From the top of Seventh Street, Sara Schilling looked down at great expanse of San Francisco Bay. At seven-thirty, on a warm September evening, the street lights flickered on. The city came to life in stages. First light. Next sound. A tremendous wave of laughter, music, and conversation, foamed up from the bay. Sara breathed in the electric air and began her descent into the city center.
Bicycling down Seventh Street toward her apartment across town, her eyes darted between the street and the sky. Thin lavender clouds hid a crimson sky. A last burst of color before night. The wind caressed her face as she caught the green light at the intersection with Brannan Street. She could feel her phone buzzing in her pocket and thought of the evening ahead. Sara wanted to strip off her uniform, a black t-shirt and khakis, for something befitting the chic outdoor bars and cafes in town. Maybe the sun dress that she bought last month, which the miserable late-summer weather kept her from wearing. Weather in San Francisco was notoriously fickle.
At the intersection of Seventh and Folsom, Sara missed the green light and stopped. Catching her breath, she reached into her pocket for her phone. The missed calls and texts piled up from her friends. They were already heading to Clock Bar where conversation about technology, art, and politics, bubbled under the dim yellow lights that hung low from the hardwood ceiling.  She went to reply to the first, but the light switched back to green and she continued her journey down the street.
Sara pedaled with a grin. She had arrived in San Francisco a few months ago, after finishing her degree from New York University. She came to the West Coast to paint and found herself living paycheck to paycheck working at the café. Though she received little to nothing from her few commissions, she enjoyed every moment of her new life.
At least that’s what she argued to herself.
There was nothing to complain about. She was just starting out. The lucky break that would open the gates to more opportunity. A better life lay just past the next intersection.
Sara tasted the flavor of life in the air as she approached the last crossing at Seventh Street and Howard Avenue. She could see her apartment complex and would be home in three minutes. If she had time Sara could even binge a few episodes of Netflix before going back out for the night. They weren’t even individual shows anymore. Just Netflix. Everything blended together. Her mind drifted again. Maybe one of her friends would introduce her to a man who worked in one of the museums where she could sell her art. Maybe they’d hit it off. He’d be tall, handsome, with a gentle swoop in his chestnut colored hair. She drifted again to what she’d wear. The sundress wouldn’t work. Maybe something black.
Her heart caught fire. The beauty of the evening and the hope of the future sent a genuine happiness flooding through her body.
The stoplight turned green and Sara pushed onto the last part of her ride.
As Sara biked out into the middle of the intersection she heard the sound of tires screeching for a split second. She was unsure if it was the color of the machine or the color of pain that filled her eyes. Her glasses shot off her head, immediately crushed into the street by the tires of the truck. Her vision went black.
Pain hammered against every corner of her body. Though she could not see, she felt the sensation of moment. She smacked against metal, then glass, then hard pavement. Her bones cracked. Pieces of bone shattering, tearing through muscle and skin. A second later she lay deposited as broken husk on the pavement.
Sound pulsed in her ears. She heard her bike being mangled. Though the sound came slow and muffled, like listening to it through a seashell.
When actual sound returned it came in the form of a woman’s shrieking voice. “No! No! Stop! Stop!”
The throbbing in Sara’s body subsided into numbness. The world remained dark but she imagined that her arms, legs, and chest, swelled out as pain tried to escape into the air.
The cries above her became frantic. “Don’t touch her! The ambulance is on its way!”
Sara figured a large crowd had gathered. The most attention she had been paid since graduation. Different voices joined the woman’s. Sara had the energy to listen to one person with difficulty, but as more people spoke it sounded like a loud murmur, impossible to recognize one voice over the rest. Eventually the voices faded into the muffled seashell sound before the world became nothingness in sound and color.
In that quiet world Sara could think. She lay helpless drowning in a maelstrom of memories, culminating in twenty-six years of life. Images of her father, of her mother, of her sisters, of her friends, of everyone she knew, flashed by so fast that she couldn’t even try to reach out and grab them. They never had the chance to pull her out of the dark. She saw all of them weeping and wailing. Some of them, most of theme, eventually forgot her. Others suffered silently with her memory for the rest of their lives. She saw the paintings in her apartment studio withered and turned to dust. Her lowly attempt at immortality that might last beyond her family’s memory would fade like colors on the canvas.
Her thoughts stopped when an incredible warmth surged through her veins.
Sara braced herself for some kind of drop. This had to be death. She prepared for a descent of her spirit into some world beyond reality. She tried to conceive of it. That the heavens would split open in front of her like a mighty chasm in the sky and her grandparents would sweep her up into paradise.
She shivered thinking that might also be trapped in darkness forever.
She wanted to see that crimson sky one last time.
Her eyes opened.
In one breath Sara saw the flaming sky with lavender clouds drifting in front of the setting sun. Everything that she had ever seen paled in comparison to that sky.
“We have it!” shouted someone, he had to be the medic. “We have a heart beat!”
The warmth now flooded into every vein, every nerve. She forgot what cold felt like. Her body felt like water reaching a boil. Her essence evaporating into the atmosphere. Her wrecked physical body meant nothing.
The sun exploded in the sky, rays covered the earth with such brilliance and brightness that Sara wanted to shield her eyes. Flecks of gold drifted up from her chest toward the sun. She felt weightless.
“No!” shouted the medic, “Stay with me!”
Another burst of warmth exploded in her chest. Her body needed to burst to get rid of the unbearable heat.
The world shook. Sara tried to clench the ground to hold herself in place as light filled her vision.
She screamed.
*
At seven forty-five in the evening, Sara Schilling died at the intersection of Seventh Street and Howard Avenue in San Francisco. For those around her body and those who wept later, Sara’s story ended.
*

One speck of Sara’s consciousness remained as her spirit bubbled out from her body into dimming Californian sky. The other specks growing more distant as they floated off to join the far reaches of the universe. She felt loneliness weighing down this speak of consciousness and wondered how to cry as she drifted up higher and higher into the sky. The crimson color turned to a dark violet before finally fading to the blackness of space. That gold speck glistened like a star, hovering over the earth, so small, weak, and afraid, growing dimmer by the second. This last speck of Sara Schilling, flickering for the last time before it sparkled like silver and joined the rest of the mass of living energy.
As if the speck had eyes, it turned and looked at the majesty of Earth against a twinkling background of stars. It prepared to fade, until a sudden drone of sound from the void made the speck vibrate.
The sound, unlike anything the speck could place into perspective, sounded strangely like a cello, as a musician pulls the bow slowly across one string. Its sound made the speck and all the stars and planets around it - tremble.
On Earth, birds sang in the middle of the night and wolves howled at the sun. Those people who listened for such vibrations, found themselves bursting into tears if they heard even a fraction of the sound.
Above the Earth, the speck of Sara’s consciousness shook from the chord of sound and as it continued Sara remembered the feeling of heaviness. Instead of the boiling and bubbling warmth, a cold density formed around the speck and another note joined in the vibrations. More chords of a deep rumbling joined the first note and these were followed by lighter notes. She aimed all her energy at listening to this sound and the more she listened, the heavier she felt.
Her skin, her muscles, everything felt solid again. The emptiness of space exploded with sound and color. Sara couldn’t tell whether space moved around her or some force catapulted her away from Earth. She flew past eruptions of fluorescent blue, purple, and green. Screaming, her voice came out deeper and stronger, as her new solidness brought strength as the universe sculpted her anew. Across the cosmic expanse she rocketed, faster and faster, screaming in horror and awe, passing worlds, nebulae, universes, and dimensions.
Through it all, the music grew louder and more powerful. When it reached a fever pitch, and Sara understood how supernovas explode, the speeding lights of cosmos turned to black, the music stopped, and everything in Sara’s vision disappeared.
Until she felt the coolness of water on her face.
Opening her eyes for the first time - the second time; Sara waded underwater with a murky surface above. Finding her bearings, he swam toward the surface and broke through the waves of a great sea.
She breathed heavy. The air tasted sweet and foreign.
Looking up, she saw a night sky twinkling with stars. Turning around, she saw a far horizon glowing a dim shade of pink. A sun would rise soon.
Sara waded in the water. Not sensing any fatigue. Unfamiliar power pulsed within the muscles of her arms and legs, keeping her afloat without effort. The strength felt foreign, yet the body did not. She looked stronger. She was taller and she could feel her hair longer, wet and clinging to her back. Still, she felt like Sara, which, she reasoned, was the first problem.
Sara remembered everything. The San Francisco air that buzzed with life, her phone buzzing with friends, and the truck. She remembered the darkness, the boiling warmth, and the sudden heaviness. Everything felt like an eternity ago. Or maybe just a few seconds. She couldn’t decide which, but Sara knew, in some way, she was dead.
Even thinking about her own death made her heart race, before the sun erupted from behind the horizon.
 The world caught fire and she lifted her arm out from the sea to cover her eyes from the blinding brilliance. Turning around, Sara saw a distant shore. With nowhere else to go, she began swimming toward the beach, gaining it, without rest, within the hour.
When her bare feet touched the mud of the shallows and then the soft sand of the beach, Sara’s strength gave out. She collapsed onto the sand as her emotions, emotions that should have disappeared, welled up uncontrollably.
Sara considered herself intelligent. During her youth she believed in Heaven and Hell as any girl did raised in Christian America at the turn of the 21st Century. Then she thought differently about religion and about the afterlife. Newton proved the afterlife, energy could not be created nor destroyed so she would vanish into the void of the universe. But she still existed. There were no pearly gates, no geysers of fire, and no darkness. Just the mental understand that she was dead. Or that she should be dead.
Reaching forward, she grabbed fistfuls of the sand and thrashed about the sand.
“Dead.” She said, bringing her knees up to her face.
She remembered the bright lights of stars and the mass of giant planets as she sped through the void. Sara wondered, as she began to cry, how long that took. Her friends would still be waiting for her at Clock Bar. They might be waiting all night for her to never show up. The chestnut haired man would leave disappointed. But he probably wouldn’t have liked her art anyways. Maybe it was better this way.
But her parents. By now the phone call would have been made and they had burst into uncontrollable tears. Clawing at the wall as their daughter lay dead on that intersection.
Though, perhaps, centuries passed – even millennia. Sara had no idea what happened, where she was, or virtually anything. The loneliness returned, crushing her into the sand. It was a loneliness that only comes from contemplating oblivion. Though these thoughts felt undoubtedly because Sara experienced oblivion first hand.
When Sara lifted her head from her knees, the brightness of the rising sun stopped her wailing for a moment. A crystal blue sea opened out in front of her while smooth cliffs of obsidian rose high some further distance down the beach. She saw the cliff tops where a dense tropical forest, with hanging palms, rolled on until they became a hazy green fog. Beyond the forest, mountains rose into the clouds, and Sara couldn’t tell if it was mist that covered the tops or if they bellowed out white smoke.
Only the sheer beauty of this world alleviated the weight of loneliness on Sara’s shoulders. She could not just sit on the beach forever.
Rising up, she walked up the beach to where the obsidian cliffs sloped at a gentler angle. The sand formed around her feet with every step. Getting into the small cracks of her skin and showing the thicker bluish veins that ran up her feet underneath tanned skin. The waves crashed against the shore in the morning high tide, crystal clear water that flowed back out to the aquamarine sea, shimmering brightly as the sun rose higher on the horizon.
Coming closer to the forest edge, Sara heard thunderous squawking from within the green forest. This made her pause. She had not appeared in a dead world with just beautiful seas and beaches. Things, probably strange things, lived here. Which presented another problem. She died once. She could probably die again.
Reaching down to a few pebbles on the cliff side, Sara rubbed them hard into the palm of her hand. It hurt. She bled. She was very much still alive. In some fashion.
Pushing side from low hanging leaves, covered in water and thick with life, Sara entered a wide grove. When she did, two gasps emerged, one from Sara, and the other from the humanoid sitting against a tree at the other end.
Maneuvering back into the brush would take too much time, so Sara simply pushed her back against a tree and watched the vaguely humanoid creature stare back. By vaguely humanoid, the creature stood on two legs, had two arms, a human shaped mouth, nose, and at least, human shaped eye sockets. Within the eye sockets though were two eyes of solid amber, which looked more like marbles than eyes, attached to a porous black substance behind. The female creature, female because she had a feminine shape and breasts. Though her features looked sharper compared to Sarah’s body. Her skin had a purplish tint and she looked wet. A thin coat of slime covered her from head to her three-prong toes.
A familiar human-like face, wet with the creature’s slime, seemed like a mask worn over a yellow bulb where thin, tightly braided tentacles grew out from the back of her head. Ears, sharp both at the lobe and at the top, seemed forced onto the sides of her head, if they were larger than two fingers width they would seem comical. Her hands, like her feet, formed into three prong digits.
Sara stared, unable to speak at the strange being and unsure what this creature would do. She could be an enemy. Springing up and tearing Sara apart for breakfast. Some terrifying creature living in the jungles of this world.
“Min iti?” said the creature, . “Min iti?” said the alien woman again, pointing one of her purple digits at Sara.
Or she could be just as lost as Sara.
“I don’t understand you.” Sara said, shaking her head. Her body trembled in terror looking at the creature. Something in the beady amber eyes gave off the sense of sadness.
“Min iti?” the woman said and moved slowly toward Sara, her claw-like feet sinking in the warm mud.
Sara didn’t speak this time, but dropped her hands and shook her head. Unable to communicate, she pointed at the woman. Her sudden movement of her arm, shocked the woman, and the alien jumped back a moment. Sara slowed herself as she walked away from the edge, appearing out of the shadows for the first time. Her body illuminated by the rays of sunlight piercing through the canopy.
“Jien ma nifhimix.” Said the woman, putting her arms out wide. She walked toward Sara and stopped with about two meters between them. Suspicion and desperation came out with every breath.
Sara’s pantomime became dramatic. Her arms made a lunging motion toward the woman and then to the ground. “Do you live here?” Sara saw her teeth, many small piranha like teeth behind her human-ish lips. The teeth made Sara shiver.
But the woman advanced slowly. “Jien ma nifhimix.” Now closing to a meter of distance.
Reaching out with a finger, Sara tried to touch the woman. The woman pushed her head forward and Sara felt the slime on her forehead. Her fingers pushing over the porous flesh. The alien smelled like seaweed.
No moment of enlightenment followed. Neither Sara nor the alien woman suddenly understood each other, but a calmness washed over both of them. Sara felt safer on this mysterious and wild world and she expected the woman did as well.
The woman did.
Sara beckoned the alien to follow her as she moved through the brush, out toward the sea. As they both stood on the beach, Sara pointed at the water and then at herself. “I come from there. Or that’s where I woke up.” She spoke, not for the alien woman, but for her own understanding. “Now, I’m here.”
The alien just stared out. A small slice of frustration formed in Sara’s heart and mind. She couldn’t even pantomime. Their communication was completely useless. But the alien pointed out to the sea and then made a swimming motion before stomping her own feet on the ground. She gestured out toward the jungle and then back to Sara, her face earnest and her eyes said. “Jien ma nifhimix. Fien jien?”
“I don’t know.” She felt the loneliness pressing down on her shoulders again, pushing her down against the sand. It would crush her, she would rather waste away by the sea. Even such beauty could not keep her happy forever.
The alien woman smiled, her piranha teeth glittering in the sun. She pressed a digit to her chest, “Aei.”
Sara looked at her blankly and pointed, perhaps a bit rudely, but she needed to make the point. “Aei?”
“Aei.”
She did the same. “Sara.”
“Sara.” The name came out with much emphasis on the ‘s.’ “Jien ma nifhimix.” Said Aei flashing her teeth, almost threateningly.
Sara narrowed her eyes and turned toward Aei and flashed her own teeth, like a mad dog and tried to growl. Aei’s eyes brightened and Sara slowly held out her hand to touch Aei’s shoulder. At first the alien reeled, but slowly, Sara advanced with her teeth barred. She touched Aei’s head again.
Sara felt her skin, the porous ooze, then felt Aei collapse onto the ground holding onto Sara’s legs as she shouted out, “Jien ma nifhimix.”
The tears returned to Sara’s eyes as she sank down into the sand with Aei. “Jien ma nifhimix.” Sara said crying as she held the woman tightly and both of them looked up at the sky with the bright sun. They both pointed toward the sea.
Sara knew nothing about Aei, but she imagined right then of Aei rising from the sea, her braided tentacles sparkling in the rising sun as she broke through the surface. Her alien body restored and changed from her sudden travel through the universe. She ended up on this strange world with questions and no answers. Though Sara could never guess how long Aei had been in this world.
Aei, consequentially, thought the exact same thing.
They sat for a long time held each other.
Rising from the sand, they nodded to each other and walked into the brush. If there were answers they would not be found on the beach.
Sara looked out onto the ocean as the sun rose into the sky. Mid-morning in this world. She breathed in the primal air and followed Aei deeper into the jungle. Listening carefully, she could still hear the electric strings of the cello far off in the void beyond the blue sky.