What was happening?
I rubbed my face and clawed at my neck. My head felt like it was ready to explode while my lungs caught on fire. Then it hit me as I collapsed to my knees on the verge of passing out … borrowed time. My second chance had expired. I brought back the dead when I was warned to let lost souls pass.
Hinder not the soul’s intended path unto the light…
The pain … it was excruciating, by far the worst pain I had ever experienced because I couldn’t breathe.
Evie would be at the library, reading books to the kids while I took my last breath.
And it … would … destroy her.
The very best moments of my life flashed before me—when Evie turned around at the cafe in Vancouver and first smiled at me, the snowy Christmas Day she said, “I do,” the first breath Franz took, the moment we let him hold his newborn sister.
Every smile.
Every touch.
Every breath.
Madeline’s words echoed in my ears, and they gave me peace because I felt them too. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Not a single life I tried to save.
In spite of the pain, I knew I’d do it all again.
I collapsed onto my side, clutching my neck, and gasping until I started to black out. The end. My time had come.
…lest shards of darkness shed upon thee.
Only, I was no longer alive—no more suffering.
To be continued …