1 – Waking Up Dead
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Hey there, you lovely reader! Come with me on a strange journey through the Underworld, where anything can happen. But be forewarned, this tale contains trans themes and scenes of eroticism and perversions. If that's not for you, I'm sure you'll find other stories on this site to tickle your fancy. And if you want to stick with it but not sure about the sex stuff, look out for the ⊗ symbol on chapter titles to let you know how graphic things get. 

(Additional note: I originally intended for there to be not so much sex in this story, and the first few chapters reflect that. But my nasty lewd mind has turned the darn thing into pretty much constant porn. Oops! So, if you're more into an adventure story with occasional sex, you might grow disinterested in this around chapter 10. If however you have a filthy mind too, hang in there.)

Now then, let's begin...

Being a disembodied spirit has many shortcomings. The inability to hold onto anything sold being the most obvious. Even if an iron gate is hanging loose, clattering in the faint stale wind, it cannot be pushed wide enough to slip through. It's metal bars with their ornate finials depicting fleur-de-lis and spirals are as allusive to the touch as a dream. More frustratingly, passing through the bars the way a ghost should doesn't work either, and the fog shrouded buildings on the other side remain unreachable. The white marble of their Romanesque pillars loom out of the mist and gleam in the moonlight, beckoning, taunting. Perhaps the most unexpected drawback is how memories can find no purchase in my insubstantial head, so I can't tell if I've been trying to go through the gate for five minutes or five years.

My hand, or at least the pale blue flame-like appendage I think of as my hand, reaches for a black metal bar. slips against it without any resistance, without any sense that it is solid or rough or cold. Although, it looks to be all those things. Since I can't be certain that I've put my best effort into the attempt, I try again. Focusing with my whole being, my flickering phantom body coils in upon itself, compounding its energy, directing every last bit of power into my hand. Only to fail once more.

"You're truly hopeless. You know that?" A voice speaks with a deep and gravely but vaguely feminine timbre. 

I redirect my awareness behind me and see a stone angel leaning on a staff. Eons of weather has left her skin pitted and has painted weepy black circles under her eyes. One of her wings is broken and crumbles at her left shoulder. Her robe and cowl, made form the same gray stone as the rest of her, moves with the grace of silk as she's shakes her head in disappointment. "I've told you before, that won't work."

I'm sorry, who are you again? The lack of sound when I speak sends a shiver through me. What is this horrible fate I've found myself in?

"I'm the guardian of this yard," She answers, apparently hearing me despite my lack of voice. "Spirits can't leave here."

They can't?

"We been through this already. This is your final resting place. You are supposed to be at peace here until all your Earthly ties are worn away and you dissipate into the aether. The gate won't let spirits pass."

Of course. Now, I remember. Understanding is a new emotion, light and warm. Maybe its my imagination, but my glow grows brighter as the feeling washes over me.

Okay, got it. So, could you open this gate for me.

The angel pinches the bridge of her nose. "And I'm supposed to be the one with a head made of rock. You aren't listening. Spirits can't leave. Even if I opened it, you would still be stuck on this side. Why don't you go back to your grave and rest. All your flickering about irritates me."

I have to find the hidden trail. The one that leads back to the living. It's vitally important I get home.

"You don't even remember where home is or what's so important. You've told me this before. This trail might not even exist."

I think of home and find only a ingrained desire to be there. No impressions accompany it. Not the way it looks or feels or smells. No names of family come to me either. I consider the idea of house and thousands of images flash through my mind from crayon drawings to color faded stills to drifting scenes that may be my old life or a movie I once saw. Perhaps amid the multitude is the place where I lived, but it could be any of them. All I know is I have to get there, and the trail does exist. Somewhere beyond this gate, it starts and leads out of the lands of the dead. I was told.

It's out there, I say without my voice, gesturing to the wider world I can't get to. That other guy gave me directions.

The angel sighs and taps her stone staff at gnarled leafless tree as though to knock a clot of mud from the bottom. "What other guy?"

There was this...he was...look, that doesn't matter.

I'm on the verge of forgetting something important. The idea is drifting away from me like a dandelion spore in the wind. I'm going to lose it and be stuck here forever. What was it? Something the angel said. Something about the gate.

Wait! Spirits can't leave. Right? She nods her head. So, if I wasn't a spirit, could I get out?

"Sure, but you'd have to have a body."

A body. How simple. Why hadn't I thought of it?

Great. How do I get one?

The angel glances around pointing at the tombstones with her staff. "Well, this is a graveyard. They're pretty much just lying around."

Wouldn't it be dead?

"You may have noticed, there's not many living people around. Also the living ones have the nasty problem of being occupied."

Good point. So, in that case, I can get my old body back.

"Theoretically." I wait for her to explain, and she asks with a fair amount of sarcasm, "Do you know where your buried? What name they carved on your stone? The year you died? I thought not. Besides you're not going to like it. It's much nicer being a spirit. Trust me on this."

I have to get out of here. Help, me get a body. Please.

The stone angel curls her lip thinking this over. "Fine. If it will get you out of my hair." Turning and walking away, she says, "Follow me. I think there's a good one over on that hill." 

She leads me across the overgrown yard. Weeds and roots fill the uneven ground between the ancient tombstones, but I drift behind her with ease, down one row and cutting through another, then up a steep incline where a skeletal tree stands over a lone grave.

Won't the person it belongs to miss it? I ask. After all, this is pretty much the theft of someone's most personal possession.

"I doubt it. All the others are resting. It's only you making a fuss. You really should just wait out your time. You don't have much left. Soon, you'll rejoin the cosmic energy and be one with the Universe. I hear it's quite pleasant."

I need to get home. Let's do this.

"Okay. If you insist. But you really aren't going to like having a body again." I glare at her even though I'm not sure I have a face in my current form. She sighs audibly and relents. Raising her staff into the air, a crash of thunder fills the night sky and a blinding flash turns everything white.

I'm whole again.

The feeling of triumph barely lasts a second.

The angel was right, being in a body sucks.
 
 
Thank you for reading my story! I'm writing this as I go, so I don't know exactly what adventures our poor dead protagonist will get themselves into, but in the next chapter they get a body with a new identity and start off in search of the mysterious trail.

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