Seven Days - Time Traveller

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"Sorry, we have tried our best."

"The operation didn't go very well, and we're very sorry to say that this patient... only has a few minutes left."

"It seems like she has something to say. Please use the time wisely. Again, we apologize."

It took me almost all my strength and effort to open my eyes, all energy seemed to have drained from my body. Everything was blurry and misty, my memory seemed broken like a puzzle piece, with only a few small fragments still in their original place. I tried to look at my surroundings.

My eyes stopped wandering and focused when I spotted a familiar figure outside the glass door. The strong pungent smell of disinfectant slowly awakened the memories I had forgotten, I struggled. It felt like being forced to swim in the violent roaring tide waters of the past. In my mind, all of the tiny, broken puzzle pieces fixed themselves and formed into one complete picture of a young boy and girl.

The picture was like a professional photoshoot. The girl jumped up high in the air, the light breeze blew her silky black hair backwards. Her left hand stretched out to reach the rainbow bubbles in the air. The boy sat on the fresh green grass with a book on his lap. The book was opened to one of its last few pages, but strangely, they were blank. The yellowing edges of the paper showed its age.

The boy blew bubbles and pointed his free hand at the sky where a raven flew across. Both the boy and girl were laughing, their smiles of pure happiness would have been permanently carved into the minds of everyone who saw it. But if you looked closely at the picture, you would have realized, that one piece was missing.

I couldn't remember this image from anywhere, it looked fairly new to me, so it took quite a while for me to finally realize that the girl in the picture, was myself.

Unable to move, as if I were frozen, I stared with my eyes wide open as he walked in. He was crying helplessly, like a lost child, when he cried there was a rawness to it, like the pain was still an open, bleeding wound.

As he walked in, he frantically clasped onto something for support. First a table, the back of a chair, and by the time he reached the bed I was lying in, his whole body shook violently.

The sobs were stifled at first as he attempted to hide his grief, then slowly it was overcame by the waves of his emotions and he broke down entirely. All of his defences washed away in his salty tears.

When he at last turned his face to me he was a picture of grief, loss, and devastation. It was the face of one who had never suffered before and didn't know how to deal with the current situation. He trembled as he sat down on the chair beside my bed, grasped my hand tightly in his, and gazed at my face.

"No... Emily... you'll be okay, you won't... you can't..."

His eyes were no longer shining with excitement like usual, but glistening and blurred. He sat there and silently allowed the crystal clear liquid fall from his dark eyes. He looked so vulnerable, shoulders and lips trembling as he spoke.

I felt the sudden urge to hug him, to pat his back, to comfort him, and whisper in his ear that everything was alright. But I was tired. So tired that I couldn't even wipe away the tears from his cheeks.

"Listen to me. Please, please can we make time freeze at this second? Are you going to leave me? No... don't leave me..."

His devastated tone pierced through my heart like sharp blades, the strong unbearable pain contrasted strongly with the old happy memories, which poured out like a waterfall, drowning and suffocating me. In the vast ocean of memories, a few seemed particularly vivid and clear. I struggled as they stirred inside me, and one slowly became clear inside my mind.