It was too early. There is barely any light going through the parting in the curtain. The clock reads seven in the morning, and my girl still had time in that dream of hers.

Above her head, floating like a marshmallow cloud is a dream. She is dreaming of me. The house where we would live, close to some trees near the bottom of a mountain. My office full of paperwork right beside hers which is full of colours made up of drawings of the characters she dreams of. It was all a future waiting to happen.

Except it wasn’t.

Her silver-white hair splayed around her head like the moons glow on her pillow. Her nose is as cute as a button and lips meant for me to kiss for a lifetime.

But it isn’t.

Luna Gold was my girl. To the world, she was simply another girl in the crowd, but to me, she was everything. She was my future home, the mother of my children, the beautiful angel to walk down the aisle into my supposed life.

Forever.

But here I am, looking through what seems like a thick ocean wall of dark glass. I don’t know what this barrier is, but there were creatures on the other side.

There were long ones and short ones, ugly and beautiful beings swimming and floating around. My favourite I would say would be the silver finned fairy-like fish. It had a tiny body like a little elf, with long elongated ears; eyes like a cat but it changed colour sometimes like a mood ring.

It had a flat nose like a catfish with the whiskers too. It had a bottom body of a fish. It was pretty much like a mermaid elf with a flat face. It likes to smile at me through the glass, and it would watch Luna with me.  I want to think she understands how I feel; Luna was a whole world away, and I couldn’t touch her or say a word.

A farewell.

I lean against the glass barrier, an ocean between Luna and I. We were meant to have a life together. Our first child would be named Juan and if it was a girl, Uno. She hated those names. I thought it was clever.

I slam my fist against the glass.

Being dead sucked.

She is waking up, as her everyday routine, she groans and moans, tosses and turns. Her body and mind were waking up before the alarm would ring.

She wants to stay in the dream longer. I don’t disagree with her, we were kissing pretty heatedly. I would stay in the dream too if I could.

Even better, be there to actually kiss her.

The alarm rings and she snoozes it. Again, then again, until she has to rush out of bed, hit her toe on the corner of her cabinet and finally wake up due to the pain. Her first few words of the day were curses. She was amazing. Adorable.

I, of course, look away when she gets undressed and slip into the shower. I am no peeping Tom. So stop looking or imagining. Luna’s my girl.

I start to move away from the glass wall to give her space, but I’m stuck. Then I feel my body sinking in through the glass until with a pop I’m fully inside. The world is frozen.

I see the mermaid elf smile at me for a second. I wasn’t sure if it was a menacing smile, considering I may be about to die my second death stuck inside the thick glass barrier.

My vision begins to warp into a kaleidoscope of the mermaid elf’s face with Luna in the shower and the dark world behind me with other drifting souls. The colours begin to warp much faster, sliding into smaller pieces becoming unrecognisable images into a mirage of colours. While my body feels like it’s being dunked in and out of frigid ice water.

My body shivers, goose bumps form all over my body, and I could hear the chattering of my teeth but sound like hammers slamming at the same time to my ears. My vision moving fast but my body feels sluggish.

I could feel myself moving, but I could not see where I am going. Everything is white. There were plenty of scary creatures across the barrier now that I think about it. The eel-like creature with red scales and red eyes, sharp ebony teeth that look poisonous.

What about the creature that looks like an ugly mass of hair with twelve human-like eyes. I had called it ugly to its face, not sure if they could actually hear me through the glass. It could strangle me with its hair-like tentacles, but I feel nothing but cold pour down my back like liquid metal enveloping me.

My vision suddenly sharpens, the white is gone and replaced with murky water. I’m floating in front of the barrier; creatures swim past, ignoring me. No sign of the one I called ugly. Thankfully. I’d just crossed through the glass barrier, other spirits a blur through the thick glass I had been encased in.

I’m floating in water with the odd little fish creatures, am I on the bottom of the ocean floor?

I notice the mermaid elf is now meters away, she is watching me. She points towards the direction where I had seen Luna through the glass. I could no longer see Luna, it was an endless open ocean.

I tried to speak to the mermaid elf, but there were only black bubbles coming out of my mouth. The mermaid elf laughs at me, it sounded like sharp piercing chimes to my ears.

She points again towards where Luna’s life had been projected. She swims towards the direction she had directed, and I follow.

We enter a current; I could not swim against it if I tried. The mermaid elf chimes as she rides the current. Her scales creating a sort of haunting tune.

I try to look behind me, but I no longer see the glass barrier. Looking forward, I see memories of life itself as it unfolds. It was like a lifestream. The current a tunnel.

I could see different people’s lives, little children dressed in rags as they play on dirty streets while a band practises right behind them. An old lady carrying a basket of food on top of her head as she crosses the road.

The stream changes again but it was in the artic. A polar bear so thin it looks like a ghost was walking alone in the vast emptiness of clean white snow. The lifestream shifts to a pretty little girl sitting on a bed. She is dressed all pretty like she was going to a birthday party but a sleazy old man enters the room, and if one were not looking, they would have missed the tear that slides down the girl’s cheek.

The lifestream shifts and then I see my family, they were at home sitting around the table eating. I realise I barely contacted them. A deep pang of regret twinges in my chest.

Flashes of different peoples life flash in the lifestream, but one meant more than anything.

Then I see the light.

The beginning of a second chance in life in the unlikeliest form.