And then it’s gone.
The red blood from my white canvas slowly retreating, crawling back into the drop it was and instead a flash of lightning cracks through the white and the blood, making a tear in it, but not large enough for me to come through.
Lightning…storm…I need my storm…
It flashes again and again and again. It’s my storm. It’s still here. Still protecting me. It keeps flashing, until suddenly it’s no longer around me.
It’s in me.
And then…pain.
4
He’s Alive
Aurora
“Mm-hmm.”Pain.Somuchpain. It’s everywhere. I thought death was supposed to be peaceful. That’s what I’ve been preaching to my dad these past couple years ever since we found out about his diagnosis.
I was giving him hope that the pain will stop. Turns out, I lied.
But also…there’s warmth. I feel warmth. Briefly. For a moment and then it’s gone, replaced by that pain again.
And noises. Where are all these beeping noises coming from?
Where is my peace and quiet? The white room. No, red. It was red…
Wait a second…I can hear. I can feel the air around me. It’s cold and smells clean. Antiseptic kind of clean. But I can’t breathe. I can’t…I can’t…
“Miss Johnson? Miss Johnson, can you hear me?” An unfamiliar voice filters through my head. It sounds far away yet so close. But I can’t breathe. “I need you to stop moving. You’re intubated! Please, keep calm, we’re getting it out.”
Hands. There are hands around me. And voices. It’s so loud.
“Aurora? Are you still with us, honey?”
Yes, yes, I’m here! I hear you.But my answers sound dull. Did I actually say it?
A jolt of piercing pain shoots through me, and this time I hear and feel the groan reverberating out of me from my sore throat, the weightless feeling I’ve had all this time is gone.
My bones feel heavy, every breath feels heavy, my eyelids—god, my eyelids—those weigh a ton.
But it’s my soul that feels the worst. It hurts. It’s tearing. It’s crushed.
Let me be. Leave me alone.
The voices grow distant and faint.
And then I’m back in the white room…and the voice was back…
You’re a fighter.
“Mm-hmm.” Where am I? What happened? I search for the warmth that pulled me out once before, but it’s not here.
“Rory? Can you hear me?” A voice filters into my pain. It’s both familiar and not. “Aurora, ray of my sunshine, open your eyes. Come on, I know you can do it! Prove them all wrong! Show them my girl is not going to be taken down that easily. Open your eyes,” the voice pleads, its every word striking some invisible cord inside me.
I feel something wet and cold and heavenly pressing onto my lips.
“I’ll never forget the day I first met you. On Iris Lake. Do you remember that day?” Something deep inside me screams “yes” but the word doesn’t come out.
