calmly and his eyes stare at Gerard, who looks unsteady, uneasy and very fearful. Ray asks Gerard to look at him and Gerard does; there’s a wicked shout of pain
and confusion on his face.

“Everything’s gonna be alright,”
Ray soothes him and Gerard sighs, at last, scratching his head through the hoodie, releasing another groan and another roar before nodding and agreeing with Ray.

“It’s gonna be alrrright,”
he repeats, and Ray nods with him and
waits for Gerard to get up and re-start walking.

At the same time, there’s a new feeling for Ray and it’s stronger and weirder than anything before, even in his proper life. He whimpers, and Gerard hears the almost-quiet high-pitched sound of an eagle in panic.

“Rrray, you alrrright?”
is Gerard’s time to ask and Ray whimpers an “I don’t know,”
because he honestly doesn’t know.

“What’s wrrrong? What do you feel?”

“Hm, there’s - when I woke up, there was an itch on the upper part of my back and now it’s getting stronger, uncomfortable,”
Ray replies and whimpers again, twisting his shoulders awkwardly to try and ease the feeling, but it’s impossible.

“Oh,”
Gerard says only and his tone is undetectable;
“Yourrr funerrral must be taking place rrright now,”
he clarifies and Ray looks at him hurriedly, because he wanted to be there to say goodbye, and the mad man just wasted their time. Ray can only kneel on the ground
and whimper again.

“You’rrre close now, Rrray,”
Gerard sighs and Ray looks up at him, sadness and understanding in his eyes, because he knows this is the moment Gerard doesn’t like to watch in others since he never experienced it, and his hope is also fading away.

“Wherever I go,”
Ray says among the whimpers and the gasps,
as Gerard starts walking away from him;
“Gerard, I will call for you and I’ll give you your wings,”
Ray promises, inwardly wishing he could renounce to his feeling and help his hopeless friend.

The skin in between his shoulder blades is ripping off, and so is his shirt, as Ray can only grit his teeth and wait for the itch and the burning sensation to go away.

“Gerard, I swear,”
he never stops saying, in between his complaints, and he looks up at Gerard, who is sat on the ground, looking at him and finally focused on what’s happening. Ray wants to crawl closer, but the bones on his back are shattering and making noises, probably adjusting to what he expects to be wings.

“I wish it was you,”
he mumbles to Gerard and, concentrating all his energy in a second, Ray manages to repeat it out loud.
Twice.
And Gerard finally hears him, but shakes his head, and Ray knows it’s impossible to give him hope,
but he still tries.

“I’ll come for you and I’ll save Frank, and Cookie,”
Ray says before a high-pitched scream, as feathers assault his face, especially his mouth,
and he struggles with them.

“I will, Gerard,”
are his last words before he feels his wings touching the ground, and opening up to the horizon, with a wide strong thump that makes Gerard jump in surprise.

“I promise,”
Ray states to an end, and he can hear Gerard purring loudly.
He recognizes it as a sound of feeling content.

Ray looks down and Gerard is trying to see him, his eyes huge and surprised and, when Ray looks back, he sees his huge, white wings, he smells how fresh they smell and feels how soft they feel, before he focuses his mind on Gerard’s friendship, Gerard’s story, Gerard’s family, before thinking of his own, his home, his girlfriend.

And he flies and fades away, free at last, feeling the wind, as he tries to reach his awaiting new dimension.