since eighth grade. → markiplier

Ending

I woke slowly.

My body felt heavy and somewhat cooler than it had been when I had fallen asleep the night before though no memory of the day surfaced to my mind. 

I was stuck confused and frightened at the feel of the sheets around me. They were light and feathery, and the pillow beneath my head was a lot thinner than the one I had planted my head upon so many times. 

The skin on my arms was bare and shivery, and I immediately realized that I was lying on my back. Slowly but surely, the senses in my body started to creep up on me, and the weakness of my limbs made my head spin.

My eyelashes protested against the movement of my eyelids, and they tangled together in an attempt to stay shut. Letting out what I thought would be a loud groan, a small, breath-like outtake of a whimper passed my lips and I suddenly sat up with a jerk.

Everything was white. The walls, the ceiling, the clothes on my back and the sheets around my body. Clear tubes snaked into my arms and, in a panic, I immediately reached for them and ripped them out of my body in a fit of terror. The beeping of what I presumed to be my heart rate monitor sped up considerably, and a sudden mass of nurses and doctors burst into the room in a flurry. When their eyes landed upon me, shaky arms rose in an attempt to fight them off as if they were to attack me, they held me down with strong arms and I felt a sharp prick on my arm, and the world around me vanished.

***

"It's impossible," a familiar voice breathed. "I thought for sure that they said she'd never wake up."

Another voice broke the silence, "she's a miracle. Do you think she'll remember anything?"

"It's been too long, man," the first voice spoke gruffly. "The last thing she was doing was math equations. Not really worth remembering, do you think?"

"I guess not," the second voice said.

Confused, I attempted to reach out to them with a lame twitch of my fingers and a small groan. At the sound of my quiet complaint, I felt a warm hand clasp around one of my clammy ones.

"Hey, Ellie," someone muttered, and I tried to swallow but the dryness of my throat stopped me from doing so. I forced myself to open my eyes, and then I drank in the sweet oxygen that I seemed to have been deprived of. Still afraid of my surroundings, my heart rate sped up. "It's okay, it's okay. You don't need to be afraid anymore,"

My dry eyes blinked against the bright light before I turned my stiff neck toward the source of the noise. The sight of a face that I hadn't seen in a while made my stomach flip, and then my eyes started to water, "Caleb?"

"Yeah, Ellie. It's me," he grinned softly, running a hand over the stubble on his face.

"But--" my voice caught in my throat. "I'm so confused,"

The voice to my right spoke up again, "you've been asleep for a long time,"

"Bryony?" I looked across at the figure, and my chest fluttered at the sight of her face. Younger than I remembered, but still with a hint of maturity even so. "What's going on?"

The grip on my hand tightened. "Do you not remember anything?"

"Well, I do, but it's--" I struggled to find the words. "--everything's all a little fuddled. I feel as if I've just been in a really long nightmare. What's happened? Why am I here?"

"I'm sure you have loads of questions," Caleb sucked in a breath. "But I guess, instead of avoiding it, we'll just tell you right away. You tried to commit suicide, Ellie."

I shrunk back into the pillow. "Oh."

"You were only fourteen," Caleb said, voice cracking.

"Oh," I repeated, the stinging reality of the world I thought was living in suddenly rising to my mind with a sharp pain. "But--"

"I came as soon as you called," someone burst into the room, and my eyes immediately clouded over at the sight of someone I thought I had forgotten so many years ago.

"...Mom?"

"Oh, Ellie," she rushed over to my side, and, with a crease in my brows, I brought her against me tightly. There was something about her that I couldn't quite put my finger on-- she was glowing, radiant, as healthy as ever, but different.

Soon after my mother arrived, my father stepped in, too. "Elliot! Oh my goodness, we thought the day would never come,"

"Mom?" I repeated, voice cracking as I teared up. She immediately brought a hand to my cheek, wiping away the stray tear that fell from the corner of my eye.

"It's alright, love," she shushed. "Everything is okay here. You're in a safe place now. This is your home,"

Arms were thrown around me, and I tightened my grasp on each individual that were laughing, tears growing in their eyes at the arrival of my conscience. Through the midst of bodies, my eyes landed on a figure in the corner of the room.

His hair was golden and his skin was pale, but the bright, sharp gaze was the thing that made me furrow my brow at him.

"It's much better here, isn't it?" He said.

Suddenly, all of the arms around me vanished, and I was standing across from the man. He offered warmth, almost as if he were the sun on a summers day. He offered a hand, and, without hesitation, I took it.

"But it's not your time yet," he said, voice quiet. "Go back. Reach out for them-- your loved ones. They need you. Take this experience as a warning and rewrite your future. It's not your time yet,"

"All of those people," I turned my head back, expecting to see them there, but seeing nothing but a white wall. "They're all supposed to be dead."

"They are," he said firmly. "We all are. In the future, that is."

"What do you mean?" I croaked.

He turned and started pacing. "The concept of time in the afterlife is blurred. All of the people in your life that will die-- this is where they stay to wait for you. But they aren't ready to have you back in their lives yet. This was our destiny-- chosen or not. Don't make the same mistake I did. You're so young,"

"I wouldn't call myself young-"

"Everything you believe hasn't happened," he interrupted. "and will not happen unless you choose to live your life that way. Is that how you want to live? Making stupid decisions and blaming everyone around you? You can't keep doing this, Ellie. You can't keep hurting yourself and expecting other people to take the weight,"

His words sunk in deep and I shrunk away from him. "What are you saying?"

"You still have time to make the right choices," his blue eyes were swamped with tears as he spoke, "whereas none of us do. Go back-- you still have a chance. Make the right choices. Do it for me,"

"Who are you?" 

His gaze burned deep into me as I felt myself being lurched out of this beautiful scenery, my vision blurring around me but staying deeply focused on him as he opened his mouth to utter his final words,

"Daniel."