I looked up from my map and held up the propane lantern. More and more snaking void. The mine's stale air probably hadn't been tasted since my lifetime began. Although I didn't know where I was, I wasn't entirely lost. Several shafts had crumbled leading me away from the main paths. I very quickly realised that my party was gone. No one was in sight. I panicked. They had no map or any way out. Shadows lapped the cave walls. I was overwhelmed with a terrible feeling of loneliness, panic and claustrophobia unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I jokingly thought to myself that this is exactly what death feels like. I had to start moving before the feeling would get to my head. I pivoted around and strode quickly back the way I came. I tried yelling my companion's names but I couldn't make a sound come out. After a few squeaky attempts I blurted, "RONNIE! MARY! JESUS CHRIST, WHERE ARE YOU GUYS!" Distorted sound returned to me, mocking my every peep. I had to keep going. I was crying by this point. My head spun. I needed to stop. I collapsed onto the wall after placing my lantern sobbing. Minutes went by. An eternity could have passed and I would not have known it.

I woke feeling well rested which was good. I needed to take this situation rationally and find my team. I stood, dusted my pants off and raised the lantern. It was still going. I was asleep for at least a few hours and it did not come with much fuel. In fact it looked like no time at all had passed. I bent down to pick up the map. A puddle. I put the stupid thing in a puddle. The ink had bled everywhere. I found myself stranded in a mine. I had to find my way out with limited lighting with my little amounts of food with no map before I starved to death or died of dehydration. All I could do was wander. And wander. My light went out. I drank from ceiling drips to quench my thirst and I marched on. That's all I really could do. Eventually, I saw a light. I approached it. There were two men with electric torches. I had never seen one but I knew what it was on sight. I called out to them. "Help me! Please!" It came out of my raspy voice like a dying bird. As I approached them, something crunched under my weight. "What was that?" "You heard it too!" "Look over there! In the shadows." As I approached I saw two men. They pointed at me with their torches. "Help me!" The men swore and sprinted away from me as fast as they could, one dropping their torch. I probably would have been scared of a limping person coming out of the darkness too. I stumbled over to the torch and dusted it off. I quickly came to realise there was another light behind me. I turned and walked towards it. I crunched on that same something as earlier. Looking down revealed it to be a human skull. The three skeletons were clothed and had gear next to them. I wanted to get a good look and brush off the dust, but if I wanted to get to the light before it faded, I needed to hurry. My legs couldn't go fast enough. There was music playing and lights dancing, the way I was going. I ran straight up to what turned out to be a door. A man greeted me. "Welcome to the world of the dead!" His voice was barely audible over the music. "You've got the wrong person!" I shouted. "Of course I don't. You are already dead. You just don't know it yet. Your name is Devon Sharp and you died in those tunnels. When humans die, they wander until they give someone a paranormal experience. You most likely remember haunting someone, right?" "I suppose." Those men who ran from me. "Do you know how I offed it?" "Your guess is better than mine!" I peered past the door. It looked out into a beautiful vast countryside. It looked like a festival was going on. "Can I go back and search for my body?" "Of course not." I backed up feeling trapped and turned around. The tunnels had vanished. I was in a closet. Walls had materialized. I could never go back and find out what had happened to me. "My name is Wally. I have been assigned to showing you the world of the dead. Come with me." I stepped forward. I knew I should be thinking about my whole new death ahead of me but I felt incomplete. A moment of clarity reminded me of the skeletons I had passed. There were three. "One for Devon, one for Mary, one for Ronnie." We had died together. I had no idea how long I had been dead but I knew it was long enough for bodies to decompose. Ronnie and Mary could have still been haunting the world of the living, waiting for people to go down the mine. It was abandoned. What would happen if nobody ever came to be haunted. I didn't want to think of that. Wally was showing me things like where community places were and where the dead lived but I was hardly paying attention. And then it dawned on me. My death was probably painful and it was anticlimactic for certain. And that was it. I was no longer alive. "Welcome to the world of the dead." I mumbled to myself.