Dante shook his head. “Do you feel the same way around other people as you do around me?”
I shook my head. “No.”
We stopped in front of the Observatory. The door was normally locked after hours, but tonight it was propped open with a book. Dante glanced around, making sure no one was watching, and led me inside, letting the door click shut behind us.
The lab was dark, and I had to feel my way around the room until my eyes adjusted to the light. Above us, the night sky was clear and blue through the glass ceiling.
I looked around, and then at Dante. “It’s so different at night.”
Dante lifted me onto the countertop, and we lay side by side, staring at the stars through the roof.
“How did you know you were dead?”
“It took me a while to figure it out. I woke up not knowing where I was, with no way of getting home. I wandered around some marina town in California for a few days, trying to figure out what had happened. I asked about my family at the local hospital. They sent me to the police, who told me there had been a crash. I was the only one from my family who had been found. They checked me into the hospital. I stayed for a week. I felt like part of me was missing and I had to go find it. At first I thought that was just my way of grieving the loss of my family, but there were other things. I wasn’t hungry, and when I forced myself to eat, I couldn’t taste anything. My body temperature was far below normal. A rare circulation condition, the doctors said, but I knew they didn’t have a clue. That’s when I realized something was wrong.
“So I left. My parents’ bodies were found, but my sister was still missing. I had no desire to contact anyone I knew, except for her. In fact, I had no desire at all. Only the feeling of an absent desire. I could remember that once I had felt happy, felt alive, but I couldn’t actually feel it again, if that makes sense. I thought finding my sister would help fill that void. So I searched for her. For weeks. Months. Years, I guess. Since I didn’t need to eat or sleep, I’d just walk for days at a time. In the meantime, I found work. I enrolled in schools but dropped out when I realized I wasn’t interested in what anyone was teaching. Years passed, and I noticed that I wasn’t aging—at least not in a normal way. Although my senses were deteriorating, I wasn’t growing older. In fact, the rest of my body was abnormally healthy. I didn’t know what was happening, so I kept to myself. I didn’t want to become a freak show or a science experiment. But I did my own experiments to learn my new limits. It was easy to pick up, like learning not to touch a hot stove. And it was easy to be alone, since I had no urge to date or make friends. I was, in essence, a shell.
“Eventually I went back to the hospital, knowing that there had to be something wrong with me. Outside in the parking lot, there was a flyer stapled to a telephone pole. It read, ‘For Questions of the Existential Nature.’ Below it was an address. At that point I was completely lost. I wrote a letter, talking about all of the unexplainable problems I was having, and sent it to the address. A few weeks later, Professor Lumbar sent me a letter back, asking me to visit the Academy. She said it was a school that specialized in existential questions, and that they might be able to help me with ‘my condition.’ She didn’t explain what that meant. So I went, partly because I wanted help, partly because I was curious. That’s how I ended up here.”
I turned to him, gazing at his profile as he stared into the sky. “And you’re looking for your soul?”
“I’m looking for something. Not my soul, though. I don’t want to kill anyone. That’s what I’ve been researching at Gottfried. Another way to live.”
“But if you kiss me, you’ll kill me?”
“Yes. But I won’t kiss you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I can choose. Just like everyone else.”
In a way he had a point. I suppose anyone had the capacity to hurt another person; it just depended on the choices they made. How was Dante any different from me in that regard?
He took my hand. “Here,” he said, placing it over his chest.
I held it there, but nothing happened.
“Listen to it.”
Slowly, I lowered my head to his chest.
At first there was nothing. And then suddenly I could hear his heartbeat. It was like nothing I had heard before: its rhythm was erratic, like the sound of someone running down a flight of stairs.
“Whatever life I have left, it’s yours.”
Later that night I snuck into my darkened room through the fireplace and slipped beneath the sheets. Eleanor was curled up in bed, and even though I knew she wasn’t sleeping, I still tiptoed so as not to disturb her. I then fell into a peaceful slumber, where I dreamed about Dante holding me in his arms in a field as we gazed at the stars. The grass was prickly beneath my neck, and slowly he turned to me, propping himself up on one elbow. And then he leaned forward, his lips thin and red, so red as they inched closer and closer to mine.
With a start, I opened my eyes.
Eleanor’s face was inches away from mine, her ringlets grazing my pillow.
“Eleanor?” I asked. With a start, she jumped back. “What are you doing?”
“Renée,” she said, surprised. “I was just checking to see if you were awake.”
I sat up and backed against the wall, giving her a frightened look. “Are you sure?”
Eleanor nodded. “Yes.”
I kicked off the covers and rubbed my eyes.
“Renée, are you scared of death?” She was looking intently at me, but seemed as if her mind were elsewhere.
“No. I think I’m scared of dying, though.”
“What do you think it’s like?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I always imagined it’s like falling asleep and never waking up.”
She paused. “Renée, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m... I’m...” She sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it. Professor Bliss did such a better job in class.”
I straightened out my pajamas. “You don’t have to explain. I know.”
Eleanor paused, her forehead wrinkling with surprise. “You do?”
“The Undead.”
Upon hearing the word, Eleanor’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. How did you find out?”