The Everblooming Flower [Book One of The Dreamers Series]

Chapter Thirteen

It was slow at first. My heart stopped. And for what felt like an eternity that was it. I existed in nothing. It was white, it was silent, it was empty, it was worse than anything I had ever imagined. It. Was. Nothing. I bright white expanse of nothingness. Not quite the afterlife I had imagined for myself.

It was torture. I'd always thought that if there were an afterlife, I'd be able to look back down on Earth and watch over my friends and family. I'd know how things turned out, and if they had good lives. But no. The torture was not knowing. There was no concept of time. For all I knew, we could already be in the year 3000. If I were able to, I'd probably kill myself again just to escape the Hell that is nothingness.

An eternity had passed, and I'd be waiting infinite amounts more of them. There was no Heaven. There was no Hell. There was only the vast white expanse of nothingness. Almost everyone I had ever met, was wrong.

But then it happened. It was small at first. I mere flicker so subtle it could very well have been the inevitability of me losing my sanity. My mind or this nothingness trying to trick me into thinking there was a way out when there in fact was not. But that wasn't the case. The flicker; was real.

A small clump of colours so minuscule it was almost the size of a dust particle. It faded in and out of existence until eventually I was able to focus on it. Red, pulling itself apart and piecing itself back together. Orange, dancing around like flames on a match. Yellow, twinkling like the stars in the night sky. Green, coiling like a vine and sprouting other vines. Blue, crashing into itself like waves on the shoreline. Indigo, jumping excitedly from place to place like bolts of electricity. Violet, wafting like smoke from a burning log.

It was a beautiful, organised, and chaotic rainbow. But the circle was only the size of a five-cent coin. It would appear, and then disappear. It was familiar. I'd seen these colours from somewhere else. The first dream. I'd seen them encircling a large ball of white light. It had called out to me, coercing me to step inside. But this felt different. I didn't feel enticed to touch this one. Instead, I waited for it to come to me.

The circle appeared again. But this time I got a better look. The colours were spiralling around each other, twirling like dancers. It was beautiful, and not nearly as random as it had been in my dream.

Eventually, the colours swirled around each other to surround me. I could only see white through the gaps in the colours, and there were very few of those. The colours moved at a freakish speed, and all the white vanished. Just like in my dream. But I didn't feel like this was unsafe. I welcomed the light. Anything but the white. And just like in my dream, the colours collapsed into me. And instead of white, I saw black.

At first, that was it. I spent what felt like days in the blackness, and I had begun to give up hope again. But then, I felt something shift. It was a small pitter patter at first. A gentle and slow pounding. I welcomed the soft feeling, it was blissful.

And then I could smell it. It smelt, warm. Like being hugged by someone using the most subtly scented shampoo. But it was such a beautiful smell compared to the nothingness. If I could smile, I would've.

But it gets better from there. I could taste again. I could only taste my own saliva, but I had never been happier to taste something so simple. The taste made me salivate. I had never realised saliva tasted like anything, but oh, it was almost flavourful in comparison to the nothingness.

But then I could hear it. Or them. It was a light murmur at first, but eventually, I was able to hear everything. There were two voices. One male and one female. The male sounded adult, and the female sounded like she was in her late teens. But I couldn't be sure until I regained the ability to see.