Taken

Chapter Twenty-One

A deep chilling atmosphere greeted Anna's entire body, sending shivers down her spine. Her eyes shot open, attempting to take in where she was. She blinked repeatedly until the white ceiling came into view.

"Mo...m. Om...mom?" she mumbled just above a whisper.

Her father awoke from his light slumber. He stretched from his slouched position on his chair next to her bed.

"Anne?" he asked in pure confusion as he stared back at the chestnut-brown eyes assessing him.

"Dad?" she attempted to respond but was attacked by her father's embrace. Tears welled in her eyes, and she found herself releasing silent sobs as she held onto her father.

"You're alive" they both breathed out at the same time. Anna pulled back.

"Where's mom?" she asked, excitedly.

"Surely if the Heavens had the heart to let me keep my father, they would also let me keep my mother. Right?" she thought to herself.

Her father visibly grimaced and pulled back from her. He took up a bottle of water from the table beside them and gave it to her. She shakily took it from him, not breaking eye contact.

He sighed as he began to speak but was interrupted by a doctor.

"Ahh. Ms. Robinson. You are awake. Welcome back to the land of the living," the doctor smiled at her. She stared at him confused.

"Oh right. Your father has not told you yet. You have been in a coma for six months. We are lucky that you woke up when you did."

"S...Six months??!!" she exclaimed. "B...But I have been living in an orphanage for two years!! My uncle kidnapped me and tried to make me fight with his army!!"

"It is normal to have life-like dreams while you are in a coma. I am sure everything that you experienced felt real in those moments but unfortunately, they were figments of your imagination," the doctor replied eerily calmly. Anna paused before speaking again.

"But how did I end up in a coma in the first place?"

She glanced at her father and asked again.

"Where's mom?" tears welling in her eyes.

"I'll give you two a few minutes," the doctor responded before leaving. Her father sighed and pulled her into an embrace once again. There was a long pause before he spoke again.

"She passed away, Sweetheart. There was a robbery at our house six months ago...and she was shot. She had lost too much blood...and died on her way to the hospital." At that moment, Anna felt numb. She spaced out as involuntary tears streamed down her face.

Her father held her tighter, wiping the tears from her face.

"How you ended up in the hospital is because you also got shot. They were able to save you, but the trauma was more intense than they had previously thought. They had to put you in a medically induced coma."

Anna said nothing. Everything was still being processed in her mind.

After a few minutes of silence, he finally ushered her to get some rest while he spoke to her doctor.

The flashing lights above her irked her. The emptiness filling her room combined with the echoes of her thoughts. Altogether, she felt a wave of nausea wash over her entire body, and she bolted to the small bathroom on her left.

Stray tears streamed from her eyes as she struggled to contain herself. Every gruesome memory of what she had perceived to be her past now crashed down in front of her.

She gripped the toilet seat in anger, hoisting herself up from her kneeling position. She felt no relief as she dragged herself over to the sink.

The reflection she saw staring back at her was unrecognizable. She hated her sullen face and her pale lips.

There was nothing that could console her or save her from reality.

As she remembered her father's words, she felt numb. Exhausted, she crawled back over to the hospital bed.

"Anne?" her father whispered as he entered the room quietly. She turned away from him.

She knew that her delusional past was not his fault. However, whenever she saw him...she saw her mom. She felt the bed dip as he sat next to her.

"I know that you miss your mother, Anne," he sighed. "But it will be okay soon, I promise. That is why, if you want to and you are still feeling depressed in the next few weeks, I suggest that we sign you up for therapy."

She did not move or respond. She just laid awake, not wanting to see his face yet not wanting to move away from him either. She heard him sigh again before she felt his hand gently caressing her hair.

"I can't possibly begin to fathom what you're going through right now because we are two different people but I'm here for you and I want you to know that."

She thought about his words as she drifted off into a deep sleep.

The atmosphere felt strained. It was dark...almost inky black to her eyes yet she could see someone in the distance. It was the silhouette of a woman, floating in the air. As Anna moved closer, she saw the woman clearer. It was her mother, but her eyes were closed.

She was wearing a torn white dress with what seemed like black blood stains. Anna reached out, but she could not touch her. It was as if a forcefield was surrounding her. As soon as her mother opened her eyes, Anna gasped. Her eyes were dark black and when she opened her mouth, black blood streamed from it.

Fear bubbled in Anna's chest as she pulled back. Anna felt the emptiness in the atmosphere and somehow, she knew that this was it. In her special way, her mother was saying goodbye. A single tear fell from Anna's eye as she turned and walked in the opposite direction away from her mother for the last time.

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"So, this 'demon' murdered both of your real parents," the therapist asked as she gripped her notepad.

"The Blood Demon...yes. Well technically, he used his mind control to possess my mother and my father died fighting the army," Anna replied, looking down at her hands.

"And what happened to your fake father? Didn't he kidnap you to be the head of his army? What happened to that?" she pressed.

"Come to think of it, I don't know what happened to my fake father or uncle...or rather who I think was my uncle..." she trailed off.

"I see," she wrote something down on her notepad.

"Why do you believe that your mind created this world for you?"

"Honestly, I do not know. It sounds crazy now that I think about it. Demons. Powers. Battles between demons. I must sound crazy," she laughed.

The therapist did not respond. She just wrote something else down on her notepad. It annoyed Anna.

Two weeks of the same thing. Her talking about her illusive past and her therapist jotting down unknown words on a notepad hidden from Anna's sight.

"The more I think about it, the less it makes sense to me why my mind created such a world" Anna leaned back on the sofa. "Maybe I was so desperate to have my mother in my reality that even if she wasn't the same, I would have accepted her in any form."

She reached out her arms to the ceiling and made a square with her fingers. Her eyes peeked through the square as she spoke.

"Maybe that's how humans are." 

                                                                                          THE END