Redemption Run

Chapter 20

For a moment, I wondered what would happen if I opened my eyes, what I would see, what would come after death.

"Moor-acu, open your damn eyes already!"

I immediately did so, and gasped for air at the same time before I sat up and looked around.

"Felice..." I said quietly, "Is this a trick? Is this one of those hallucinations?"

"Nope." Said Felice, "This is real. But where are we?"

I knew exactly where we were. I was lying smack in the middle of the field of Western Connecticut State University, right next to White Hall where it all began for me. The cool breeze of end-of-fall hit my cheeks while students and faculty that had been walking around the area were stopped dead in their tracks, staring at me like I was some kind of serial killer. The only person that came directly to me was a girl with hair that was bright blue, probably dyed.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked as she took my hand and helped me up to my feet.

"How did I get here?" I asked.

"That's what I was gonna ask you." said the girl. I just stared at her for a moment before I recognized her: Denise, the girl from my class.

"Did Rhys send you here?" Felice said, "She... mooracu, your wounds!"

I looked down at my body where the lightning magic had completely scorched me to charcoal. Nothing was there; not even my clothes were ripped. I definitely didn't look like I had just been hit with ten thousand bolts of lightning all at once.

"What is this place?" Felice asked, but I had already thrown my bag down on the ground and was ripping through it until I pulled out my cell phone. Sure enough, it finally had bars again, and I knew who I had to call first.

As the phone was ringing, I was choking back tears. When my little sister answered the phone, I audibly sobbed.

"Riley?!" Diane was screaming into the phone from her end, "Riley, is that you?!"

I couldn't help it. All I could say was, "Doc," before I broke down sobbing right there in the middle of campus.

#

Some of the students that were still nearby and had seen me pop in out of nowhere came over to me and asked a couple of questions. Some of the questions were things that I expected, like "What just happened with that bright light?" or "Where the hell did you come from?" all of which I vaguely answered as best as I could, unsure of what to do or where to go. When my legs started to get tired, I moved to the table that was out front of White Hall, sat down, and waited.

Denise had been amazing the whole time, especially after she recognized who I was. She got everyone to back off a bit and give me some space, and even ran into the building and came back out several minutes later with a bottle of water for me, which I downed in a matter of seconds.

"Thirsty, huh?" Denise asked, "But why are you dressed like you just came from a renaissance fair? What happened? The last thing I remember was watching you on the phone with someone, then we all blacked out at once."

"Funny you mention that..." I said, but I trailed off when I saw my mom's car pull into the parking lot. I immediately stood up and started running for it as my sister and my mom hopped out.

"RILEY! RILEY!" Diane was screaming like a banshee, but I didn't care. We caught each other in a bearhug at the halfway point, and my mom happily joined in. I was sobbing loudly at that point, and so were the other two, and we stayed like that for what felt like an eternity.