Please Mind The Gap #1

31: Please mind the last day

31: Please mind the last day

--- The last, the longest, and the most heartfelt chapter of PMTG. Thank you all:) ---

Teddy lay back down onto the couch beside Nathan while he was fast asleep, hugging his magenta pillow. Her heart pounded ferociously inside her chest.

That was how her parents died. Or at least that was what happened whenever she tried imagining what exactly happened ever since she was ten. It wasn't a pleasant imagination session to begin with. Sometimes she tried to make it a less scary version of the accident: her parents were in a car, another car hit them, and then everything went white in a flash. The more terrifying versions included them bathed in blood, their skin punctured by thick shards of glass, their lifeless eyes staring pointlessly at her.

What she had just dreamt was probably the most horrifying of all. She had been in it, Nathan had been in it, she had seen all of them die except her, and Nathan never got to see even a photo of his family ever again because she had lost it.

At the time of her parents' death eight years ago, she had been waiting impatiently with Aunt Tess who had agreed to watch over her until her parents came back from some distant village outside of London. They waited for minutes, and then hours and hours until the police reported that they had been killed in an accident due to the other driver who was extremely drunk while driving. They were generous enough to rescue a long, broken package containing a new child size racket and that was it.

The funeral happened a week later. Teddy remembered black dresses and rain and the damp smell of wet grass. Two freshly engraved markers lay side by side. Theodore Errol and Danielle Errol - loving father, caring mother, death shall be conquered by the spirit of love. She remembered tears flowing down her face. And the freezing cold and the gray sky. She always felt this indescribable cold whenever she thought about it.

"ARGHHH!"

Teddy, not remembering a loud yell in her memories of the funeral, whirled around to see Nathan who was blinking rapidly and turning frantically left and right.

"She was there! She was there! She was going to reach into me and twist my heart!" Nathan said, panicked.

"Who was?" asked Teddy.

"Annabelle! Jesus, she was about to kill me!"

"Well, welcome to the club," Teddy said, half bitterly and half amused.

"What club?"

"The International Society for the Welfare of People with Nightmares of Death and Destruction."

"Who's in it?"

"You and me."

His amused expression instantly morphed into one of concern. "Bad dream too?"

Teddy nodded wordlessly.

"What was it about?"

Teddy froze, remembering the shard of glass piercing her father's skin, the lifeless eyes of her mother, the blood on Nathan's face. "It's just... really bad."

Nathan reached out suddenly and brushed his thumb under her eye. Startled, Teddy drew back a little but he shook his head. "You had a tear." He frowned anxiously. "You were crying? That bad?"

Teddy shrugged and forced a smile. "So what are we doing today? Will your parents be out again?"

Nathan stared at her for a while and then relented. "They won't talk about Enalie... not sure if it's good or bad though. Yeah, they'll be in the hospital again. They left at five am... Anyway..." he took a breath and continued. "Since it's your last day... oh God, it's your last day!"