ANNA

A girl floated above a sniffling congregation, leering at a pastor resting his hands on a podium. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Our hearts are torn with grief as we gather here today… To mourn the loss of another young light in our community—”

Wailing, she flew down into him but passed right through. She levitated with drooped shoulders, next to the polished grand piano he played every worship service.

“Anna was a good girl,” the pastor continued, completely unphased. He tilted his head down to the closed casket below. “We all know she would have sewn an abundance of good into the Earth had evil not taken her from us so soon.”

Her form tensed, and she turned to face his back. As she floated toward him with clenched fists, she recounted her own last moment: her spirit form rising from her collapsed body. She gawked in disbelief at the bloody steel crucifix pierced through the back of her corpse, and at the form of a man in black church robes standing over it. She loomed above him, staring daggers into the top of his balding head.

“I pray we are delivered from this pain soon,” he said, his eyes glistening. “I think we can all agree that we are tired of burying our young—of burying our hope.”

She plunged her fists into his head. They passed like knives through a melon. She then chopped her hand through his neck, plunged an arm through his chest, put her hands through the back of his head to gouge out his eyes. Red filled her vision as she relished in the carnage, but it was vengeance she could only imagine.

“How dare you!” she said, plunging a fist through his neck. “How dare you stand here and give my eulogy!” Her wails filled a space no one occupied as punches passed through the preacher’s face. They were, if nothing else, to mute the speech she refused to hear.

Fed up, she veered away from him and came to rest in the space between the stage and pews. There, her vitriol sputtered into weak sobs. As she lay on her hands and knees, she felt a familiar, bright warmth pass over her. Replacing the vaulted ceiling was a mass of white light.

“Is this what you wanted me to see?” Anna said through choked sobs. “My own funeral hosted by a backstabbing serial killer?”

“I have no weight in your actions for this time,” said The Light. “As I said, you will come when you wish.”

Anna scoffed through her sobs. “Bet you didn’t think I’d spend all week until now trying to kill him back, huh?” Above her, the pastor didn’t pause. He was wearing the same clean suit she’d seen him in for the eulogies of little Roderick and poor Bethany. She sat in the pew with her family for those, searching for justice in all the wrong places. “As much as I tried, I didn’t give him so much as a nightmare.”

“All choose differently,” The Light said.

Anna arose and looked over the congregation. In the front row, a couple closest to the aisle were dressed in their best blacks.

“Mom, dad,” Anna said, hovering over to them. Their eyes peered right through her to the casket and the preacher. “You looked so worried every time I left the house… I wanted to fix that by solving this. I did it for Roderick and Bethany… They deserve that… And now I know! It was him!” She pointed to the pastor. “I just wish I could tell you that… Tell everyone.”

No longer able to look into their eyes, she floated down the aisle, passing over every other grieving family face.

“Tell me,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “Why am I here if I can’t do anything about this?”

“Why are you here,” said The Light.

“I hate that everyone’s here like this… That he can lie to everyone he’s hurt and get away with it!” She looked up to the ceiling. “Because he needs to die!”

Her voice bounced off the stained-glass windows and absorbed into The Light, and a silence replaced that cry. Worried murmurs and creaking pews pulled her attention back down to the congregation, and she followed their gaze up to the pulpit. Though the pastor’s mouth wagged, no words came out. He raised a trembling hand and clutched at his heart. His narrow pupils rolled up into the back of his head, and he fell backward. Only the sound of his ruffling robes came forth, followed by the punch of his body against the stage.

Anna flew down the aisle as the church erupted in panic. She glided past the podium and faced the collapsed pastor, parallel above him.

A host of members encircled him, and the deacon held his hand while barking into his phone. The pastor writhed and grasped the robes of the deacon. “I did it,” he said, pulling him closer. The deacon took the phone away from his ear. “I killed all three.”

With a groan, the pastor released his grasp, and his head met the floor at the same time as the deacon’s phone. Anna put her hands over her mouth as the pastor stopped trembling, arched his back, and relaxed.

He was dead before the sirens were heard.

Anna waited by him until they wheeled his body away. No spirit rose to meet her. “Good,” she said, chuckling. “He went straight to Hell.”

In the aisle, the deacon faced her parents and left with a solemn nod to address the police. She floated toward the ceiling as her whole family gathered around her casket. They were all weeping.

“Was it you?” she said.

The Light didn’t answer.

As white enveloped her, she recalled a scripture her mom always said. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue… Proverbs 18:21.”

“I am sorry, child,” said The Light.

Nathan Sky was born and raised in the Texas Hill Country. His inspiration for writing is fueled by a wide pool of sources—anime, books, movies, video games, and even music. Follow him on Instagram @im_nathansky.