SHARING EMMA [18+]

42. Sense of Loss

|EMMA|

Ritual.

Ritual.

Ritual.

The word kept ringing in my head.

Like a knife stabbing through my consciousness.

I tried to fight the exhaustion taking over.

I tried to jerk my body awake.

But everything proved to be in vain.

In vain!

After a while, it became impossible to differentiate reality from hallucination.

I couldn't tell the difference.

I tried but couldn't.

One minute, I sat on a beach, enjoying the warm ocean breeze whispering through my hair.

In the next, I found myself lying on the cold, hard floor, coughing and suffocating, something bubbling out of my mouth and eyes.

Then, there was another me, standing in the midst of a wild storm, dark and menacing clouds thundering overhead.

No matter where I tried to run, they followed.

The laughter. The ghostly shadows.

I could hear them.

The wind chime.

The footsteps.

The waves crash on the shore.

And then, everything began to distort and pinch.

My senses were entangled in a surreal shambles.

As if I were entrapped in some nightmarish carnival, where the world twisted and turned, and the rules of physics and reason dissolved.

Quiet.

There was quiet for a while.

A white noise.

Before it wasn't.

A soothing melody began to emerge.

A gentle lullaby, soft and tender, like a mother singing to her child.

It cut through the chaos like a ray of light in the darkness.

I saw my mother. And then me—becoming a mother.

A constant loop. An endless story.

I became aware of something else—footsteps approaching me.

They were slow and deliberate, each one echoing like a heartbeat in the vast emptiness.

A thunder. Loud and wild.

And then, through the haze, I saw her.

A woman, her figure obscured by mist and shadows.

She moved gracefully, her steps matching the rhythm of the lullaby.

I couldn't make out her face, but there was a profound sense of familiarity.

As if I had known her for a lifetime.

She extended her hand toward me, and I felt an irresistible pull, drawing me closer to her.

I reached out to touch her hand, but the world around me shattered like glass.

Something penetrated through me.

Sharp. Painful. Fast.

Again.

Again.

Again.

I was plunged into darkness once more.

Someone calling my name.

The lullaby faded into a distant echo, and the storm raged on, more fierce than before.

I was left with a haunting sense of longing.

A feeling that I had lost something precious, something I needed to find.

Something that had once been mine.

But not anymore.

It didn't belong to me anymore.

What? I don't know.

But it wasn't mine. That's all I knew.

That's all she told me.

I stood there.

In the middle of the beach.

Confused.

Facing the storm, snarling at me.

A void inside me—a sense of loss.