D R O P D E A D {Completed} (UNDER RECONSTRUCTION -- 2018)

(iv) - 'My only obstacle is creativity!'

I lurked outside the door, staring at the bed in disbelief. She was up. She was sitting up and talking.

After one night.

My mother's eyes flickered over to me, and her whole face seemed to light up from the inside. She spoke, waving in excitement – but as her lips were moving too quickly, I couldn't read them.

Part of me had wondered if this 'good news' was all part of the psychosis, but apparently not. Maybe I'd had a premonition, a portent of things to come. In any case, I opened the door of the hospital room and stuck my head in.

"Hi, mam," I said softly.

"Andi." She was pushing the covers back, but I hurried over.

"Stay in bed," I commanded; then, ignoring the nurse that was standing by her drip, threw my arms around her and buried my face into her shoulder, a sob rattling the both of us. "Oh my God, I can't believe this."

"I know. I know," she was whispering softly, her skeletal hands brushing their way through my unwashed hair. To feel the gradual strength building in her embrace, the feeling of her arms around mine – It was all choking me up. Do miracles come from Satan?

Missing a beat, I hugged her tightly again, trying to cover my mistake .

"It's so wonderful to see you properly, petal." My mother reached up, to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear, and smiled. "You're beautiful, do you know that?"

"Mother!" I could feel my cheeks flaring up in embarrassment; and the nurse laughed at us, picking up a jug and placing it within arms' reach on the table.

"I'll leave you alone for a little while, Julie. Just shout if you need anything, you know the drill." There was a kind of cautious disbelief in the woman's expression, hidden behind her smile – as though she was in the very same boat as everyone else in there. Shellshocked. Waiting for something to go wrong again.

August was waved in, and there was more hugging, more crying – squished between my mother and her little brother, and by the time I had to pull away to breathe, my eyes were aching; but from happy tears.

The next few hours, it was easy to forget about the apparition that had plagued me. My mother wanted to know every minuscule detail that August and I had lived out, and believe me, we were more than happy to tell her. But by three o'clock, having abandoned my breakfast cereal, I was starving – and I'd still refused to stray towards the thing that was hovering, close to the back of my mind.

"Go eat," August and my mother chimed, simultaneously, as soon as my stomach started to growl."

"I don't want to," I was complaining, but my uncle was nudging me towards the door, with a tenner in his hand.

"Go on, and get me something nice, too."

"Lazy fucker." I found myself grumbling as I left the room – as soon as I got up to the hospital canteen I was hit with a sudden craving for coffee, but the staff wouldn't let me leave with hot drinks, so I sat there, blowing atop my mug, and completely zoned out of it until someone tapped me on the shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Well, have you seen what you needed to see? We kept up our end of the Bargain, Andrea."

"Ah, Figment. Hm, where's the sugar?"

The spectral being that had called himself Cain would have been wearing his hospital scrubs again today, if it weren't for the fact that he wasn't real. Packets had been spilt over the end of the table, and I reached for one, tearing the top open.