Why I was here.
Why my mom was gone.
Where I was for a year of my life.
I wanted to know what happened to her, and nothing was going to stop me from finding out.
Not even my own mind.
When I opened my eyes, my breathing normalized.
There she was, just as I remembered her. Her hair fell like silk threads, drifting gently as if she were underwater. She smiled softly, her skin sparkling in the mist.
“Mom,” I whispered.
“Anna, you don’t have to do this,” she said.
Her voice sounded closer than the others had, as if she were here. I stretched my arm out. If I touched her, what would she feel like?
“And if I don’t?” I asked, my lips trembling.
“Derrick will keep you safe,” she said, nodding gently.
“But who will keep me safe from myself?”
Her form began to dissolve, and I rushed forward.
“No,” I gasped, but when I tried to touch her, she was gone.
I stood there, staring into the dark mist, an aching pain forming like a cage around my chest. She didn’t know it was my fault she was gone. She didn’t know that I was unstable and that at any moment, I might let in an unfathomable darkness.
No, I did have to do this.
I had to dig out whatever had taken root within me.
Even if it killed me.
“You sure about that?”
A hollow chill swept through me at the sound of his voice.
He stood before me, his gently smirking expression familiar and missed.
“Eiryn, how’re you here?”
He looked around, his face scrunching up like he smelled something foul.
“Not such a pleasant place, huh?” he mused.
“Are you real?”
He looked different from the others, like the mist had hardened, and his voice was less distant, as if he were on the other end of a phone call.
He chuckled.
“I guess it depends on what ‘real’ means,” he said.
I wanted to go to him, to feel his hugs that always made everything better, no matter how terrible I was feeling.
