Maria slowly woke to the feeling of being rocked back and forth. She frowned, buried her face in a nice fluffy pillow and prepared to drift back to sleep.

"Are you kidding me right now? How are you still asleep?"

The voice, combined with the weird bed rocking sensation, registered in Maria's brain and slowly filtered through her processing centre until she came up with the conclusion that someone was trying to wake her up.

"Are you dead?"

Maria rolled over onto ...