Lights | A Forever Fanfiction

Chapter Eight: Eternity's Bonds

When I came to, I found myself in my mother's room once more. I was slumped on one of the uncomfortable sofas often found in hospital rooms, and Dr. Morgan sat across the bed from me, in a chair. My mother was still sedated, her breaths even and calm.

I must have been out for only a few minutes, because I could feel my lungs burning, as if the pillow were still there. I sat bolt upright as I remembered what had happened, and Dr. Morgan noticed my sudden consciousness.

"What do you know about my mother?" I demanded. "Are you a part of whatever this demented plan of hers is? Are you going to kill me? Are you going to kill Jo?"

"Lights-"

"Did you make the bomb? Is that how you knew? Oh my god-"

"Lights!" he yelled. I flinched, but fell silent. "I am on your side, which is the same side the police are on. I am not a murderer."

"How do I know?" I challenged, remembering what had happened when Jo brought up my mother in her hospital room. "When Jo mentioned my mother, you lied about her. You know something. Tell me!" My voice raised into a gradual shout with each word, and finally I broke down into vehement panic, my breaths coming in short, rapid gasps of fear and sorrow.

"Lights, listen to me carefully. You have to promise to believe me, regardless of whether or not I sound crazy. Do you trust me?" he demanded. I hesitated. Something in my gut told me not to, a nagging instinct told me to say no, and just run from it all, but I nodded nonetheless. I had to know.

"Your mother wasn't stabbed that day, when she disappeared." He swallowed, grimacing as if he were in pain. "She is immortal, and every time she dies, she is reborn in the waters of the Hudson." He paused as I gaped at him in disbelief. Immortal? Was he mental? Maybe he had a debilitating brain tumour. It is would explain quite a bit. "Don't give me that look. You promised to trust me. Anyways, she needed to escape. She came to me, rambling about having died in front of the paramedics, which must have been a lie, judging by all this." He gestured at the air, referring to the chaos and the terrorist people. "She wanted me to perform a plastic surgery on an unidentified Jane Doe in the morgue so she could pretend to be dead. So I did it. Everything, almost exactly the same. She left the next morning with all of her money, and a new identity."

"Assuming this is true, which I'm not saying it is, why would she come to you?" I asked incredulously after a long silence.

His face twisted even further into its grimace. "Because I am immortal as well." He waited for a moment, expecting me to respond, but I remained silent. "She and I met at the police station. She was hit by a car, and I had gotten into a boat accident. Both very immortal people, both searching for answers, a way out of our eternal cycles of life and death. It's sort of a very covert secret. Something we don't tell a lot of people."

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. He was insane. As psychotic and insane as my mother.

"How is this possible?" I whispered.

"I can prove it," he stated, rising quickly.

"Wha-?" My eyes flew open, surprise carving is way inside of me.

From the pocket of his coat, he produced a small disposable scalpel. He must have brought it with him from the morgue, or stolen it from one of the storage rooms here. He pressed it against his wrist, and just as the protest passed my lips he cut through the flesh and into the veins. Scarlet drops fell to the floor, spattering rapidly in little patterns, like a steady rainfall. I pressed my fingers over my lips as he fell forwards. Crimson began to pool around him, and as I was about to run to find a doctor, I saw the blood seep away, flowing back into him. I stared at it, shocked and disoriented. When all of it was gone, there was a sudden explosion of light, and a burst of wind. I shielded my face and turned away, and when they faded, his body was gone.

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