The Moments I Recall

CHAPTER 19 ⅝

I haven't seen the light in three weeks. Everything I think or say echoes in here, ricocheting off invisible walls until it finds a way to disappear in the darkness as I spiral down into my own insanity. I guess that's what being alone does to you. I noticed the way I speak and think has changed because I'm starting to sound like Coby Ray's thoughts on a bad day. Why he locked me inside the void, I don't know. He couldn't be mad at me because of JJ. He knows something I don't, hiding something he doesn't want me to know, keeping me locked away in empty space filled with nothing.

The void keeps me awake. At times when I think I'm dreaming, I'm reliving memories I had forgotten, left in a void of my own mind. Memories of a girl who talked in her sleep, the things she'd say, the way she'd say the things she said, and why she said the things she thought. Memories of the first girl I had ever felt things for, because she challenged the way I thought with the things she would say. She said things that seemed surreal, things I didn't understand till I was in a void and understood things the way Coby Ray understood things, things I couldn't understand before the void. Memories of a girl who had so many thoughts running through her head at a time, she talked in her sleep to a boy she had not been aware she was talking to, even as she spoke the things she said. The things she thought, things I couldn't understand, until I understood in the void of Coby Rays mind.

She never remembered. I would bump into her a few times, watch from afar sometimes hoping she'd recognise me. She was a girl of colour, a girl I should have stayed away from because of things I didn't understand, but never did because of things I never understood. Beautiful colour, colour I had not thought I had seen before Alixavier . Colour I never understood until Alixavier . Hoping she would recognise me back then. If she had, she was to surely change the sequence of my life's story. These are memories of the first girl who made me feel things I have never felt before but didn't understand until I understood. The void helps me understand things, things I never understood. The void echoes thoughts, and memories, memories of a girl who I fell unknowingly for. And for some reason, the memories of a girl who talked in her sleep, who I had never actually met, was the only thing I remembered constantly.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

I would rather move on, forget about it all. I am alone again but in my own mind this time. I can't move yet, I guess it takes time to adapt the body with the mind again. Coby Ray is gone, I know that for sure. There is a pain in my chest, not the same pain as the way the water filled his lungs, as the way he began to struggle to breathe and choke until his own mind, his own soul, left his own body. Different pain. Pain only known by the ones they leave behind, the ones to blame. This is was my own fault. Selfish to think one person could sacrifice his life for everyone. Would I do the same? I would for him if I had known he would actually go through with it all. But I guess I wouldn't have if Coby Ray was just a name to me. We can't change the past. I will always be the cowardly kid that was trapped inside the fearless red head boy who was too kind for his own good.

Harsh orange light. That's the first thing I see as my eyes adjust to my surroundings. That's when the pain gets worse. My eyes leak as I struggle for air, breathing becoming the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I'm still struggling under water, tied down with thoughts of him, but the only difference the stale air still fills my lungs and he....

I need to find a way back. My mind clouded with thoughts of getting him back and nothing more, then I see her. She looks much older, different from the way I remembered. Her hair sits on her shoulders, lit up by the lanterns light. A crease between her eyebrows and her lips slightly pressed together, as she tries to decipher a book I had once read. Her eyes are the same. Dark honey like colour, warmed by the orange light.

I wipe my eyes and lift myself from the ground. I guess I had stood up too fast because the ground seems much lower than I remember.

"Did I get taller?" I ask myself as I walk towards her. She pays no attention to me, even as I bend a little to meet her eye level.

"Deterioration.... Thinning over time...... but 1758....... Radiation." She mumbles.

"Lia." I say so easily. I wonder if that's her name.

"Is...called.... blue-blood...." She continues.

"Hey are you ok?" I ask.

"But you spaced." She tells me. Her eyes locked with mine. Her pupils slowly growing wider.

"LIA." I say holding up her jaw to snap her out of it.

"How do you know my...." I hear her mutter. I hear footsteps in the darkness.

"XYLIA!" Someone calls. I don't have time to think so I leave her, stumbling deeper into another room. I know she'll be okay, but I want to go back. I only got a glimpse of him. Pure blonde, blue eyed. I have seen her with him a few times before. She'll be fine.

□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□