Among the Fallen: Resurrection (7 page)

What I feel right now though, right this second, it all feels completely different. For ages now, there has been a light, a glowing beautiful light that shines around me. It feels warm, feels pleasant and the memories and visions have stopped, I do not understand, I don’t know what to expect, but my house is gone and the people have vanished. It is all gradually changing, I see colours and I see shapes, no movement or signs of life, but I feel heavy, yet I still float, I don’t understand.

Is this it?

Am I finally passing on to the other side?

The blur around me is starting to focus, objects are becoming clearer and I can make out the daylight above me. Below me is green, it creeps closer to me, as does the blue above me. The light is dimming and traveling away, the world around me turning into something that I have been praying for. I close my eyes, pleading for it to be true, my numbed emotions returning again, my skin suddenly bombarded with a chill. I’m almost too scared to open my eyes, but I do.

What do I see?

I see a graveyard, a cemetery, laden with headstones and flourishing trees that sway in the wind. I see grey tombs that crawl with ivy and moss, flowers growing and arrangements of reminders left by those that haven’t been forgotten. I see stone angels with sad and weeping faces, playful cherubs that mischievously smile at me at me from monuments all around. I see dolls and teddy bears, their fibres blowing in the winds and braving the elements. I see the white sky stretching over the horizon, with blue fighting its way through the clouds, the sun over in the distance, shining bright and blurred in the distance.

I have a body, my body, I can feel the warmth and a random chilly breeze as it blows past me. The hairs on my arms stand up suddenly, my hair waving in the wind behind me. My hands are white, almost glowing in the daylight, my nails are white too, almost perfectly coloured and shaped. I can feel the wet dew soaked grass between my toes, my soles on soft ground and that floating feeling has at last gone.

I walk through the graveyard, taking in the feel of each step, the wind on my skin and the light around me, it feels almost heavenly as I pass through this new and beautiful world. I can feel a warming sensation travel my body from my heart, I feel taken aback by it, overwhelmed by emotion and a happiness I have never felt before. I see a pool of water on a monument, rainwater that has been collected on its surface. I see it quiver as the wind teases it, rippling as I gently put my finger in it, my reflection almost startling me. My skin is white, as are my white painted lips; my hair flows like water and my eyes are a glowing brown, glowing with life and with thoughts that dwell behind them.

Am I a ghost?

Am I an Angel?

Suddenly I turn my head, I feel drawn to a part of the cemetery I am yet to discover. I slowly walk through the light air, my eyes closed as my body feels and appreciates the life around me. I open my eyes and I know where I am, I am in my family plot, where all my ancestors sleep, generations of Beaumont’s before me, all resting in their eternal beds. I walk through the grounds as sculptures of my dead family stare down at me, their stone surfaces crawling with moss and streaked in green. All the men are powerful and stern looking, their eyes gazing down upon me proudly, a powerful and enigmatic bloodline of guardians at both sides. The women are elegant and beautiful, immortalized in cold stone; they stand proudly at their partners sides as their vows are carried into the afterlife with them.

Suddenly, I see a crowd, gathered at the far end, all dressed in black, crying into tissues but frozen in time, as still as the monuments that surround them. I approach the funeral briskly, aching to see who it is they mourn; is it Sarah?

I approach the weeping crowd, their expressions frozen in grief and pain. Helicopters float in the air, soundless and as still as stone, the police and news crews spread out in the distance, holding their guns and cameras as clear as day; their faces blank and thoughts wayward.

I approach the crowd; my father is at the front, surrounded by his bodyguards, his hair dyed black, his face etched in experience and lines. His almost expressionless face gazing at the ground, his cold eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

The coffin is sat at the front, surrounded in flowers and words of respect. I approach it and run my hand over its cold surface, its photo baring my happy picture. I aint surprised, not as surprised as I should be, I aint deluded nor stupid; I know what I am. But it still feels strange; it haunts me as I stare at its smooth white expensive shell.

I stare at my monument, a statue of me that seems to look different than those of my ancestors. I look at it queerly as I try to make out the strange sight, its chiselled and almost macabre features eluding me. It looks like me as it stands defiant, carved wearing a jacket, chains wrapped around the arms, no pupils in the eyes and my hair tied back; I never wear my hair tied back, it makes me look too serious, but it stands before me, looking angry and evil, almost sinister as it glares down at me.

Nowhere near as elegant or as stunning as the others.

Suddenly I panic; I can’t stop myself, blinded by hope as I search for Sarah amongst the crowd, searching their legs and feet for my baby sister. I don’t know why, I know she’s dead; but something within me hopes she was saved, hopes that she was got to in time. I suddenly calm, in shock maybe, but I desperately wanted her to be alive, even if I wasn’t. I look upon the faces again; Collette is missing too. I struggle to think as the realization of the two people I cherish the most, are missing from my own funeral.

I stand among the crowd as my mind gradually comes back to me, a moment of madness suddenly gone; most of these people I do not even know. I recognize a few, the chief of police, deputy mayor and a few others that visited my father at home. Some of the staff are here, Gerry made it, I knew he would. He is staring at my father with a face of disgust, almost fitting and not surprising. I stand here, looking upon my coffin, and yet, I see these people looking at my father as the victim; which is about right.

I approach my coffin once more, lifting the lid and staring at the angel as my physical body sleeps.

As weird as it is, it feels peaceful, I look serene, but I still feel cheated, like I have had something stolen from me. I turn to look on the mourners, but they are gone, I’m alone with the casket, surrounded by my mute ancestors.

Suddenly I feel a sickness in my stomach, I feel bad, like a strong guilt, yet I have no idea why. The trees wilt, the leaves all suddenly fall and the grass crumbles under my feet. The sky turns dark and is lit up with lightening and scorched by thunder. I look around feeling sick, disgusted, I can’t shake the sickness I feel. I look into the casket and stare at my sleeping face. I watch as the skin cracks and turns rotten, the eyes sink back into the head, the hair wilting and thinning out. It suddenly leaps up, grabbing me by my throat, it’s disgusting smell making my stomach heave.

“Wake up you dumb bitch!” it screams at me, clawing at my neck and face. I fall to the ground and the body shatters, its bones scattering in the dead grass. I struggle to get my breath back, I feel like I am suffocating. I stand up, clutching my throat in agony, the blood squeezing through my fingers, but then, it stops. I look at my bloody palm, its deep red suddenly turning black, crumbling and flaking as I close my hand. I feel my throat frantically, my wounds have gone, I can’t express what’s going through my mind, it avoids even me at the moment.

I look into the sky, my pulse racing and my heart banging like a drum, the dead trees hanging over me like witches in the night. Suddenly, I hear movement; something grinding, like stone. I look around me, but I see nothing, nothing living at least. I approach my statue, curious and drawn to it as if it looks into my soul, staring into its featureless eyes trying to see its thoughts.

Suddenly, it moves, its head leaning towards mine; I fall back in fright, watching as it steps from its pedestal, angrily stomping through the dead glass towards me, flipping my casket into the air. It leans over me, my soul terrified, and my heart pounding in fear. I shut my eyes as it looms in close, I can feel it next to my face, its breath as cold as ice. Suddenly, it speaks.

“Play the game, Alex!” its voice growls without moving its stone lips. Suddenly I open my eyes and I am back in the darkness, the weightlessness, the emotions, now gone again; I have no body, and my thoughts are dying again. I scream but no sound comes from my mouth, I can feel myself falling, back into the void, the abyss, the darkness.

Chapter Six: Resurrection

July 31, 2012: Three Months Later

Alex’s eyes suddenly opened, the whites and the colours of her iris’s gone, replaced with lifeless eyes and black mirrored lenses; cold, bleak and emotionless. Her face was streaked in dirt and black tide marks, her eyes blackened in thick running mascara and grime. Her hair was profuse and dark, matted in mud and rain; slopping heavily over her shoulders and down her back as it sent shivers down her spine.

She looked down at her body and saw a tar like textured body suit which appeared to be stapled and hooked to her flesh. It seemed to look like an all in one cat suit but with high cut legs and arms, moving and rippling like oil at the slightest touch. She gently ran her hand over its smooth, almost latex feel and it purred like a cat, her mind suddenly full of whispers and inaudible chatter.

She held out her hands and looked at her feet; her skin was as white as snow, full of scared tissue and smeared in blood and dirt. The nails on her hands and feet were varnished black and chewed down, the tips were red raw and full of splinters of wood and bone extruded painfully. Her tiny frame ached like never before and her limbs were sore, her muscles throbbed and she could hardly stand as she held her arms merely swaying in the rain. Her mind was totally blank, devoid of thought through severe shock; her teeth chattering as the weather battered her scarred pale skin.

She turned her head looking around slowly at the surroundings, the rain beating around her as the strange red sky bleached every surface with a red dull light. The wind whipped the rain around her ferociously and without mercy, the distance shrouded in an unknown and un-adventured darkness.

At her feet an empty grave slowly filling with muddy water, its sides gradually falling away and huge lumps of clay slid down the sides and vanished into the wet darkness. The coffin was smashed and rotten with claw marks on the lid, the fine silk inlay ripped, soaked and ruined; slowly it sat at the bottom the hole as it little by little, disappeared in water and filth.

All around the graveyard hundreds of bright red paper lanterns floated without actually drifting anywhere, almost as if they had an invisible anchor holding them still; their long black tassels blowing in the wind and their candlelight flickering as the rain beat down. Trees reached up into the sky, branches baron and bare, their skeletal frames casting long creepy shadows around the meek horizon. Tall stone pillars that stood around twenty feet high were littered sparingly around, their surfaces covered and embedded with skulls, mortified and frozen with horror. Chains and creaking rope hung from the trees and went from branch to branch, silhouetted against the red sky as they cast long frightful shadows over the cemetery.

She glared back into the hole as her brain slowly pieced together the missing parts; mentally she began to come round as her brain slowly reformed after such a long period of nothingness. She stared at the shattered coffin, its silk inlay ripped and sodden with dirt and blood. Holding out her hands and glaring at the big splinters of wood buried deep within her fingers and skin, a few of her fingers were painfully threadbare leaving white ivory bone sticking out of the ends. She slowly looked up as she wiped the rainwater from her face, throwing her wet sodden hair over her shoulder, slapping it to her back. She continued to look over the bleak cemetery as the wind howled around the meek horizon, her thoughts lost and her barren mind looking over the haunted land with growing fear and dejection.

There are certain things a person is never meant to see or experience. Outliving your children, the death of relatives, the affliction of friends and misery of strangers; people that have never crossed our paths thrown into a world of torment and pain. Somewhere in the list of pain is seeing your own grave, which is probably unheard of for good reason; it just doesn’t happen, not in a normal world with normal rules and theoretically it’s impossible; well that is what Alex was telling herself over and over, but if she’s seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling, then surely she must be alive?

Maybe she survived and they accidentally buried her? Maybe this dark land was the afterlife that she longed to cross into so desperately. She wiped her thick hair from her face and rubbed her painful eyes as the skull covered columns watched her silently. The lightening flashed above her casting her own shadow on the monuments around her, startling her cruelly as she stood shivering in the cold. Alex simply stared down as the macabre image sunk into her conscience mind slowly, the thought of being buried alive was enough to kill anyone through fear, but to actually experience it would be psychiatrist’s career. She glared at her huge towering monument, her stomach sick with fear, anger and grief. A stone reminder of what has been taken from her and etched with words she will never forget.

Alexandra Louise Beaumont, Gone are the days we used to share, But in our hearts you are always
there. The gates of memory will never close, we miss you more than anyone knows, with tender love
and deep regret, we who love you will never forget. 1991 – 2012.

Alex stumbled back as her insides turned over; her stomach heaving and her eyes weeping in torturous guilt and sorrow. Dropping uncontrollably to her knees in the water logged earth, she threw up congealed blood and dirt as the verse tormented her over and over. Her eyes were scorched and her nostrils burned as she cried and begged it not to be true. As the rain soaked her curled up body she clawed at the soil crying into the ground, pleading for a father that despised her and a God she never believed in to help her.