Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
“Mommy.” At first, my call was a whisper, but the more they repeated the word, the more convinced and terrified I got that it was true, so I shrieked, “Mommy!”
I opened the first door in the hall to my right, only to find a small closet full of cleaning supplies. The second door was an empty bedroom. By the time I arrived at the next one, my body was covered in sweat and tears.
“Mommy!” Why did this house have so many doors? Another empty room. As I ran to the next one, out of breath, the door behind me slammed shut, but I didn’t care because I needed to find her.
Dead.Dead. Dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Dead.
Dead. Dead.Dead.
The next one was locked. She had to be in there. “Mommy!” I repeated.
The man I’d met in the garden after the wedding opened the door from inside the room. His smile was too wide as he nodded once then walked back to the foot of the bed.
“Killian,” he called, waiting for me to enter. From the front pocket of his suit, he took out a pocket watch. “Tick tock.” His forefinger hit the glass on the watch, then pointed to the bed.
He seemed to do everything in slow motion. Was this some kind of a dream? I didn’t have time to figure that out, with hundreds of white skeletons of all sizes climbing onto the bed and choking my mum. Mum was kicking and fighting them as I struggled to get onto the bed, grabbing skeleton after skeleton and pulling them away from the center where she lay dying. “Muuuuummmm!” I yanked one off but more climbed on. It was an unending cycle. “Ahhhhh! Mum! Mum!”
“Killian!” I scarcely heard my uncle call my name. The bloke in the black suit hooked his hands under my arms and hauledme away as the bed sank in the middle into a deep dark hole. Everything was falling into it while she hung on to the edge, screaming in fright.
“Ahhh! Killian!”
“Let me go!” I yelled, kicking and crying for her. “No! Muuuuummmmmm!”
“Killian,” she called, but all I could see while fighting to be released were the skeletons climbing and jumping into the hole that had once been the bed. I wailed, wanting to save her. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
For the first time in weeks, all the whispers disappeared. The room started disappearing in blotches. “Muuuuum!” I cried, my heart about to give out from how hard it was pumping. I couldn’t lose her too. In fighting to get to her, to save her, I’d exhausted myself.
“Let him go,” she said to the man in the suit.
“He’s hysterical, Star.”
“He won’t hurt me. He’s my son. Let him go.”
“Mommy…” I cried. Her voice from so far away made me miss her even more. My heart ached. I wanted to die too, to fall into the hole with her. Even if it was hell, I wanted to be with her. Why did I keep living when everyone else died? I didn’t want to be here by myself. I wanted to go after her and stay with her. The infinite loneliness slipped into my bones, chilling them. I needed her arms around me, but she was gone.
She was gone. “Not my mommy, please. Moooommmmyyyyyyy!”
“Sir… what can I do to help?”
“We need a doctor. He’s obviously hallucinating.”
“Mummmmmm!” I sobbed.
The skeletons disappeared, and she sat up on the bed, talking to me, with black holes in place of her eyes. “Killian, can you hear me?” Her body was ripped to shreds, exposed organs pumpedblood. My head throbbed horribly. The sight of her made me nauseous. Everything became black.
The stinging on my cheek woke me. “Killian? Killian, wake up,” Mum called.
“We can take him to the emergency room,” Uncle Ricard suggested.
