ลิลิธเวอร์ชันภาษาอังกฤษที่ใช้ส่งโปรเจ็กต์จบปริญญาโทนะคะ จะมีจำนวน 8 ตอนซึ่งไม่จบทั้งเรื่อง 

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ภาษาอังกฤษอัปเดตทุกวันศุกร์เวลา 1 ทุ่มค่ะ

            I had no idea how long I’d been missing. Did anyone notice that something wrong with the new employee? Did Phoebe tried to find me? Did my mom call or text me?

            Time didn’t exist in Jericho. The sky always looked like dusk. It was beautiful yet terrifying. Imaging someone had to look at the same sky, same view, every time; day or night or whatever. It could drive people crazy. It drove me nuts. I wanted to know what happened to me back on the living side. 

We were not supposed to leave Jericho unless we had a soul to collect. It had come to my realisation that we, grim reapers, were possibly prisoners to Death.

“Cheer up, Lilith. We’ve got work to do.” August came to fetch me at the carousel.

I sprang out of an artificial horse, excited to see the living side. August didn’t allow me to blink, so I had to travel with him. He said, and I quoted “I don’t want you to end up somewhere else that could waste my time trying to find you.” It turned out that a few years ago there was a newbie who believed he mastered the blink, ignored his supervisor and blinked alone and ended up on the other side of the globe surrounded by penguins.

I took his advice to heart, didn’t want to end up in the middle of nowhere.

We were at Manhattan Bridge where there was a man stood halfway down the bridge, starring at the river below.

“He’s not going to jump, is he?”

“No, not here anyway. There’s a fence, you see.”

“Then why we here?”

“Sometimes, we receive the name prior to their death; hours, days, weeks, months, we keep observing them.”

“What’s the point?” I blurted out.

“What’s the point, indeed.”

As August kept his eyes on the man, I looked at the end of the bridge, remembered the first day in New York City, I walked under this bridge. I couldn’t see my apartment from here, but it was near.

Something caught my eyes nearby the river. Police officers had set up the perimeter while a police boat occupied the river. They searched for something and I just knew what they were going to find.

I blinked down there, seeing a man giving his statement to one officer.

“We were setting up the place for tonight event when I saw something white floating in the river. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I asked Jimmy. He’s carrying a binocular around and we thought the shape looked like a body. I remember that a month ago a news reported that a body had been found in this river near Brooklyn Bridge. So, we called you guys,” the man said, “I was horrified then, I didn’t know I was going to be the one who found the body in the river. I hope I was wrong.”

He was right, and I knew it.

When the police boat had returned to the shore with something identical to a body wrapped up with dirty white sheet and rope, the crowd went crazy, someone took out their phone and filmed it from outside of the police line.

An officer in charge, Detective Ian Carhart, a man in his late-thirty, dark brown hair and brown eyes. The eyes of a tiger because he was so focusing on the discover. He stepped beside the figure, took photos of the shape, knot and rope before indicating the officer to open it up.

“I hope it’s a false alarm.”

“Notify CSIs.” Detective Carhart told one of the uniform police before the body was revealed. He, too, knew exactly what he was going to see despite what that officer was hoping for. 

I stood beside the detective who crouched down to observe the body up close. What I saw was unfamiliar even though I looked at myself in the mirror every day. The decomposition had just begun, part of my skin, I wasn’t sure what it was, stuck with the sheet. The colourhad changed, and I wished my mom wouldn’t have to see me like this. It was going to break her heart.

Crime scene investigators had arrived and started doing their job; photographed my body, my wounds. The pathologist couldn’t specify time of death and cause of death until he performed the autopsy.

They tried to identify the body, but my purse wasn’t with me. I couldn’t remember what happened to my belonging.  

“There’s an ID inside her pocket,” said, the pathologist, handed the ID to Detective Carhart.

“Lilibeth M. Langdon, financial risk analyst, Clymer-Cannon Corp.” He read my employee’s ID. “Who did this to you?”

I wished he could see me, hear me, so I could describe that person; the face I would never ever forget. The face that mixed with the crowd.

At first, I thought I saw a ghost. That wouldn’t make any sense since I was the one who died not him, not that monster. He was brave enough to be here. I wanted to yell at everyone that the guy they were looking for was wearing a brown t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans, standing outside the police line, possibly mocking at the detective who was in the dark.

The killer walked away to the parking lot. I wouldn’t miss this chance to follow him. I started running toward him, but he got away by his car. I concentrated; however, I couldn’t blink. His car kept getting further and further away and I kept running and running, didn’t stop for the red light since I was no longer part of this world.

“What are you doing?”

August appeared in front of me, grabbed my arm.

“Let me go!” I yelled, watching the rear of his car faded away as he was out of my sight. “No. NOOO!!”

All the lights nearby flickered and turned off. The street went hectic in seconds as the blackout occurred. August showed the sign of shock then he collected himself, waved his other hand in the air and the light came on again, put everything back to normal.

“What were you trying to do?”

My arm was hurt by his grip. I thought being a grim reaper meant no physical hurt, I was wrong. Grim reaper could touch one another and hurt one another.

“Didn’t you listen to what I say?” He was furious, he could have cursed at me. “You think you’re immortal? You think they can’t hurt you?”

He’d never explain who ‘they’ was.    

“You’re hurting me.”

August let go of my arm, I rubbed it to ease the pain.

“They found me,” I said, “the cops found my body.”

There was no sign of sympathy from August, of course, I should have known he didn’t care about the living or what happened after their death. He only focused on doing his job. When he was at Jericho, he was alive and while he was here, he seemed heartless. I wondered what happened to him, but I wasn’t brave enough to ask.

“I’m sorry.”

It was the only thing I could say at that moment even though I wanted to follow the killer and the investigation. My family was going to be notified, they had to come here to identify my body. They had to see me…the‘me’that even I couldn’t recognise.  

            We went back to work. August brought me to a living room in a two-storeyhouse. The man on the bridge sat on a sofa, drinking. The floor filled with rubbish; bottles of liquor, empty pizza cardboard boxes, crumpled papers. The house had more space than mine back in Wisconsin. He wouldn’t live alone, would he? A photo of him and a woman with two children; boy and girl set on a television shelf told me that he had a family. However, the house was too quiet.

            “Meet Edward Regan, forty-six-year’s old, unemployed, suffered from depression after his wife ran away with his children. He’s an alcohol abuse and a suicide risk.”

            “Is that how he’s going to die, suicide?”

            “If that’s the case, we wouldn’t be here.” August didn’t elaborate the answer. He watched the man slowly killed himself with alcohol. 

            Refrained myself from asking how long we had to be here, I studied his house and kept my mind occupied, so I wouldn’t think about my dead body and the investigation.

            I strolled in the kitchen; the sink was unbearable with a pile of dirty dishes and leftover food. I almost opened the refrigerator to see what he had then realisedthat I shouldn’t unless I wanted to cause unexplained phenomena.

            If he didn’t die by suicide, this unhygienic accommodation could kill him. 

            “He needs help.” I said.

            “No one can help him.”

            Somehow, his remark kept bugging me, I wanted to ask but Edward just got up off the sofa, distracted me from asking the question. He was a little tipsy walking to the kitchen with a bottle in his hand and stopped right next to me.He slammed the bottle down onto the counter. His trembling hand reached forone of the knives in the wooden knife block.

            Edward stared at his reflection on the knife, brown eyes looked back at him. I was near enough to hear his breath and his whimper. Whatever he saw changed his mind. He put the knife down and started crying. 

            “How long do we have to be here?” I asked August. 

            “It’ll happen soon.”

            I wondered what was going to be his cause of death, Edward wasn’t in a condition to commit self-harm. He didn’t want to do it despite how much alcohol he’d consumed, deep down he tried to protect himself. After long crying, Edward fell asleep on the kitchen’s floor.

            When August said soon, it wasn’t five minutes or ten or twenty, it was four hours later as Edward woke up. He took his time to get up, shambled along the living room, headed to the bathroom. I’d never been hung over before I couldn’t imagine how awful it would feel yet I could see how unpleasant it was.

            Edward washed his face. His brown eyes studied the man in the mirror, he couldn’t recogniseit. He hit the mirror, but it wasn’t hard enough to break it. He clenched his fists and his teeth. His body was shaken. It was hard to tell that the sound he made came from anger or sadness.

It reminded me of the rainy day I found a wounded dog on the street when I was nine on my way home from school. I tried to lift him, so I could take him to the hospital, but I was too small, and the dog was too big. Those round dark eyes looked at me, asked for help. His weeping sound made my eyes watered. I couldn’t do anything except apologise. I left my umbrella with him, shielded him from the rain. Because of what I saw on that day, I’d never asked my mom for a pet. 

Edward went back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and found nothing he could eat. He took the wallet and a house key from a counter and left.

August and I followed him to a convenient store at the end of the street. He grabbed a basket and took a lot of instant foods and six-pack of beer. His wallet, surprisingly, contained lots of cash. It took him less than five minutes to finish his groceries. 

On the way back was when it happened. A skinny man with a knife in his hand stopped Edward just a couple metresaway from home, demanded cash. The robber’s hands were shaking, his pupils were dilated. On the other hand, Edward was calm. He reached for the change he received earlier, handed them to the robber.

“No! This is not enough,” he said, “You’ve more. I know you have more. Give me your wallet.”

“That’s all I have,” said Edward.

“You’re lying! Stop lying or I stab you!”

Whatever thought Edward had at that moment was wrong, tricked him that he was the one in control of the situation, while the fact was whatever substance that the robber took was the one in control.    

            When Edward refused to comply, he was stabbed twice; one at the stomach and one at the chest. The robber took all the cash, threw the wallet beside Edward’s body and walked away.

Just like that, Edward appeared between August and me.

“H…how…why…I mean…am I dead? I can’t be dead.” Edward looked at his own body, shaking his head. “No. This can’t be true. I’m dreaming. This must be a dream. I have to see Daisy and Billy. That’s what I told myself every time I was on the bridge or holding a knife. I have to see them. No. I have to see them. I have…”

Edward kept repeating those words to himself. August informed him about his death and what he had to do. The spirit still refused to accept the truth while he was dragged by August into the black smoke.

Edward wanted to live despite how many times he tried to harm himself. He was never going to do it.

Life wasn’t fair to anyone.

When August and I arrived at Jericho, I wanted to go to the lake, sat there and left everything I’d seen behind. There were so many things to process, so many thoughts that made my head hurt. However, grim reaper couldn’t rest. Every time a name came up, they had a soul to collect.

I opened my left hand and found a piece of a paper contained name, date, time, address and cause of dead.

My first name. My first soul. My first mistake.