The date was December, 17, 2010. I will never forget that day. Some friends and I were all at the Governor Square Mall right after watching a movie. We were having so much fun. We were in Dillard’s running from each other. Jordan and I were trying to go up a down escalator when all of a sudden I heard a loud high-pitched beeping. At first I thought that perhaps it was just a malfunction with the intercom system. After a while of listening to the beeping, it got louder, and I mentioned something to Jordan about it.

“They really should fix the intercom!” I said casually to Jordan. She looked at me with her signature confused look on her face, so I gave her a little more clarification,

“That beeping, don’t you hear it?” And again, Jordan looked at me with a blank face.

That’s when I started worrying. Jordan had excellent hearing, and if she couldn’t hear it, something was wrong. Little did I think that it was something wrong with me.

For a while I chose to ignore the obnoxious tone in my head. Jordan and I went to go find the rest of our group. We finally caught up to them in the food court. Scott was eating a hamburger, Wendy was watching him, and everyone else was just running aimlessly. Considering the fact that it would be near impossible to catch up with everyone running, Jordan and I sat with Scott and Wendy. Jordan immediately focused her attention on the hamburger and commenced with her puppy dog look, hoping to get some food. Scott gave in and handed her a piece.

“Can anyone else hear that beeping? I inquired hoping for a response that would make me feel less awkward. Scott answered after quickly swallowing a last bite of hamburger,

“Nope, I think perhaps you are just hearing things.” But I refused to believe that such a horrendous sound could possibly be just a figment of my inmagination.

Finally we gathered everyone together, and we decided to walk over to the other side of the mall. As we walked, the beeping just got louder. I tried to ignore it, but I just couldn’t push it aside. After about five minutes of the awful sound, it just stopped. I found myself to be so relieved that I sighed heavily. Happy to get rid of that horrid sound I continued walking. After a while though, I noticed that no one else was coming. I looked back just to see them all freaking out, and huddling over something.

I ran back hoping to figure out what they were looking at. I tried to squeeze my way in between everyone’s heads, but they were too tightly packed together. I started yelling for someone to let me in, but they were talking so loud no one could hear me. Or at least, I thought that’s why they didn’t respond.

Jordan was freaking out the most. In all the years I had known her, Jordan had never been more worried about anything. Now I HAD to know what happened. Jordan started pacing back and forth yelling for help.

It didn’t take me long to walk over to where Jordan stood, panicking. I tried to calm her down, but she just ignored me. This didn’t strike me as unusual though, whenever Jordan’s stressed, she tends to ignore the outside world. It was just her way of dealing with things. So after a few tries I finally gave up.

I moved on to see what Kelly knew. I knew, no matter how stressed, Kelly always had to talk about it. Kelly was sitting on a bench crying. I went and sat next to her, yet she completely disregarded my presence. Now, that was unusual for Kelly. So I asked her,

“What on Earth is going on?” I got no reply. Kelly continued to cry, I stayed there listening for a while. I heard her whimper,

“Not Nikki!” But it was barely audible, so I knew it wasn’t meant to be heard.

I walked away, wondering what Kelly could be talking about. I was slowly beginning to figure out something was dreadfully wrong, but I just couldn’t find out what.
I wondered around from person to person for about half an hour, all giving me the same response as Kelly and Jordan. At some point someone must have called ‘911’ because the paramedics showed up, only making it even more difficult to finally figure out what happened.

The paramedics swarmed around where everyone else was. I tried asking them what happened, when all of a sudden; they lifted a lifeless body up on a gurney.

So many emotions passed through my head. Anger, disbelief, sadness, hatred, I felt it all. My head started spinning. I felt as if I were about to faint. But one question lingered on my mind, COULD the dead faint?

Suddenly everything was making sense to me. No wonder no one would listen and let me in, no wonder Kelly and Jordan ignored me, not to mention everyone else! I was dead. Physically dead, and my spirit remained to watch the confusing moments of life after my death.

So many questions filled into my brain. The main question that just kept coming up, how did I die? I was perfectly fine! I was perfectly fine, all except for that beeping. And it only increased up until, when everyone else was huddled over me. Up until, my death.

I still couldn’t quite come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be coming home that night. At least, not alive.

And then, I was completely shocked when I heard that continuous beeping yet again. This time it was even more annoying. It was like the sound you hear when a microphone is to close to someone’s mouth, causing a high-pitched sound. But the difference in annoyance wasn’t the only strange part about the two different cases of beeping. This time, I wasn’t the only one that heard it.

Jordan was standing by the paramedics when I heard her gasp with shock. Her face went white. Scott was the first one to notice something wasn’t right with her. He could tell that it wasn’t just losing her best friend on her mind, it was something else.

“What is it Jordan?” He asked with a sense of care in his voice.

“I hear it.” Was all Jordan could stutter out. Scott wasn’t quite getting what she was trying to say.

“That beeping. I thought she was crazy. I thought it wasn’t real. I hear it!” Jordan was going into hysterics and Scott actually seemed to be getting her point.

“Oh my god” Scott started freaking out and pulled Jordan to one of the paramedics. I knew he was thinking that the beeping had something to do with my death, just as much as I was. I walked over to them to hear what they were talking about to the paramedic.

“I know this is going to sound crazy,” Scott began to explain when all of a sudden Jordan went limp in his arms. Jordan was gone, to the living at least.

I turned around from the horrible scene of watching my best friend die. And then I was almost as shocked as when I myself died, for I saw Jordan standing by a vending machine. I should have expected the fact that her spirit remained, I mean, if mine did why not Jordan’s? I walked over to Jordan and I could tell we were both surprised. Neither of us could talk, we just stared and smiled.

After a few minutes discussing how happy we were that we were together again, Jordan and I both knew that we had to talk about how and why we were here. And who might be next to go…