The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 33: Love and Blood

Breathe. Inhale. Exhale.

 

I was lying down. Facing up towards a white light. My eyes squinted and burned from staring into the light for so long, my eyes dried up and I had to shut them. Rubbing them to relieve the pain, I felt my knuckles were soaking in the water from my tear docks. I choked on my spit and coughed to open my lungs. Coughing up something, I spit out a small stone onto my lap.

My wandering eyes tilted towards my resting body. My chest rose and descended from the breath that I suddenly depended on. Everything in my surroundings began to take shape and color. The walls were a pasty blue, the ceiling ashy white, my clothes a pale blue, and the only bright color came from a red wrapper that sat at the edge of my bed on my left.

I twisted my head side to side to exercise my stiff neck muscles. The cushion underneath me was firm, I wanted to sit upright to better figure where I was. I sat up at a ninety-degree angle. Vertigo took control of my vision and I felt queasy.

My hands felt like they’d been asleep, small pins and needle washed all over my motor skills. I picked up the wrapper and took a moment to let my eyes focus on the branding. It was liquorish. Fresh, unopened, expensive liquorish. 

I was all too confused but was content that my heart didn’t burn with hatred any longer. I was so exhausted as well that I could have been satisfied with laying there for all eternity.

Sobbing. Beeping. Scuffling. 

My stiff neck creaked as I turned my focus to the washed-out wooden door. The sobs were loud and unapologetic. The heartbreak in their cries was unsettling. I turned my head to the wall opposite of the door. Blankets and backpacks scattered across the sofa, chairs, and table. 

My chest spasmed a little as I tried to remember the rhythm of breath. My thoughts felt congested and unorganized. It was hard for me to send direct commands to my arms, legs, and chest.

On the sofa wrapped in a wool blanket, I finally understood it to be a person because of the heavy breaths. I wasn’t sure of whom they could be though. They faced the backboard of the couch. 

The sobs became worse on the other side of the door. Startled, my taut neck snapped to the door when I heard the knob rotate. 

This is it. This is my answer to where I am in this universe now. 

An official, yet sympathetic voice flooded through the crack of the door, “I’m so sorry mam, there’s nothing…,” Her eyes met with mine. The woman froze in disbelief. 

Another woman’s voice, “What?” 

A second pair of eyes peeked around the doorway and a quivering smile shook her face. Mom. Within seconds, she squeezed herself between the doctor and the door and jetted to my side. She held my face against her heart and gripped me tight. Her skin was soft and wrapped me in comfort. I… I was no longer dead.

The doctor covered her mouth, rubbing at her cheek, as the nurse asked in a hush tone, “How is this possible? She was dead for twelve minutes.”

The doctor repeated in a whisper, “Twelve whole minutes.”

Over my mothers shoulder, I saw my father standing at the door. Bags under his eyes and tears crowding his vision. He joined my mother, they both sobbed over my shoulder. This was all so unexpected, I was in such shock I couldn’t help but sob too.

My peripheral vision spotted another visitor, Vincent. He picked up the wrapped liquorish from my side and offered it to me. His face was red and wet, his lip quivering as he laughed, “I got you something.”

My parents let me go in respect to Vincent’s offer. I took the gift and smiled, tears streaming down my cheeks, “Happy New Year?”

He laughed between his crying, “Happy New Year.” 

I pulled him into hug me, he whispered over my shoulder, “I am so sorry, Edith.” 

I blocked it out for a while during my reunion, but I was in a lot of pain. The doctors almost had to pry my parents from me so to run tests to make sure I’d be okay. They asked me a few questions about how I felt. They explained to me how I survived. How long I had been in a coma. And how I was announced dead for twelve minutes. 

I had doubts, had I dreamt the whole thing in my coma? Had I made everything up and none of that was real? 

Did Noa even exist?

 

 

**********

 

 

“Will I ever be able to walk again?” I asked with difficulty.

Several nurses tended to my IV and other aspects that held me bed ridden. My doctor scanned her clipboard, but I knew she was just stalling. 

She sympathetically smiled, “There’s always hope. And it’ll take intense physical therapy. But we just want you to focus on just being well enough to return home,” she patted my arm, “Be somewhere comfortable.”

For a few days my hospital room was occupied by doctors, nurses, my parents, Vincent, friend after friend, people from school, neighbors, my old rec basketball team I was a part of in middle school. An overwhelming amount of support.

Live together, die alone. Well, that never applied to me in the end. Because why should death be what separates us when the very thing that connects us is immune to endings. When I was dead love had still surrounded me and thus I was alive.

I slept for most of the day. Feeling the rhythm of breath in a world completely of my own. After a week of a breathless existence, the feeling of inhaling and exhaling was velvet to my lungs. The sound of breath was a lullaby that rocked me to sleep.

One evening, a tapping came at my window. I almost accused it of being from a dream, but the rapping at my window was persistent. A shady figure, silhouetted by the curtain, fluttered and hopped along the view. 

I struggled but was able to get into a wheelchair by myself. Rolling up to the curtain, I pushed it aside to uncover the visitor.

Staring opposite of me was the first familiar face I’d see. With red eyes and ruffled feather, Lilli’s vulture perched outside my window with a manila letter in its beak. I unhinged the window enough for the scavenger to give me my message.

After prying the note from its beak, I noticed a white seal of a crown on the lip. I unsealed it and read:

 

    Noa,

 

    This is just the beginning. I live in every heart, even yours.

 

    Love and blood,

    Lillian Thaddae

 

The vulture was gone when I finished. The gaping world was the tyrant’s playground and it still had purpose to reek on the unsuspecting. The letter was enough to make my heart race.

“Letters from old friends?” I turned around shocked to see Senoi.

Still stunned, I turned the chair around fully and gave a slight grin, “I suppose.” 

I couldn’t hide my resentment though as I asked, “Why are you here, Senoi?” I looked down at myself in the wheel chair and huffed a laugh, “I suppose the better question is why am I here?”

Senoi stepped to me, his expression was oddly sad yet happily fulfilled at the same time. 

His raspy voice mumbled, “You’ve started something, Noa. All I can say about it, is that you’ve started something special. And you deserve to be here.”

My head ached, “I don’t understand though, Senoi. Why do I deserve to be alive again?”

Senoi kindly responded, “Prophecies,” Senoi became serious, “I will be returning and when I do… you must come with me and leave everything behind. As is that is the price of your return to the mortal world.”

I, oddly without hesitation, accepted his vague request, “Alright, but only if you answer me this… why did you brand me? Why did you accuse me of Aaron’s death?”

Senoi sighed, “Phoebe uncovered Samel as a betrayer and revealed the news to me. We decided that this course of action was best,” 

My heart ached from the memory of her being taken. Hesitating, “So you knew all along? But the Mark of the Renegade?”

He softly interrupted, “Was to protect you.”

“Protect me?”

He kneeled to the side of my chair, “You’ll find that, in the afterworld, things are usually in threes,” he took my hand between his two, “I would never betray you, Edith. I have more faith in you than I have in myself.”

My heart slipped into such a peaceful rest from his words but my connection to him, like before, was gone. Senoi was a creature woven from a different cloth now, there was no connection. I sighed, “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Softly, he brushed my hair from my face, holding his hand at my cheek. He smiled with such sincerity, “I’m sorry too.”

Senoi reached behind his back. Cleverly bringing his hand back around to cup it with the other. He approached me as he continued, “I thought you might want to say goodbye.” 

He opened his cupped hands and from it ruffled the feathers of a purple-eyed raven.

“Senoi,” I took my spirit from his gentle hands. It more than willingly jumped into my mine, nestling sweetly in my palms, I asked Senoi, “This is really goodbye?”

“In a sense,” he walked up to the window, opening it completely without any trouble, “As long you leave a window open or answer when we knock, it is not goodbye.”

Senoi stroked my hair again, when I looked up he was gone. The warmth of his presence resonated but I was left to my thoughts. 

I looked at my purple-eyed friend, the only thing left of Noa and felt such an appreciation for it. It kept me out of the darkness. It saved me from myself. 

I rolled up to the window where the moon smiled at me. One last kiss on my spirits forehead, I shared, “I’ll see you again when the time is right.” 

We both looked out the window and I thought about what brought me here. The suffering, the self-harm and anguish for just simply being who I am. The question I had to ask myself was… would I truly leave this behind? Though the scars will always be carried with me, would I let the lies take control again once I left the safety of my hospital room? 

And into peace, I committed my spirit. I released my raven into the world. My answer pressed at my lips as I whispered, “Nevermore.”