The endless
Endless oblivion.
* * *
Chapter ONE
The room swirls white and medicinal, filled with beeps and blank walls and cold skin. Goosebumps chase each other in confusion up my arm, and I gulp hard.
I’m in a hospital.
I’m cold.
I’m afraid.
My dead brother stares at me, his pale blue eyes evasive as he skirts my question. I ask it again.
“Finn, where’s Dare?”
I ask him stiltedly, each word a sword that stabs my heart, because doom invades this room, in every inch, every breath, every moment.
Finn looks away, at the wall, at the floor, at anything but me.
“Dare is….you know where he is, Calla.”
I don’t, though, and that’s the unbearable thing.
My eyes flutter closed and the last thing I see is the white hospital blanket that covers me. I close my eyes against reality, and Finn picks up my hand.
“Cal, you’ve twisted everything around in your head until you don’t know what is real, and what is not. You know where Dare is. You know what is real. You’ve just got to think. You’ve got to face it.”
This hurts, and I hate it.
“I…can’t.” My words are limp, falling onto the bed, tumbling to the floor.
Finn stares at me, into my eyes, into my heart. It pierces me, it grabs me with both hands and doesn’t let go.
“Calla, you can. You’re not me, you’re you. And that’s ok. That’s who you need to be. Please, for the love of God, come back. Just come back.”
My eyes open because his words are confusing.
“Come back from where?”
I’m clearly here in the hospital with him, with my dead brother. I’m already here. He’s the one who’s not, because he’s dead. He’s not making any sense.
He sighs, a soft sound in a silent room.
“Come back from where you are. You’re needed here, Calla.”
“But I am here,” I say hesitantly, because Finn is already shaking his head.
“No,” he says. “You’re not, Calla.”
Clouds surround me and lift me up and carry me away from logic, from reason, from reality. I fight to keep my feet down, to keep from being lifted away, into the sky, across the ocean.
“How do I come back?” I ask, and my voice is like a child’s.
Finn stares at me, and his eyes are blue rocks, blank and shiny and bright.