Remembering the feeling of the cold hands around her neck that were boney, her smile faltered and continued running. The next time when she turned around, she noticed how the creature that had been following her disappeared from behind and she stopped running, worried it would appear in front of her. 

And as expected when she turned ahead of her, she saw the reaper standing in front of her that pulled out a scythe that looked sharply chiseled and ready to cut her. 

"Are you wondering where you are? Let me take you to the gates," offered the reaper and Belle gulped softly. The way the creature spoke, there was something very eerier that reminded her of someone using their fingernails against a board of iron. 

She wasn"t dead to go through the gates. 

"What"s there in the gates?" Belle asked the creature hoping she would get some answers from it. 

The creature took a step forward and said, "Are you wondering where you are? Let me take you to the gates," it felt like it had recited the lines and would repeat it over if she would question it again. Maybe it was because souls who died and came here often asked where they were. An answer to the basic question was instilled in this creature. 

"I want to go back home," she said and the creature repeated the same words but this time a little more a.s.sertively. 

"I shall take you to the gates."

"No, thank you," she whispered and started to run back from where she had started but this time instead of sticking to the main street, she used the alley. The oracle had told her that she would be the last one to die therefore that gave her hope but Lucas had later warned her that not everything the oracle said would come true. Because things in the past had changed and there was no telling what would happen. 

If Belle"s luck was bad, she would end up being the first in the hit list of being dead while letting the land of the living to go in doom. While Belle stepped into the alley hoping to wade off the creature who was persistent in taking her back to the gates so her soul could pa.s.s on, she stepped out when she caught sight of something she had never expected to see. There were a series of heads being stuck to pitchforks and one of them was Olivia yet that was not the worst thing. 

While she was still standing there looking at the heads that had been placed at the front, she saw someone move from the corner of her eyes. When she turned her head, she noticed it was a woman. Her dress flying to the side because of the wind that blew where she stood. 

Think about the woman and here she was, thought Belle to herself. 

Simon had told they had found the body of the woman which meant she was dead and she was here in the land of the dead. 

"Olivia..."

"Belle," the woman spoke, a smile on her lips which she often carried when she was still alive, "What a surprise to see you here. I wasn"t expecting to see you soon." 

She wasn"t expecting to come here! thought Belle to herself. 

"Who knew he would kill you too," said Olivia. There was a smug smile on the girl"s face as if she were happy to Bell here, she walked forward and Belle took a couple of steps back. Though it was Olivia, there was something very different and odd about the dead vampiress and it wasn"t just the mark around her neck which was thick with blood-soaked around it, "People can really untrustworthy," came the whispered words. Olivia had no eyes, they were hollow as if someone had pulled them out of her face to leave a dark hollow of s.p.a.ce there. 

Belle remembered Lucas" words, to look closer than what she saw. 

Her face...it started to look more clear now which was rotten because of the days that had pa.s.sed since she had gone missing. Her face was decayed and there appeared to be more of the skeleton skull than skin.

"Who killed you?" Belle asked nervously. Who knew there was a person who wanted to kill Olivia by severing her head from her body. 

Olivia laughed, her voice echoing where they were and it brought a sliver of fear because she caught sight of the reaper who had been trying to catch her. 

"Let me tell you..." said Olivia, there was a smile on her lips but Belle had no time as the reaper was approaching her. 

"Maybe next time," Belle murmured, her eyes darting from Olivia to the reaper.

Belle came to realize there was no exit and she would have to find it from where she stood. Turning a deaf ear to what Olivia was going to say, she closed her eyes and concentrated on waking herself up in the land of the living while the reaper was so close as to almost place its boney hands on her shoulder and in a blink of an eye she disappeared from there and woke up in her bed. Her eyes were wide open. 

Sweat covered her forehead and she breathed a big sigh of relief for being able to come back in time. She had felt the reaper hover its hand over her enough to send chills down her body.