Unnatural// 5SOS & 1D

O' Death// part two

l.p: Skeleton Bones

I made Natalie out as a figment of my imagination. She was a product of stress. She couldn't be real. But I also knew for a fact that I was the worst when it came to imagining things. To me, clouds were just clouds and I always colored inside the lines. I was a rather serious child.

Natalie disappeared not long after introducing herself. She said it wasn't my time yet. "My time?" I demanded. Natalie laughed a little, her short hair swaying.

"Are you saying you'd rather die now then later? I think I could arrange that."

"I don't want to die, I feel fine I'm not.."

"You're not sick no." I stiffened. "There are other ways to die Liam." She smiled a little and glanced back at my mom. "She's waking up. I'll leave you two alone." I looked towards the bed. My mom was stirring. When I looked back at Natalie, she was gone.

"Liam?" a voice croaked out.

"Mom." I breathed out, moving towards her. I sat down in the chair by her bed and took her hand. She smiled broadly upon seeing me. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit Liam." I laughed a little, hoping I wouldn't cry. Despite what Natalie had told me, I didn't even believe she was real, which meant my mom was dying.

"I'm sorry. Do you want me to get a nurse?" She shook her head slowly and squeezed my hand before settling back onto the pillows.

"No I'm alright for now. Thank you honey." She murmured. We sat quietly for a bit. I stared at her sheets, listening to the beeping machines and she had her eyes closed, breathing in and out slowly. "Were you talking to someone before?" She asked suddenly.

"No mom why did you hear something?" She opened her eyes and licked her lisp before sighing and closing them again.

"I thought I heard a girls voice." A smile ghosted across her lips. "I thought you had found yourself someone while I've been like this." I smiled a little.

"You're the only women for me." She laughed before coughing into her side.

"You little charmer." She patted my hand. "You really should find someone to spoil Liam."

"I don't need anyone else right now."

"Hmm.. Well, maybe when I'm gone you can find yourself a pretty lady, make your momma proud."

"You're not going anywhere." I said softly. She snorted and shook her head at me.

"I am, whether you like it or not honey. It's going to happen." Liam bit his tongue to prevent himself from sharing something that might upset her. "It's time I went to see your father. You know how much I've missed him."

"Mom, you can't leave me." I whispered.

"Like I said before, it was going to happen eventually."

"I know I just.. I thought Amy would be here with me but she's.. She's gone too and I can't lose you."

"Liam, it sounds cheesy, corny, whatever but I'll always be with you. Amy and your father, they're with you too. You can't stop living your life just because ours ended. We want more for you than that." I was really going to cry if she kept talking. Instead, I bit my bottom lip and fought back tears. "You'll be alright sweetheart, I know you will."

I left the hospital not long after that and headed to the elevator so I could go home. I pressed the button to head down when a thought occurred to me. What if the elevator stopped working, feel down the chute with me in it and I died? I shook my head back and forth. No. That was absurd. How many elevator related accidents were there a year? Not enough to report on. I would be fine. But a lingering sense of dread sat in the back of my mind. I was close to taking the stairs when the doors opened. Breathing in deeply, I stepped inside.

I was cautious the entire way home. I looked both ways before crossing the pavement to my car. I used my blinker, drove a little slower. I didn't speed through yellow lights and I stayed at the line longer than I should have after the light turned green. It should have taken me twenty minutes to get home, it took me thirty today and not even because of traffic.

Natalie wasn't real I kept telling myself she was just a part of my mind trying to get me to be more careful because life really was short. I had learned that the hard way. There was no such things as reapers. Death was eminent but I didn't believe in angels of death.

That night, I dreamed of my fathers funeral. There we were, my sister, my mother and I standing in the graveyard with our other family and friends. People were crying, comforting each other but me, I was just staring at the ground. He had died so suddenly. It came as a shock to all of us.

I was more angry than I was upset. We told him to take care of his heart but he didn't listen to us. He said if he was going to die, it might as well be from eating something he loved. Now here Amy and I were, fatherless and my mother a widow. I thought he'd be more cations, for her at least. They loved each other a lot, I know they did and if he could see how devastated our mother was right now, he would have tried harder. He could have prevented this.

"Now Liam, his son will say a few words." I had prepared a eulogy, of course I did. When I read it at his funeral, my mother had cried but in my dream, well, my dreamself had something else to say.

"My father was a smart man, a good man and if he had listened to his family a little better, maybe he would be alive and we wouldn't be here getting ready to put him in the ground." Everyone was shocked, I could tell and so was I. This wasn't my speech. Someone was saying these words through me. "But it's like he said, one day, we'll all become skeleton bones."

I jolted awake breathing heavily. That last line. It hadn't been my voice. It had been Natalie's.