Meridian Chronicles: Keepers & The Soul Key (#4)

Chapter 24

Slowly, Meridian's eyes fluttered several times, before they opened from what felt like an awful nightmare. As her eyes came into focus, she looked over, she stared out of what was a familiar window. Her attention diverted to the distant sound of a woman humming.

Meridian rose and found herself in a bed with a large white down comforter.

Meanwhile, as the angel said, there was another awakening happening somewhere else. Where another familiar voice hollered out, "Aiden! Come on, son! Time to get a move on! We have to work outside." Grandpa hollered up the stairs.

His wife handed him a cup of coffee. "I swear, since he got home for spring break, he has had a time," Grandma said as she tugged on her husband's dirty sleeve. "Don't be too hard on him, he needs to have some fun. His heart and hormones are in charge, you remember those days, huh?" She rhetorically asked before going to the kitchen to finish breakfast.

Aiden shot straight up in bed and looked around as though he couldn't believe where he was. He looked at his hands and felt his face as though he wasn't there, then jumped out of bed and rushed to the bathroom to get a look at himself, then into his room and found his old black T-shirt he left from the day before and put it on as he ran downstairs.

"Grandpa?" Aiden asked in confusion.

"Son what is wrong with you, I swear you aren't acting right."

Aiden ran into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around his grandmother. "Oh, I missed you!"

She reluctantly patted his arm. "What is with you? You were only gone for a few days. You act like you haven't been home at all? You need to hurry though after you help grandpa, your father said he would be here to pick you up to go fishing."

Aiden, who had just turned to leave, stopped and turned around, "What? My father?"

"Are you all right? That car wreck did more damage than the hospital realized. Yes, your father, you came to me and said you wanted to find him. What was strange it was like overnight, after all those years, he was so simple to locate. You two have grown close, and I am so glad you have him since your mother isn't here with us."

Aiden scratched his head and shouted, "I need to run an errand quickly!" He ran out of the house and jumped in his truck and drove into town.

As he drove down the road, his mind was going a million miles a minute. "Car wreck? What car wreck? The one where I lost Meridian? Oh no, I can't be back here. Wait, back here? I perished. I died with her that day at the hospital. Have I been dreaming this whole time? Wait, I had a dream within a dream? I overheard grandma saying something about hormones. Wait, was this all a bad dream? Was everything just a dream? Meridian, a spirit. Wait...wait...wait. My father. I never knew my father."

Aiden slammed on his breaks in the middle of the road, where he frantically tried to find his cell phone. After remembering his cell phone was lost in the wreck, in frustration, he pulled his truck over to the side of the road to collect himself. After struggling to remember anything different, he couldn't.

He muttered to himself, "What in the world has happened? I died. Meridian passed. I think I passed twice! Or did I? The only way to know is at Tallulah's. No, no, no, what if I don't want to know the truth? What if this is a crazy dream, and I am still with Amy? I go to Tallulah's and see that I have lost my mind. I hit my head too hard in the wreck, and I dreamed of all this. That is what it is, I have hit my head, and this is all some dream." He snickered at himself as he scratched his head and gazed down the road. He walked back to his truck and jumped in.

Aiden slapped his hands on the steering wheel and let out a sigh and stared out the windshield at the road ahead. Reluctantly, he put the truck back on the way and headed into town to settle his mystery to rest. "I need to know, some confirmation that it was some crazy dream."