A falling sensation.

A dry mouth.

A blinding whiteness.

A ringing in the ears.

For Brooklyn, that was what dying felt like. Once she finally left the painful reality she had been subjected to within the past five minutes, her soul peacefully drifted away. She felt those sensations for a matter of mere moments before her eyes opened. Around her was nothing but white.

But then a man walked in.

He was tall and had a ghostly appearance- literally. His body was translucent. Dark, messy curls made up his hair and his eyes were a striking green. For clothes he wore a simple white t-shirt with blue jeans. His hands were casually stuffed in his pockets. Before Brooklyn could even open her mouth to speak, he said, "Listen, there's no easy way to say this, but you're dead." A pause. He took his hands out of his pockets and tapped his chin, amused. "..that was actually pretty easy to say."

For a moment, Brooklyn could only blink in disbelief. Was she really... [i]dead[/i]? Then the memories of her last few moments flooded into her mind. They were overwhelming. Her screams, her cries, the loud crashes of the car. Her death was nothing short of horrendous.

A shiver went down her spine.

She really was dead.

"Where am I?" She managed to say, her voice subtly trembling with a combination of sadness and nervousness. Her eyes darted around the empty area.

The guy extended his arms to grandly motion to the space around him. "This," he began, "is Levin. It's somewhere between Heaven and Purgatory. People here are pretty damn good rather than perfect or mediocre." He stuffed his hands in his pockets again. "Welcome to Levin, Brooklyn Mae Jones."

Her jaw must have dropped, because she closed it. [i]My life... it's over now. I'll never see Sam or Louie again.[/i] A sad lump formed in her throat as tears that threatened to spill stung at the corners of her eyes. She needed to return to her family. "I need to... I need to go..."

"Woah there," the guy intervened, holding his hands up defensively. "No need to cry. You can go up to Heaven soon. In only an earth time's year, in fact. Then you can hang out with God, Abe Lincoln, Carrie Fisher, your grandparents..." 

Brooklyn swallowed down the lump and blinked back the tears. She ignored his misinterpretation of her incomplete sentence. What she was focusing on was not crying. She couldn't do that here. Not now. "...you're not God?" Was all she inquired in a soft voice.

He laughed and dropped his arms. "Nah, of course not. God's the big fella. The head honcho. He stays in heaven. [i]I'm[/i] Dog. Dog as in, woof woof, ya know? Anyways, here in Levin we have lotsa stuff. Things like fast wifi, complimentary candies, cheap magazines, the list goes on." He grinned. "So without further ado, make yourself at home."

With that, Brooklyn turned around. In front of her was what appeared to resemble the typical waiting room. It was a large rectangular room with chairs lining the walls. In the middle was various rows of tables offering hard candies or notepads. Only a handful of other people were sitting down, most of them elderly. The young woman looked back towards the whiteness... but that was gone too, now. It was simply her and an unfamiliar waiting room.

But Brooklyn didn't want to be in a waiting room. She knew she couldn't give up this easily.
 
"Dog!" She exclaimed, looking up at the tile ceiling. Her voice was still subtly shaky. The other people hushed her. Biting her lip, she whispered a quick 'sorry' before leaning over an empty chair. She knocked on the wall. It sounded very dense. "Dog!" She exclaimed again, albeit quietly. "Dog!"

"Shhh!" Whispered the person closest to her. "If you want to speak to Mr. Dog, you'll have to give him a reason to want to speak to [b]you[/b]."

[i]A reason to speak to me?[/i],  Brooklyn thought. How on earth was she going to do that? Did she have to do something incredibly bad or incredibly good? "Okay, thank you," she whispered back. Then she straightened up, still facing the wall. [i]Okay... if I were Dog, what would summon my attention? ...Beer, probably. Baseball caps. Burnt s'mores.[/i] Her eyes widened with realization. [i]A campfire![/i]

"Listen up, everybody!" Brooklyn suddenly exclaimed, turning to face the other occupants. Even she shocked herself when she did that. They slowly looked up at her one by one. Most of them looked at her with a glare, but it was a start. With all of these eyes now on her, Brooklyn faltered. She had never been the most outgoing or talkative person. It would be so easy to simply say 'nevermind' and sit back down. She bit her lip. "...We're going to have a campfire today. Now, I mean. How does that sound?"

"Dangerous," said one.

"Boring," said another.

Those responses weren't expected. "That's okay!" Was all Brooklyn could reply with. Tucking a loose lock of hair back behind her ear, she walked over to a stack of magazines (all of them had Dog on the cover) and picked them up. "This will be fun," she assured everybody. A little smile crossed her lips. Taking a couple steps backwards, she adjusted her grip on the magazines. She was ready to figure out how to start a fire.

But then she bumped into someone.

A familiar voice purred, "Now what do you think [i]you're[/i] doing?"