“C’mon James,” my friend said, “it’ll be fun, I promise.” Even with his reassurance, I still felt hesitant. I wasn’t one to do anything bad, let alone illegal. “C’mon, it’ll take away your stress,” he continued.
All I could think about was all those commercials talking about “the real cost” of this stuff. They had whole weeks at school dedicated to keeping teens from using it. And the “complications” they mention aren’t pretty. Most of the time it being death.
But it couldn’t be as bad as they say it is. The chance of complications was pretty low, as long as you use it right. And as long as I stuck to the 5 minute rule, I’d be fine. “Okay,” I said as I took the mask from him. I put it on my mouth breathed in.
I didn’t feel any effects at first. I thought it wasn’t working. Then suddenly it felt like I was floating. I looked down and saw that I really was. And my lifeless body was lying on the ground. It was quite a shock. “Woah,” I said. As I did my friend joined me up there.
“Pretty cool right,” he said. I had to admit, it did feel great. Like all my stress melted away instantly. Something about being in the spirit realm just made the problems of life seem small. And it didn’t take a lot to get to the spirit realm. All you needed to do was separate you’re souls from your body, without completely killing it. Whoever found out you could get here for the first time must’ve been pretty smart.
“Watch this,” my friend said. He went down to my body and put his hands through my head. To my surprise, I felt it. He started moving his hands across my brain slowly back and forth. It felt amazing. Like the best massage I’ve ever had in my entire life.
“Now you do it to me,” he said, “be careful though, it’s easy to damage the organs if you’re too rough.”
We took turns doing it back and forth to each other before finally calling a quits. “We better get back inside them now,” I said, “don’t want to go over five minutes.” No one exactly knew what happens to you if you went over the time limit, but we did know no one has ever come back.
My friend re-entered his body first. He had done this before, so he showed me what to do. He laid on top of his body in the same position it was in. Then, his spirit merged back with it.
Within seconds his eyes blinked and he woke back up. “Alright, now it’s your turn,” he said. I did the exact same thing he did step by step and waited. Except, nothing happened. I was confused and thought I did it wrong, so I tried again. Same result.
I started to panic and tried to get his attention. I couldn’t talk to him anymore so I just tapped his shoulder. I knew he felt it because he jumped a little. “Dude c’mon stop playing. Who knows what will happen if you’re out for more than five minutes.”
His words only fueled my panic. I tried desperately to get back into my body. Touching, grabbing, and laying in every place I could. When nothing worked I started violently shaking my friend so he could try to help.
“What’s wrong? Just lay on top of your body and you’ll go back in,” he said. I wanted to scream at him that I couldn’t, but he was unable to hear me anyways. There was nothing I could do. In my fear I kept shaking him, until suddenly my hands went completely through him.
I tried to grab his arms again but realized I wasn’t able to. I couldn’t touch him at all anymore. I rushed back over to my body. The same thing happened. Realization set in that I must have been way over the five minute mark by now.
When I stopped shaking him, my friend got worried. “Dude stop messing around,” he said. He walked over to my body and started shaking it. “Dude stop this isn’t funny,” he said. Soon his worried face turned into a complete frown as realization set in for him to. “Oh shit,” he whispered to himself. Then we both sat there just staring. At my cold, dead body.