Afterlife

Anxieties

Somewhere in between the huddled comforting and the cooing of trying to calm Leo down, sleep got ahold of us all. It was first Evan since I felt his input of weight carrying decreased, then Leo as he no longer was sobbing and leaned into me for heavily. As the last one standing, I didn't have a chance and it wasn't long before I succumbed to sleep.

 The only way I actually knew I was sleeping was because of how dark and silent everything was; dark as the purest black and quiet as if I were deaf. It was because of these features I knew I was in limbo and could at any moment begin to hear a heart monitor's steady beat (Evan told me what that machine was named sometime before).

At first, I was scared; what will I hear? What situation will I be put in? Who will be by my bedside? What will do they do? If it's something bad, will someone be able to stop them in time? Question after question with no clear answer other than 'hope for the best'. 

I figured I could always slip away from consciousness and back into the afterlife if anything got too far. 'I could do this, I could do this', I kept chanting to myself. I had to at least try. 

If not for myself, than for my weeping mother who was a majority of the time near my bedside; for my brother who seems to be protective mom and I and tries to lighten the situation with the help of my friend Maeve, talking about mundane things; and for Evan, since at least one of us could live the happy life we weren't currently able to.

So, with what I assumed was a deep breath (since I couldn't hear it and barely felt any movement), I tried to let my fears go. Let them take flight and leave so I may be able to back in my living yet vegetable state. 

I counted to ten slowly, then twenty, but I gave up at forty. There was still no change and I could still, in the back of my head, feel all of the worries and fears tangle with each other like thread inside my head.

They wouldn't leave, and soon they started to suffocate my head. I haven't noticed how apparent they seemed nor how many there were. The blank dark area surrounding me didn't help, and in fact, made the experience worse; I thought I could see each piece of fear floating around my head in bolded white letters circling me.

What if you get hurt? What if nobody is there to protect you? Who would stop him from doing anything he wants? Who will you even tell? If you could, who would listen? Will they believe what he says or what he claims to not have done? Who will help you? Who will help you? Who will help you?

The last one kept appearing over and over again that it seemed to be the only sentence repeated in my mind: Who will help you?

The dark emptiness of Limbo was replaced by the blinding white lettering of the sentence until there was no longer any hint of the darkened place it once was. My head was filled with the white noise of the same thought, played over and over again as if on repeat. 

I wanted to curl up, curl into a ball and just breathe in and out, but such an action is hard to do so when you can't even feel the movement of your body. I couldn't even shut my eyes. The white words were everywhere; the thought clouding my vision and buzzing in my head like a broken record.

Right when I felt like my head was going to burst into pieces, I sat up breathless. I looked around and found myself half buried under Leo and Evan, both pilling onto the other as well. Only part of the upper-half of my body wasn't buried underneath them, so I still could partially lift myself upright. I saw that they were both still sleeping; eyes closed, breathing slowed and body seemingly relaxed.

Looking at them, I felt a twinge of envy; they didn't seemed scared or terrified of where they went to. Even though Evan was saddened about having to see his love move on, he could still see her and not be in fear every second he's there. I wasn't sure about Leo, but even he seemed content than how he was before. I shook the negative vibe off, which only made me feel mean and selfish. It wasn't their fault I was so scared.

Not wanting to wake either of them, I laid back down on top of part of Evan's elbow and part of the floor-pillows. I had nothing better to do than to think. 

The first thing that came to mind was wondering why Leo seemed so down; I thought back to when I first noticed, which was after I've experienced that 'incident' in my vegetable state of a body. Something must've happened while I wasn't there or maybe it was even before, when Evan and I were with Nat, Sui, and Occi. What could have possibly made him so gloomy? Maybe it was my fault due to my overreaction at the time.

I softly chuckled to myself as I thought back of my fear of being dead; it was a wonder what the distance of a couple of hours can do to you. A new fear had replaced it and this was one that terrified me straight through my soul.

"I'm weak," I half-laughed; I looked at the corners of my eyes to see if the bodies on top of me stirred, but they remained the same. I continued.

"Ah, I'm weak for being scared of something so simple, aren't I?" I whispered to the dark and empty main room. "I'm scared and I'm unsure of what to do...what could I even do? Just let go and die? I couldn't do that; I rather not do that!" I drew out a sigh.

"But...I guess it feels forced. Living I mean. Just because I decided to wake up on a hospital bed, doesn't mean all of the problems I may still have will magically disappear. No, I still need to take care of school, whatever photography is, which I assume is a career or study or possibly both, and then...there's that guy. What in the living dead should I do with him?" I chuckled softly. 

"What a cheesy joke; one day of full Evan and I'm already saying weird stuff...still, what should I do? Hm...maybe first give him a name for reference as a stand-in..." I thought a whole ten seconds before deciding on the stand-in name.

"Stan. Yeah, Stan is okay..." I didn't know what to say anymore. It was all too much and there was too much to just let out I wasn't sure where to begin. 

There was fear, there was hurt, there was stress, there was sorrow, there was anger, there was that envious feeling again, there was heart-broken, and they were all mixed up inside of me. So I didn't speak again and stayed up in the dark.

In the silence of the tree house that was accompanied with the chirps of crickets, I watched as the room went from a dark and mysterious violet gray and slowly morph to a lighter blue-gray. It was utterly beautiful. Unlike the storm that was brewing within me and it's showers that threatened to trail down from my eyes to the floor in a vertical downpour. It was a silent storm, but it was still there.

Author's note:

Those anxieties of the dead and living still get to you.

Anyway, thank you for reading, don't forget to leave a comment for anything you have to say (even if it's to say hi or some critique!) and also vote if you enjoyed the chapter!

Till next month!