Afterlife (Afterlife Saga) (53 page)

In the end I couldn't face college as seeing Sophia again was going to be too much to bear. The wound that Draven had inflicted was still too fresh and exposed. I finally got out of bed and dressed only, without looking at the clock, I had no idea how long I had just sat there thinking about what a fool I was. Once I was dressed, things started to get clearer and I needed to make a change to get past this. After all I had come back from worse than this, hadn't I? It didn't feel like it. I might have the scars from the other “Incident” that showed on the outside as a constant reminder but Draven had also left his scars and they ran deep inside to my core. So what was worse...I knew the answer to that question.

I pulled on my father’s old college football sweater and grabbed two things before leaving. One was my car keys and the other was the picture I had drawn of Draven.

I got back in my car, driving faster than I should have been. I let the sound of the engine drown out most of my self-pitying thoughts. Jack had told me about this place and I drove in the direction that thankfully was far from Afterlife! That name...Is that what it meant? That Draven would steal my heart and my soul and this was to be my AFTERLIFE! Thinking about the pain didn't bring tears any more as if there was nothing left in me. He had taken everything and all I could do was try and resurrect myself to how I was before I had ever seen him. I had to be re-born and there was only one way I knew how to do this and it was going to be hard. A lot harder than last time...

I found the dirt road after the warning signs for cliff faces and I knew where this would lead me to, as Jack had wanted to bring me here on a picnic once. I thought of Jack for a moment, wondering how this would have all gone if I had seen him first and he had been the one in my dreams.

The road came to an end in a big semi-circle where the cars usually parked. I turned off the engine and got out. The cold hit me and the wind whipped round my face as I realised how high up I was. The cold was a good thing. It kept things clearer and I had my goal firmly set in my mind. As scared as I was of the drop below me, I walked to the edge not fully feeling the fear. After all, what did I have to fear any more, when all my fears had come true in my life? One after another I had been used and thrown away, when I was no longer needed...but this time I would change it all. I would never go back to that...never. And this was my proof, no matter how small an action it seemed.

The trees swayed around the forest and I knew this was a perfect place to finish this obsession. Once and for all!

I pulled the picture of Draven out of my back pocket and sat down crossing my legs getting close enough to the edge to be able to get rid of the problem. I took one long hard look at the pencilled sketch knowing that I had already seen the last of the original. So now my re-birth would be to get rid of every last bit of him, including
any of my thoughts about him. See, I had the mentality that if I could cast my demons from my mind by drawing them, locking them into the page thus banishing them from entering my mind again. But I had always kept them and I never really understood why I did this. So it got me thinking, maybe the only way to get him out of my mind completely is to remove him from my memory. So with this in mind, I kissed my hand placing it gently on his face before
tearing
into it with so much fiery passion that before long it was in tiny pieces in my hands and I waited for why I had come here.

I closed my eyes remaining still trying to judge the air around me, feeling it coming close thinking if this could help once before then maybe I would have a chance. Even if it just got a little better then that could be enough to get me through this, making the most horrific pain I have ever felt turn into a mind numbing existence.  So I sat waiting patiently for the exact moment when it felt right to let go of him forever....And then it came blowing my hair up around my head and I lifted my hands opening my palms feeling the pain being taken away with the pieces I had left of Draven. They blew upwards, carried into the sky where they belonged...where he belonged. I watched as they blew into the green abyss of the forest and my eyes strained as I watched until they were all out of sight.

Now I could move on and finally....

Say goodbye.

Chapter 29- Grasping Reality

After that day I did in fact get slightly better as I pulled myself together and carried on.
The pain never fully went away but was instead
replaced with a dull ache, as my mind was numb. But I went on with my life as you have to. Sophia never returned to History, I didn't even know whether she dropped out or was ill but it seemed too much of a coincidence that she disappeared from college life. No-one was allowed to talk about it and the only one that had been nice to me from the beginning was Jerry. But even this I think was staged. I completed my shifts like a machine being controlled by the NEED.... more than the WANT part of me. But the more and more I worked the less painful it got being there. Then even the others started talking to me again and Mike and I were once again friends. We even flirted with each other on occasions. I finally started to relax again.

Nothing happened again, there were no more dreams that included him. There were no more crazy bird sightings and I didn't even have any dreams of monsters. However my dreams didn’t just stop. No, instead they had taken on a darker turn. I decided that after the fourth time of waking up in the house screaming I would finally give in and see a counsellor. I had made my appointment with a Doctor Goff and I was now sat in a waiting room with peach walls and crappy pictures of summer flowers in pots and a little girl playing happily with her dog.  If this was supposed to have a calming effect then it most certainly didn't work. After my nightmares, I had seemed to have taken a darker approach to life and I tried desperately to control it. I found nothing fun or good in anything
anymore
and it was starting to scare me.

The only peace I would find is whenever I went back to the cliff face. I would sit
there for hours, looking out to the view thinking about where it all went wrong. I know this wasn't the best way to think and that everything happens for a reason but when your heart is torn and your body broken, it is very easy to hate that logic. I mean
,
have the people that say this ever had something bad happen to them? Well if they had, then they were admittedly a much better person than I.

The woman behind the desk looked over her thick-rimmed glasses and spoke out my name in a squeaky voice.

“You may go in now.”

I walked into a room that had been furnished to try and give you a homely feel, as though trying not to intimidate you or make you feel even more uncomfortable about the situation that had obviously got so bad to have brought you here in the first place. The room had a big couch and a smaller armchair next to it. There was shelving around the room with different “
Self-help
” books and a few family photos. Doctor Goff was a middle-aged man with a full beard that had a mixture of ginger and grey bits in it that I couldn't take my eyes off. He wore small glasses and looked like every other shrink I had ever seen.  It was as if when they started to develop people would turn to them saying “You know you kind of look like a therapist or a doctor,” And they would reply “Ok then, that's what I will do”!

He motioned for me to sit, as he was sat behind his desk, which held a laptop and piles of paperwork. He didn't look very organised for a professional person.

“Miss Johnson, I am pleased to meet you, sorry for your longer wait but I have found it difficult finding any of your medical history. Where did you say you were from?” He said as he stroked his bushy beard.

“This is the deal Doc, I don't want anyone to know my background as I left it behind me where I want it to stay! I don't want to bring all my old problems into this because that's not why I am here,” I said getting all that I had rehearsed out at once before I forgot. Shrinks had a crafty way of getting information out of you and I knew if I didn't set the ground rules straight away, then I could slip up.

“Then why are you here?” He asked in a non-aggressive tone.

“I’m here because I can't sleep and when I do sleep I wake up screaming for help from my nightmares,” I said not taking a breath.

“Help from whom?”

“Sorry?” I said wondering why he asked me that.

“You said you cry for help, I was just wondering who from?” Again this question I didn't really understand and I wasn't about to tell him who exactly I was crying out for. So I lied and said,

“My sister
or any one really.”

“Why don't you tell me about the dream?”

“Ok well...I'm at a club and I'm about to start my shift as I work there you see...” I was stalling and I didn't know why but his eyes had turned very dark and intense making me want to stop and not go on.

“Go on...what happens at this club?” He urged.

“Well I go into the back room where I always put my bag and jacket. There's this gilded mirror and I always give myself a once over before starting my shift,” I said stopping, but his face got more intense and his hand lifted motioning me to continue.
So I took a deep breath and explained the rest.

“I'm looking at my face in the mirror and I see someone else instead of me staring back.”

“Who?” He asked and I repeated the same question back at him.

“Who?

“Yes, who was staring back at you?” He asked and I didn't want to say.

“Just some guy, but anyway...” But he stopped me again.

“Just some guy? Someone you know? Someone you work with or for?” He asked and I froze as he hit the nail on the head with the last one.

“My boss....so anyway....I turn around quickly to find the room is empty and the door is still closed. So I turn back to face the mirror and it's me again. Only something is different and very wrong as I don't look the same. I have my hair down which I never do, and I'm wearing different clothes.”

“Do you recognise your other self from a different time?” He said looking over his glasses as if to judge my reaction to the question. I wondered if he knew I was lying when I replied,

“No.”

“Ok, then please continue,” he said as he wrote down some more notes in a red leather bound book.

“So the girl...well I mean me...she is staring back at me with hate in her eyes and I'm always so scared to look at her. I move my face away but then I hear a tapping on the glass, so I look back once more. I find her tapping the glass with a broken piece of the mirror that is now missing from the one I am looking at. It’s a long piece that’s thicker where she holds it and it goes down into a deadly point that she is using to get my attention. I freeze to the spot and scream “What do you want?” She then mouths the word “DIE” to me and her arm comes out of the mirror and slashes at my arms over and over, cutting my wrists so that when I look down I am covered in blood again and screaming.....That's when I wake up.” And there it was. Of course I knew what the dream was about and didn't need any Doctor telling me his theory of interpretation. All I needed were the pills!

“Ah” He said looking at my arms finding nothing but my sweater's sleeves.

“So any suicide attempts before?” He asked bluntly and I coughed, as I couldn't believe what he had just said. Weren't Doctors supposed to be delicate about this type of thing?

“NO!” I shouted as I was now clearly upset.

“I'm sorry did that bother you?”

“No but it took me by surprise.”

“Sorry, but I have to be sure and considering I don't have any records on your medical background I'm in the dark here....So you said about seeing the blood on your arms again, what do you think that was referring to?” Ah so that’s why he had asked, I had slipped up and said the word “again”.