Phrontistery Of Monster Kind - Six Feet Deep

Chapter 24

I wasn't guided to the afterlife, there was no stairway to heaven.

But in the haze, I had a dream of my past lives. Near death was always said to bring clarity. There were no highlights reel I am sad to admit, but I was sure you already knew that.

I was in the hold of a man, my lungs overflowing, causing me to choke up on the fabric around me. Numbers were used as names from voices deeper than the water I was pulled from. There was a rattle to their speech, as though one was jostling the contents of their pockets as they talked. I'd never heard this tongue, yet I understood when my brain wasn't flooded.

They were gone when I awoke on the dirt. Frozen and alone.

Bitterness grew in the hole, temporally filled by a being so sweet that made her death all the more tragic.

Everyone close befell a similar fate. I'd been so many people in my head. But one never left, though I only recall the history from storybooks and rewritten memories.

For a moment, I was a child again.

For a moment, I was happy.

Voices tore me from memories of a better life. I couldn't stay sunken there, no matter how much I fought my body. I was chained to the ground, weighed by the centuries of life unlived. If time was a waste, did it count? You can't get it back, so in that sense, yes.

I groaned; the voices stilled for a moment. When they believed I settled, they continued.

"If you stopped interrogating me, I could find out what was going on," Mary said. "Go and sit in the waiting room."

"Do you need Dr Noir to-"

"Mr Mors, I am a professional. Despite my age, I am well equipped to work with Monsters."

"She's human, Dr Bloodworth."

"I know that, sir," Mary snapped back. "Do you really think someone who hasn't worked on someone since the seventeenth century is going to help? He thought mint, roses, and carnations would protect him from the bubonic plague." She raged. "With all my knowledge, you think I can't fill in the gaps. Humans are similar to witches. It's just a genetic mutation resulting in differing skin colour and powers." She argued. "Now I don't need some ancient being of death looming over my hospital, scaring my patients. Either go to the waiting room until I treat her or leave."

"I'll go to the waiting room."

"Do tell Harro if he isn't already aware. She will need someone to cover her classes."

"Ptera said there was something wrong with her blood, if that helps."

I grumbled, trying to re-adjust in my spot. I was maneuvered back into place, earning a scolding from the doctor. Nurse? "Stay still, dear. You'll wear yourself out. Why are you so cold?"

It mustn't have been close to when they were talking, as I didn't hear Mors leave.

Time alluded me, drifting from me and then forced me to be present despite my willingness to be in the beyond. Mary kept prodding me as she checked me off, and depending on where she checked, determined whether I felt her presence through shut lids.

Through the beyond, I could see my mother watching over me. She refused to speak a word, but if she did, I doubted I'd know what to say. She held no emotion; it was the first time I'd seen them that way. At first, I thought it was someone trying to make a mockery of the woman I admire. She was what my sister should have become and grown to look like. I shared my father's features, ill-suited for a woman. I was told the firstborn daughter always looked like the father. It was a curse then, perhaps one now if I took the time to evaluate myself. I'd like to think I'd changed enough so I am irreconcilable from both sides, if only for my greyed hair, altered features and shutting down body.