No breath.
No thoughts.
No memories.
Nothing but crushing darkness.
4.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us
Are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
~ Henry S. Haskins
~~
Pain, blinding and hot, sears through me as my thoughts float above the scene. The air clings to me, tethering me to a life I want to escape. Ash and soot choke the oxygen from my lungs. Everywhere there is nothing but darkness—an endless oblivion that envelops me and blocks out everything but an agony too real to ignore.
My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death.
Time races by in a haze. Nothing exists but the raw emotions I can’t escape, battering me against the shores of unconsciousness. I toss against my thoughts, reliving moments best left forgotten. Every feeling, every dream, every nightmare, displayed around me, strangling me. Choking any remaining life from my lungs.
Until, impossibly, the silence is broken.
“Ien, I’m here…I’m here.”
The voice raises a familiar longing that pushes through the mess in my mind.
“Please, Ien. You can’t leave me. Not now.”
Kiera.
Her voice fills the void inside, willing me back to existence. I fight the heavy emptiness bearing down on me as I concentrate only on my lungs, forcing them to respond. Every gulp of air I manage to take sets me aflame while wave upon wave of misery tears pieces of flesh from my body.
The floating feeling resumes and I attempt to push open my eyes. Nothing. Again I try, but they are too heavy to respond. I settle my thoughts and try again.
Over and over.
Wrestling with my body and mind, I will myself to surface from the abyss around me. A glimmer of light wedges itself into the dark expanse. At first, it’s nothing more than a meager speck, a taste of hope I try to embrace. The light grows as reds and oranges replace the inky blackness. I feel the landscape move and change around me.
“That’s right Ien, wake up. Come back to me.” The voice is softer than before, more distant. Desperately I grasp at the words, refusing to let them slip away.
My eyes open wider. Flames invade my senses and I feel my skin catch fire. The scream that erupts from my throat suffocates any hope of waking and I’m thrown into darkness once more, complete in its emptiness.
Meaningless time clicks by one agonizing moment at a time. No more sounds awaken me. No more voices prod me to consciousness.
Are you there, Kiera? Were you ever there?
Pain ebbs and flows until I’m too tired, too spent, to care anymore. Images stream past my eyes like a series of photographs, a record of my life. Some parts move quickly—early memories of my home, my first year at Chadwick Academy, meeting James. Others move with more deliberation, allowing me time to focus on the minutest of details—the way the stage lights shimmer across Kiera’s hair, the taste of her lips when she breathes ‘yes’, the exact color of her eyes when we said goodbye. I want to lose myself in the film playing out in front of me, let the thoughts of Kiera become my reality.
Until the pictures morph and change, turning my world bleak—Mother’s sharp tones carve into me as she yells my disappointments one syllable at a time, the quivering vein in her neck when she attempts to contain her fury, the look in her eyes when she commands me to leave Kiera. These memories linger too long, bringing with them a fresh wave of torment.
The landscape shakes and rolls as my thoughts of Mother intertwine with those of Kiera. Everything bends at odd angles, throwing me off balance. I am in the world around me, but not part of it.
I wrestle with the images, willing them into order. But no order comes. Only the constant rush of emotions meant to undo me woven with pictures I mean to escape. It’s all too much. Too real.
I shut my mind to everything, only to have my emptiness rise up and engulf me. And in this moment, a simple truth is revealed. This must
be
death…
5.
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.”
~Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
~
The eerie black silence broke as pictures floated through Ien’s thoughts. He wrestled against them, desperate to regain consciousness, intuitively knowing that he had little time.
Death.
The word cradled him. Crushed him. The onslaught of pictures slowed, replaced by a barren nothingness that could only be the end of existence.
But how? Why?
Truth hovered around him as he tried to reconstruct what had happened. He reached for the fragments of his memories, unable to grasp anything except the raw feelings rising up through his body.
Pain.
Anguish.
Fear.
They buffeted against his skin, his soul. Ien rolled with each feeling, moving from his side to his stomach. The rocking motion repeated over and over, intertwined with the agony caused by injuries he knew must be there. The feelings collected into a wave that washed over him. Nothing made sense. His thoughts refused to gel. The only thing he could be certain of was the life still flowing through him.
Only the living could feel this much pain.
His body continued to rock, forcing the oxygen into his lungs. Greedily, he gulped for air, desperate for more. Ignoring the feelings wracking his body, he moved his focus to his eyes.
Why won’t they open?
He pulled at the lids, willing his body to comply. The strain became too much and he again faded back into the torrent of feral emotion that gripped his body.
Noises converged on his mind. The clanking of metal on wood. The thud water made as it hit the hard dirt. And voices.
Too many voices.
Some of them were soft and sobbed. Others gasped and screamed.
He reached through the cacophony of sounds, determined to grab a hold of something that could bring him back from the depths. Three of the voices rose up from the din.
One sounded like the shrill of a woman’s scream, familiar in its intensity. She yelled, at him perhaps. The words, too muddled by the shrieking tone of her voice, were unintelligible. Only a few syllables cut through the noise. “You! . . . stay away from him . . . warning . . . promise . . . your family, ruined.”
The piercing noise of her voice wove together with a different voice. Male, comforting, familiar. He spoke in muted tones. Ien clung to the words, trying to understand what the voice was saying. It was pointless. Nothing made sense. Still, something in the voice calmed Ien almost instantly. His body quieted as the voice continued. Ien reached for each sound, willing them to pull him from the blackness that trapped him.
A third voice seeped into his thoughts, drawing his attention. There was something important about the voice, necessary. Soft and gentle, it seemed out of place amongst the chaos. She spoke only one word. “Ien.” Over and over she repeated the name. The inflections of her voice reached deep within him, resonating through the empty spaces. It reoriented him away from his pain and gave him something tangible to live for—a promise held within his name coming from what could only be an angel.
Ien bathed in the sounds on her lips and allowed them to heal him. But the voice faded too soon, and the pain pulsing through his body overwhelmed him once again, tossing him back into agony.
“He’s fading. Quick! Get a doctor.”
The male voice resonated through Ien’s body as he began to convulse.
“Stay with me Ien.” The soft, gentle voice again spoke.
He wanted to comply with her request. He wanted to do anything just to hear that voice again.
“Please, Ien. For me.”
“Step away, Ms. McDougal. I begged you to stay away, warned you that this would happen. You are to blame for this. You!”
No
, Ien thought.
No. Don’t listen, angel. Stay.
“But–”
“Leave. Now.”
Ien tried to stop his angel from leaving, but his body wouldn’t work. The tenor of the voices grew more frantic, moving in rhythm with the torrent of agony that rolled through Ien. It waxed and waned like waves pounding against a rugged shoreline. He fought against it, desperate to stay connected to the voice—her voice. A second passed. And then another. He slipped away with each moment, drowning in a darkness that consumed him.
~
A small sliver of light pushed through the ever-empty cocoon that surrounded Ien. It illuminated the void around him, pulling him up towards consciousness. His mind registered the feel of something soft underneath his body, a bed perhaps. He began to run through a mental checklist of his memories.
A kiss and a promise.
A laugh and a shrouded figure.
Fiery rain. Shattering glass.
Burning flesh.
Death.
It all came back to him in a rush and for a brief moment he wanted to retreat back into the safety of the emptiness. But his mind refused to let go and Ien was forced to remember it all, including Mother’s words to Kiera.
You are to blame for this. You!
“No!” The word died on his tongue as Ien gasped for breath, pushing through the last web of darkness. He opened his eyes. The room was bright, too bright. He squinted, allowing his eyes time to adjust. Slowly, the blurry view cleared, revealing familiar walls covered with rich mahogany-colored panels and deep green velvet drapery. He ran his fingers across the comforting bed. The soft linens carefully placed over him smelled of fresh lilacs in the spring.
Home.
Ien shook away the last of the haze blanketing him and tried to push himself up on his elbows. His arms refused to bear any weight, and he fell back on the bed with a light thud. The simple movement brought fresh sequences of pain. Screams ripped past his throat before his brain registered what was happening. He closed his eyes, wishing for the relief unconsciousness would bring.
“It’s okay, Ien. It’s okay. Stay with me.”
He knew the voice in an instant. Kiera. He pictured her rushing towards him, her hair bouncing around her shoulders. He imagined her lips on his and the peace that kiss would bring.
“That’s right. Wake up now. Wake up.”
He reached for the girl in his thoughts, unable to grab her. Pain battled for his attention. He pushed against it, unwilling to disappoint her. Kiera wanted him awake, so somehow he would find a way to comply.
“Kiera,” he whispered as he fought to hold on to her image. “KieraKieraKiera.” His voice scratched against his throat. He ignored the pain and repeated her name, louder and louder until he was screaming for the only one who could chase his pain away.
“Calm down, Mr. Montgomery. You have to calm down.” Ien recognized a sense of urgency in the voice as she called for Mother.
But he didn’t want Mother. He wanted Kiera.
Only Kiera.
Fire burned through his veins and he could no longer focus his thoughts enough to scream. He pushed against the onslaught. “Kiera.” The name slurred on his tongue. He looked around the room, watching the patterned bed coverings swirl.
Kiera, Kiera
. He couldn’t hold on much longer, couldn’t force his thoughts to coalesce.
Kier…
The last of his strength evaporated as his mind closed in on her name and nothingness engulfed him once again. Memories bled through the emptiness and the night replayed. Walls crushing the breath from his lungs, fire and glass tearing his skin, oil and water dousing him. The images clicked past in reverse order, chronicling the nightmare. Memories of his fantasies with Kiera, the kiss that guaranteed her love, their life together. And memories of a hooded figure that followed him through the streets as he walked to school, lost in his dreams.
What are you doing?
The figure matched Ien’s pace, stopping everywhere he stopped, the hotels, the stores. It was everywhere.
Did you follow me from Whitehall?
Something felt familiar about the shadow. Ien doubled his focus, looking at nothing but the image he scarcely remembered.
Who are you?
He had no answers. In his still foggy mind, nothing was clear. The harder he strained, the more unfocused his thoughts became until he was again plunged into eternal darkness. Silence accompanied the void, snuffing out everything else. The feeling unnerved him. Terror began to well up through his mind and body. He began to shake.
“Ien. Ien. You’re alive. You must open your eyes. Open them now.” Kiera’s voice came as a whisper on the fringe of his existence. “Please, Ien. Come back to me. You promised that you’d never leave. Don’t make me exist without you.”
Once more he tried to obey her commands. And once more he wrestled against an abyss poised to strangle him. He pushed against its hold, wiggling free from the emptiness. The harder he pushed, the more he strained, the heavier the air that enveloped him became, stripping the oxygen from his lungs. He gasped, releasing a fresh scream. It started at the base of his spine, rushing up his esophagus and exploding from his mouth. “Kiera! Help. Me.”
Be quiet. Bequietbequietbequiet
. Ien’s brain pleaded over and over as his heart beat erratically against his ribs.
Thump thump.
Kiera’s not here.
Thump thump.
She can never be here again.
Thump thump.
Mother said to stay away from her. Warned me of the consequences.
Thump thump.
Dire consequences.
Thump thump.
Maybe even fatal—
He stopped mid-thought as he registered the distinctive scent of Mother’s hand lotion, peppermint with a hint of eucalyptus. Fear bloomed throughout his mind. A raw, feral fear that spoke of untold horrors that awaited him. He held his breath and opened his eyes.