PROLOGUE

FOR POSTMORTEM TRAVELS OF A WORKAHOLIC
     BY R. L. OAK

Emily Graves was born in a cold world, one that probably resembles your own. Similar in history and geography, with metropolis of millions, where status and wealth would often weight much more than character and honor.

That is to say, that Emily Graves was not born into a family with any of those. In a world where one would rarely rise honestly, and to do so would need to either possess incredible luck or no regard for its own life.

Be sure, this is not a pessimistic account of events. But to be entirely honest, Emily Graves first life was not one that people should aspire. It would, certainly, be the kind to be read on headlines as a means to prove that the system was not in favor of the higher classes.

Her father was a construction worker, one that taught her not only an unwavering determination but from whom she inherited a strong sense of responsibility and a strong moral compass. He died when she was seventeen.

Her mother was a housewife, had been for most of Emily's life. Was from her that Emily learned to care for her family first and foremost, as well as a few family recipes. It has been said, this is not a pessimistic account. Her mother is still breathing, however, after the premature departure of her one love it would be very generous to say she is alive.

Emily had a brother, many years younger. Before their father died, he had been a kind soul set on helping others. After the accident, he had turned bitter and rebellious. Angry at the world and with much more pessimism than eleven years old should possess, he quickly befriended people he should have not. Now he is a college student with many disciplinary actions in his record and a crowd of friends that you would be quite generous to call so.

But I am quite ahead of myself. Before things went downside, life had been quite good by Emily's point of view. She had just finished high school, was on the second month of college, when life became harder and she came to understand the true hardships that would await adulthood.

An accident on her father's workplace, as soon as the news reaches her she leaves for the hospital. She arrives at the hospital eighty-three minutes before her father passes away, it takes sometime to fully acknowledge it, but afterwards it becomes easier to move on as her minds detaches from the emotional implications in favor of the economical ones.

She understood that her father overworked himself for the better of the family, and that the opportunity he had giving her - of going to college with little worry and full support - was one that was not achieved easily by people like them. Nonetheless, without him to provide, and with her mother failing to raise up to the challenge, she had to walk away from it.

Emily was smart and quick to arrange the money to settle any debts and push forward. More than willing to put aside extra expanses until she had a steady income; which she acquired on the form of a job as a mail-person in a small publishing house a few months after the funeral. Friend's recommendation.

She worked herself hard and beyond what one her age would, for the extra hours and for the benefits - her boss would usually pay some nice food delivery during late shifts. And so, through luck and no regard to her own health, she got promoted. Once, twice... She became the agent to some small authors, then there was an acquisition, people coming and going and some more promotions.

By the time she finally started thinking of vacations, and that maybe things were in a space she could relax and slowdown, she was on the shortlist for Editor-in-Chief. And had been working non stop for close to seven years, with her longest vacation being a few obligatory seven-days time away so the company could avoid lawsuits. She usually took those days to get ahead in other projects.

As for her family, not much had changed in those years. Her mother remained out of touch, frail looking and cowardly. She had agreed to go to the gym and had made friends with a few neighbors, but mostly it was same as ever with her. Hank was a bit different. As previously stated, he did not take well to their father early demise.

Partying, skipping classes, no studying. But he had everything. The few times he had been arrested for charges related to intoxication and fighting, Emily had been there to scoff and bail, but it never changed anything. Luckily, with her many extra hours and sold vacations, he somehow still got into college.

And as the stage is set, and the players known, we must go to a Friday night. Emily, on one of the high towers in center district, trying to read through a first draft of a sequel she had been assigned while her boss began his preparations to retire.

"Hey, we going for happy hour, you want to come?" Emily took sometime to notice the question was made to her. People had long realised such prompts were only rarely - legendarily - accepted. "I mean, nothing big, just some beers and something to eat. Casual, relaxing."

"Sorry, I still need to finish this one." Looking back at heavy weight of printed potential she sighed. "Maybe next time." Was added shortly, for the politeness.

As the young assistant walked away with a wave, joining a talkative group of collegues, she returned to the draft. Time passed slowly and it took its toll, even so Emily persisted until half the draft had been read and marked with points for discussion with the author.

"This is as far as I go today." She sighed before starting to put things in place, taking her phone out of one of the drawers. A weird decision, but a very productive one, as work related calls were made to the office landline and personal calls were so rare it was best to keep the distraction out of sight. "Weird..." Speaking of personal calls, the four missed calls and over twenty unread messages were out of the usual.

Specially when one took into consideration that those were missed calls from her mother's number even as she knew not to call during office hours. Still no big deal, had it been an important call, her mother would have been an office call. Putting on her coat, the editor made for the elevator as she returned the call.

"Hey, Mom."

The voices were muffled by layers of walls, but the agitated tones were somewhat noticeable by the neighbors even as the hours moved to late night.

"So?! What fucking explanation do you think of giving me today?" Emily had ranted through most of the time since she arrived home, still affected by her mother's call minutes ago. "Anything?!"

Emily rarely would give into such strong anger, into the yelling and frantic gestures. However, after so long and so much hard work the consequences of her brother's actions had been too unnerving to simply accept, as she had done in the past few years. This time, a prank on the college dean could cost the spot on an university that was very narrowly obtained.

"Hank?!" And not only so, the actions of her seemingly unbothered younger sibling were too much of a fuel to her growing indignation. "STOP AND LOOK AT ME!" The young man, who had only spared Emily a few side glances since she arrived home, opting to ignore her over television and now over a very detached examination of the fridge.

"Look, just take a breather, okay? Is no big deal." Was his calm response, before taking one of the yogurts on the refrigerator and finally turning face to face with his sister. "I didn't like this psych thing to even begin with... And college is a stupid waste of money." He added, gesticulating with a recently acquired spoon.

As someone who had to abstain from a very much desired college degree, Emily could not agree. As someone who had been passed over in promotions and had to begin at the very bottom of the corporate food chain, Emily would never agree with such a statement. Even more so, as it came from the same person that had entered college through her blood and sweat.

"Are you out of your mind? Who the hell told you that shit?" Trying to push away the growing headache, she sighed. Best to change course in the fixing of this disastrous turn of events. "Ok, so, if you don't want to go to college I can call some friends and help you get an interview. Find you a nice starting job, get you a bit of experience. " Even if degrees had become much more important then they were when she started less than a decade ago, maybe with a few strings and a bit of her own recommendation Hank would have a future.

The only obstacle on that logic was Hank himself.

"Nah, I'm not going to an interview or whatever. Ben said he got a van and his band are going a country road trip and they could use the extra muscle." Despite the words, it was no secret that Hank, same as the rest of the Graves family, was not a physical person. The only exception the late Mr. Graves.

"What? You..."

There as a short second that Emily tried to figure if this was a strange nightmare, and a short moment that as the world got muffled and numb around that almost served for her to believe that maybe it was a nightmare, but she didn't wake up. As her surroundings came back into focus and she noticed her mother looking scared and worried a few steps away and her brother finishing his cup of yogurt, she was convinced this was reality.

"You will NOT drop out of college to go follow some dead-beat punk wannabe around the country, not on my dime!" This was the point in the discussion where previously she would fold, too tired to argue, too shocked with such entitlement; where previously her brother had been cooed and enabled. She would not stand it. "You decide: college or a job. In case of neither, you are an adult and you can fucking take care of yourself OUT of my house."

Maybe a bit of over the top on the ultimatum, but reasonable when one considered the many problems caused by Hank over the years. And the many hours, days and almost months, lost trying to make ends meet in the beginning and even late stages of her career, so he would have the best opportunity.

"Yeh, fuck you. You ain't the boss of me, and mom would go for that 'you don't live here' bull." He said, shrugging, before leaving for his room without looking back. A woman of some experience, Emily knew that not following through her threat would make her look weak, and she was a bit too proud to let this pass.

"That is it! OUT!" That put the younger Graves to a stop. Looking over his shoulder with wide eyes and pure confusion, as if certain his sister would not go through with the ultimatum he slowly noticed how much trouble he was in. "I said out! Take whatever trash you want and get out! I am not going to pay for you to live in my home and disrespect me! I am done with this bullshit."

"This is mom's apartment. Wake up, skirted dictator." Any attempt to reel in his uncaring act back to its prime was crushed by the way his voice wavered and his eyes jumped from sister to mother.

"No, this is MY house, since I paid the debt collectors four years back. And I will not say it again. Take your things and leave, or I will throw you out with nothing."

In an attempt to save himself from what would hardship he was not prepared for, Hank Graves turned to his mother who watched the argument from the side. Always silently watching and too meek to act. Miranda was more frequently than not only an spectator in her own life than an active agent since her husband's death. But that, you have already been informed of.

"Hank." The tone was that of a warning, as Emily turned to her brother. "Don't you dare drag mom into this." As the voice turned from anger to a cold resentment, the young man took the warning and turned to the bedroom he had lived on for most of his life.

"Emmy, you..." Miranda stopped looking in the hallway and then back to her daughter, that was now looking up while breathing heavily in an attempt to steady the unease heartbeats. "Wasn't this too much?"

"No, mom, he needs to learn." The words didn't quite fit the true role Emily was supposed to take in her brother's life. Those were the words of a mother much more than a sister, and Emily couldn't help but take notice of it resentfully. "I am done coddling him. I paid the bails, I helped him get into college. He got every opportunity I didn't get, if he wants to screw it over, I am not going to be the one cheering him on from the sidelines."

Fully aware of her own daughter's stubbornness, and partly agreeing with the sentiment, Miranda decided to move her focus to someone also. After all, it took two to fight, and if Hank saw the mistake he was about to make and actually apologize, she was sure her daughter would back down.

The pleas to the younger child were as successful as they would had been on the older one. She should have expected such result, they were, after all, more alike than they would ever admit.

Despite what movies might take you to believe, packing bags as you are getting kicked out might take a few minutes, specially if it never occurred to you of the possibility of it happening. During that time, Emily remained in the living room, trying to calm down the beats against her ribs and the drumming in her ears. Soon came the shortness of breath and the blurred vision.

"I will come..." The words failed to form the rest of the sentence as Hank came out of his bedroom to see his sister have the color drained from her face and her legs fail just as quickly as she fell to the floor.
--
The following days were long and numbing for Hank and Miranda, but Emily would be in and out of conscious so many times that the distinction of day, night and how much time had passed where simple too foreign.

Doctors had attempt to provide hope for the family. She was young, she could pull through. They decided to overlook the years of neglect her body had suffered, of two-to-five hours of sleep a day, eating unhealthy food and the heart condition that had been neglected for at least a couple years - if ever diagnosed.

And with such stressing, the high pressure, the continual stress from work and home, it had worsened quickly and by the time she was admitted there were little hope for full recovery. As days piled and turned into weeks and months, it was clear the only hope was a transplant and as the forth month came to a close, no hope was left in the staff.

Miranda had been waiting in the small couch by the bed, praying even as she had no faith left in her after her husband's death, when the alarm went on.

"Code Blue. Code Blue." She had heard the words before, when her husband died and when Emily almost died a few weeks back. By intuition, or maybe something more, she knew this was a moment much more like the later than the former.

Staff rushed to the room, Hank standing as near as would allow trying to gauge at the situation before taking the side of his mother as a supportive presence. It might had been anything between twenty-seconds and twenty-minutes before the nurses and doctors slowly stopped moving. Miranda falling to the floor hearing the words before they actually left the senior doctor in the room.

"Time of death..."

And that is the beginning of our story, more or less. As all good stories there still much unknown hidden in the past, but this chronicle, the tales we wish to weaver, come after this. As Emily stands in an white almost empty room with only a couch and an old looking television, with buttons under and a convex screen.

At the monitor a body laid in a hospital, nurses and doctors surrouding it, a woman crying and a younger man holding her with tears held by sheer will. Slowly, as the people in the video moved in slow motion, the characters became recognizable. The older woman was her mother, the young man was her brother and body, frail and weak, at the bed was hers... The body that people were giving up on. The dead body... Was her.

"Time of death, five-twenty-one PM."

No emotions resurfaced. She didn't feel angry for dying, sad for the lost opportunity, no grief for the life she lost, or joy for the burden lifted. Just emptiness. No time was given to contemplate, however, as the sound of steps on marble floor echoed. She turned just as an oddly familiar stranger stopped their walk.

"Hello, Ms. Graves." The figure was slim enough that it might had been female, or maybe just a skinny male. The voice was professional, clear and somehow warm. Comforting.

Skin a dark tan, a large smile on her face and black eyes filled with mischief packed in a purple striped suit, light gloves and golden shirt.

"I am Metztli and I will be your guide in the coming travels." They stated moving gloved hands to their back and squaring their shoulders. "You can call me Metz."