1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Back at the start again.

Being dead wasn’t so bad. Was it ideal? No, but honestly, it really wasn’t that bad. I’d medium recommend. Besides, everyone had to die at some point, so why complain? My death hadn’t been traumatic or anything. I fell down a staircase and cracked my head open. One second, I’d been laughing with my brother Matt; the next, I was standing over my body thinking, “Oh, shit.”

For whatever reason, my soul refused to move on, head into the light, or whatever. I didn’t have any reason to hang around, but hanging around was what I did. I’d haunted my family for a few years. They moved on. All good on that front. Then I’d figured since I didn’t explore when I was alive, why not do it now?

The Great Wall? Awesome. The White Cliffs of Dover? A must-see. The Great Pyramids? Not my favorite, but I’d enjoyed watching tourists basically melt from the heat.

Anyway, when I was in Australia, I’d spotted some weird shapes, which turned out to be aliens, of all things. They had toothpick bodies and massive watermelon heads with two conical horns. The little purple dudes wore the worst orange spandex I’d ever seen. Like the eighties had desperately wanted these guys back. They’d had Ghostbuster vacuums strapped to their backs with wide clear tubes that sucked up spiders. Spiders! Why would they want those? Who knows, but I’d figured why the hell not jump aboard?

After that was a whirlwind of space stations, ships, and planets.

Eventually, years later, I’d wandered to a space station hovering above the planet Tamkolvanloknol (what a name), home of the Drakcol Empire, where I heard about a plan to go to Earth. It was like a bolt of longing had struck me. I’d wanted to go home. Badly. I’d been desperate to see my family, my home, and my people. The places I knew. Maybe then I’d finally be able to move on.

It hadn’t really worked out that way.

Sure they’d gone to Earth, but they didn’t land or send a shuttle to the surface. They’d beamed up some dude named Seth Harris because he was Prince Kalvoxrencol’s soulmate. Trying to break through the atmosphere had seemed like a bad idea (just my luck, I would’ve gotten stuck orbiting Earth). When they headed back to the same planet I’d left, I’d gone with them. Now, I was on the Admiral Ven, which was docked at the same space station I’d been at a year ago.

Full circle with absolutely shit to show for it.

What to do? What to do? Jumping on another ship and wandering some more was always an option. Plenty of universe I hadn’t seen. A little frown dragged my lips down at the thought. I was… tired, emotionally, not physically, but still. That was why I’d tried to go home in the first place, but that went down the crapper.

I could hang around Seth for humanity’s sake and brotherhood and all that. Yeah, he didn’t know I existed, but I could make sure he was alright and that Kalvoxrencol was treating him well.

Though from what I’d glimpsed of their romance on the Admiral Ven, he worshiped Seth, and they were mates, maybe not officially—I wasn’t exactly sure how it worked. I mean they had a ceremony of sorts with a lighted glass and vows, but that was more of an engagement-like thing. Or had it been a wedding? Honestly, I wasn’t sure, but they were together. From what I’d seen, Seth was happy with the arrangement.

Still, he might need me.

Decided, I raced through the halls of the ship, not bothering to dodge the civilians and crew who were disembarking. I slid right through them, making a few people shiver. Amidst the pressing crowd, I spotted a familiar face, Wyn. His bubblegum-pink hair and lavender scales stuck out like a sore thumb.

“Hey, Buddy,” I said, falling in step with him. He kept staring at his tablet, grumbling about a phase variance. I was pretty proud of the fact I’d learned to speak Drakconese. I’d picked it up when I lived on the space station, then refined my skills on the year-long journey. There was occasionally a word or phrase I didn’t know, but mainly, I understood it all. It was one of the many languages I’d learned over the years.

I wiped an imaginary tear. God, Nana would be proud.

“So where are you going?” I asked him, stepping onto the space station.

I’d wandered the station pretty thoroughly when I was here last year, and it appeared the same. Shops, rooms, laboratories, command, and so much more. The main aliens aboard were drakcol, probably because it orbited their home planet. Some of the other aliens I knew the names of and some I didn’t, but they came in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Wyn didn’t pay any attention to the lush plants growing everywhere or the unique items for sale. Instead, he bustled through the crowd and boarded a shuttle.

I recognized a few of the drakcol, all in uniforms, but my attention stayed on Wyn, not only because he was close friends with Seth, but because he’d followed me around the ship during the entire journey, even though he had no idea I existed.

Maybe he sensed me? I squashed that thought like a bug. He didn’t. No one did. I was alone, and it was fine.

The shuttle vibrated, not that I felt it, but people shifted with it. I, of course, didn’t move. Nothing touched me. Believe me, I’d tried. I was impervious or more accurately, non-existent. Occasionally, if I really focused, I could shift or bump something, but it exhausted me, sometimes to the point I vanished, like ceased to exist for a few hours, which was creepy, to say the least. Even when I did manage to touch something, I still didn’t perceive it. No texture. No temperature. No nothing. I was a void with no physical sensations whatsoever.

Wyn didn’t bother looking up from the tablet when the shuttle landed; instead, he kept tapping away at the glass, claws clicking. He was beautiful, and there wasn’t really any other way to phrase it. His hair was short on the sides and longer on top (most of the officers on board had the same hairstyle, probably a military thing). His scales were lavender with hints of gold and magenta skin around them, and they possessed a sheen like a snake. His ears were tapered like elves from the story books and had pink studs in the lobes and golden studs that trailed up to the tip. His heart-shaped face was delicate and his lips full.

He was so pretty that it was a shame I was dead. Oh well.

His long tail, tipped with a thatch of pink hair, thrashed; he was obviously upset. I had no idea what was bothering him, and I couldn’t ask. I mean, I could, but the dude wouldn’t hear me.

He left the shuttle, and I followed him. Wyn seemed to know where he was going because he didn’t hesitate in his step and headed across the fairly empty port to a massive building. The palace was a feat of glass and spires, twisting like dragon tails. It had terraces, balconies, windows with railless verandas, and plants everywhere. Drakcol flew around the palace; their wings spread wide, catching the air.

The sprawling city, just down a steep incline from the palace, was filled with towering glass buildings and lush parks. There would be plenty of places for me to explore when I wasn’t haunting Seth like his own personal spector or guardian angel. I grinned. I liked that better. Guardian angel.

Without hesitation, Wyn stepped inside the palace and wound through the halls. Even more plants were inside. The drakcol definitely had a thing for plants from the amount of potted trees, flowers, ferns, and vines growing all over the place. Even the Admiral Ven had plants on almost every surface.

All of the outside walls of the palace had huge windows framed by sheer curtains fluttering in the near-constant breeze. Everything was pretty, airy, and luxurious from the shiny white marble-like floor to the stone walls.

What the palace didn’t have was the typical rich people's stuff from knickknacks, pottery, statues, paintings, and unnecessary furniture. You know, junk people collected for no other reason than it was valuable.

We came to an inner hallway that led to a set of stairs with an open channel wide enough for drakcol to fly up or down. Wyn ignored it and walked down the steps, claws clacking away on his screen and tail flicking. As he wound through more hallways, I mentally started to form a map.

Wyn palmed a panel near a door, and it slid open with a gust of air. Inside was a mess of screens on every wall and consoles and terminals crowded every available space. A few people, who were wearing similar uniforms to Wyn, called out greetings, which he acknowledged. He plopped down next to a cluttered console, staring at the screen.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, fisting his hair. “How is it here? The phase variance is here. How? How ?”

Yeah, I should’ve thought of that when he was stalking me across the whole damn ship like an obsessed hound dog. Sometimes my ghostly self messed with technology. Most people either didn’t notice or ignored any interference I caused, but Wyn hadn’t. Since I was here, it appeared I’d brought the same issues with me.

“Sorry, my Dude. That’s my bad.”

“NAID,” Wyn called.

A face that made me start appeared. An old human woman, though blue, with towering curls, wrinkles aplenty, and a jiggly jaw asked, “Yes?”

“Can you detect the phase variance?”

“Affirmative.”

I barely paid attention to either of them, reaching out. My fingers slid through the monitor. Edith Smith.

“Nana.” If it was possible for me to cry, I would’ve started bawling. I had no corresponding physical sensations to my emotions, like the backs of my eyes burning and shit. All of that had died with my body.

It was the same every time I’d seen her on the Admiral Ven. NAID was an artificial intelligence, or some of her had been. It was confusing, to be honest. When I’d been on the station over a year ago, NAID had been a bland, blue drakcol silhouette. But this NAID had been separated from the main hub and had gained sentience. She and Seth were close friends, and to make herself more friendly, she’d chosen a face—a face that happened to belong to my grandmother.

“Why is it here?” Wyn asked, his voice breaking.

“I don’t know, unless my coding is causing the error,” NAID offered.

“I don’t believe so,” Wyn said. “It was on the shuttle as well. I’ll have to send a report to my superior. Something is wrong.”

“Well, that’s my cue,” I said, heading to the door, though I paused at the last moment because of NAID. She wasn’t Nana. I knew it, but part of me wanted it to be her because I wanted Nana like I wanted to be able to breathe again.

Shaking it off, I hopped up the stairs.