The Guilty Grave

I wake up the next morning at around 9 AM. It's quiet. Too quiet.

"Hey, Victor, you up yet?" I ask my partner upstairs. There's no response. At first, I am confused, then I let out a sigh of relief. Must have all been another bad nightmare. I order a pizza for breakfast. I wash up and look in the mirror. The new face that I'm wearing is starting to grow on me. I used to have round cheeks, but instead I have way more chiseled features. I had to dye my blonde hair black too, but even that is looking pretty good on this particular morning.

The doorbell rings and I practically float downstairs. I open the door, receive my pizza and close the door behind me. The good morning doesn't last sadly. I feel a sharp pain in the back of my head and everything goes black. Great.

I open my eyes and I'm outside in a meadow. The sun was shining gently on the large expanse of green grass. I notice that I'm laying on a picnic blanket. I sit up and look around. To my right there is grass as far as the eye can see. And to my left. I jump backwards and gasp a profanity.

"I-It's you…" I say shakily. The person in front of me was the kid I murdered. It's Victor Weiss.

"Howdy!" says Victor. This is the first time I'm actually getting a good look at him.

Victor has curly, jet-black hair. He's in the exact outfit that he died in. A blue athletic jacket with a grey shirt underneath and grey cargo pants. He's pretty built for a middle-school if I'm being completely honest with you. There's a 100% chance that he was popular with whomever he met.

"Hey," I say, rather startled. "Where are we?"

Victor chuckles. "You don't recognize it? It's your mind you dum-dum."

I look around once more. "This isn't at all what I would have expected."

"Probably because you were in a good mood when I yanked you in here. Yesterday it wasn't nearly this nice. Thunderstorms and spontaneous tornadoes all over the place. It only calmed down once you fell asleep."

"Okay, but why am I here?"

"To discuss the gameplan!" Victor smiles. "We're going to go get those artifacts and stop Dr. Moordoor."

"Alright, alright," I say, not at all as enthusiastic as he was. "Where do we even know where to look? California is pretty big, you know. Shoot, he could be anywhere in the U.S. right now."

"Simple. We check the news."

This statement confuses me. "Wait… what do you mean-" I am suddenly overcome with a stroke a dizziness so strong, I have to shut my eyes tight.

Suddenly the dizziness stops, and I bolt upright. I realize that I'm in my bed.

"Huh?" I say. "Wasn't I just downstairs?"

Victor pipes up from within my head. When I yanked you into your head for that emergency conference, your body went limp. This caused you to fall forwards… into your pizza. So, while me talked I took the liberty of walking your body to the bathroom to get cleaned up, then to your room so you wouldn't have to wake up on the floor.

This takes me a second to process. "Wait, so you piloted my body without permission??"

Uhh…

"Okay. If we're going to make this work, we need ground rules. Rule number one, no piloting my body without permission unless it's an emergency. Rule number two don't be annoying. When you talk, you're talking in my head, and I don't want you talking into my brain 24/7. Got it?"

Just two rules? Victor replies.

"For now," I say. "I will add more as needed."

Alright.

"Good." I reach to my nightstand for the TV remotes and turn on the news channel.

"Okay, Victor. What exactly are we looking for?"

Trust me, Victor says. You'll know it when you see it.

I flip through news channels for about 5 minutes. "I don't know dude; we still haven't seen any-"

There! Victor interrupts.

The news report on screen kind of shocks me. It reads, "Grey-haired man in black suit breaks into Sacramento mortuary. Leaves empty handed." There's no way that it was that easy.

"Whoa," I say in disbelief. "What does Moordoor want from a mortuary?"

He was testing out his powers, no doubt. Victor replies. We'd better check it out to make sure nothing bad went down in there.

Sacramento was about 10 miles from where I lived.

"How are we supposed to get there?" I ask. "I don't have a car."

We'll just have to get one then, Victor says.

"I don't have much money."

I didn't say buy, you dummy. I said get.

"Wait, you want me to steal a car?"

I mean, I call it non-consensual sharing. But whatever floats your boat, pal.

I groan. I'm already a murderer. Now I'm about to be a car thief too.

I live in California. If you know anything about California, know this: we are so carless. The sheer number of active, unattended cars left daily is absolutely staggering. So naturally, Victor and I shouldn't have to walk very long to find a vehicle to hijack. Naturally, I am right.

Target straight ahead! Victor says. Parked in front of us is a blue Cooper Mini, with (sure enough), the keys inside.

"That was easy," I say chuckling. "I'm beginning to fear for California as whole, now. And not because of the zombies."

I open the driver-side door and slide in. I buckle up and pull out. The whole deal was pretty simple, and nobody came after me, which was good. But even still…

"This still doesn't feel right."

Victor sighs inside my head. Oh yeah. The guilt from stealing one of the ugliest cars in existence gets to you. But I haven't seen you feel bad about killing me yet. Is that really the type of person you are, Aster?

I go silent. We just drive onward toward the mortuary in silence. Well, half-silence. Taylor Swift's Antihero is playing pretty loud in the car, but it takes my mind off of my circumstances.

After about a minute and a half Victor decides to talk again.

Okay, look. I'm sorry about what I said. Believe it or not I'm pretty on edge, even though it's not my life on the line. I know that you had absolutely no control over yourself when you beat my brains out on the sidewalk. But we can make it work. With my knowledge of the dark arts, and your… well… functioning body, we can definitely stop this potential apocalypse. So, let's call a truce, okay?

I sit quietly just to let the tension solidify. I've already forgiven the brat, but I need this moment. No guilt here.

Uh… Aster? Hello?

I let a out fake sigh. "I guess I'll let this last one slide. Truce."

Great! Victor says. And I'll never reference my death or you federal crime ever again under one condition.

"Uh, okay. What's up?"

Can we pleeeassee listen to something else?? I absolutely hate Taylor Swift.