I awake from the pain feeling warm and whole. Everything around me is filled with a glowing white light. I push myself off the ground with renewed eternal supply of energy. As my eyes adjust, the light fades and I realize I am not standing in such an unfamiliar place. It is home. My home. The old furniture and the walls covered with "encouragements" and the smell of fresh sheets and lemon fills my nose reminding me of my parents.
Sorrow fills me thinking of them. I've left them. I look to the roll away bed in the middle of the living room. The sheets flung over the matress. We had rushed off to the hospital so quickly. A glimpse of that wretched pain fills me again and I shiver. Where are they now? I search for them, but there is no one to be found. The lonely now grey house is completely silent, and it brings an eerie uneasiness into my heart.
Where could they have gone? I wander around not really knowing where I'm headed until I find myself at the park. Funky Bones lie some distance off, and Hazel immediately resurfaces in my mind. I find myself running. No. Sprinting for her house. I have to find her. I have to tell her. I have to tell her one last time. I just have to see her.
Then I see her house. I can feel her sadness from here out on the street. Now, my steps are heavy and sluggish something I haven't felt since my time on Earth. I push through the door into her house, but it doesn't make a sound. I walk down the hall leading to her room, and I find her parents sitting with their backs pressed against the door. Mrs. Lancaster's head rests on Mr. Lancaster's shoulder. Tears streak her cheeks, and his eyes stare off into the distance. They undoubtedly feel the pain of their daughter, and realize her inevitable fate which I have so eloquently brought to light.
I step over them and into Hazel's room. She lays sprawled out on her bed over her rumpled comforter with her left cheek pressed into her pillow. Her phone hangs in her hand. Tears drip from her eyes. She pulls it up to her face dialing a number and pressing the speaker to her ear.
"Hazel?" A low voice says. Isaac. But she doesn't reply.
"Hazel are you there?"
She nods and then a second later she takes a shallow shaking breath, "I'm here," she whispers.
After a long pause, "Is he gone?" he asks.
I'm right here, I think.
Her chin trembles but she makes no noise, "I don't have any tears left, Isaac."
"Damn," he says quietly at first, and then louder... and louder and the swearing worsens.
"Where are the trophies when you need them?"
She almost laughs, but you can see the pain over rules it.
"Yeah," she breaths.
