The Reason Why

Chapter Twelve

I wasn't quite asleep in my bed, though I'm wrapped snugly between the covers and my feet were tangled among them, yet I don't mind. My mind was too preoccupied with the current situation. It seems everything today happened all at once. Bringing a whining kid back to his home from a child care (and met his brother), having a conversation with Ethan for the first time, having your boy (space) friend sleeping at your house just because his mother got an urgent checkup for a coming baby girl. I exhaled for a long time. Bizarre. It's totally, randomly bizarre.

Thinking in the middle of the night often make me restless. It's like you want to have a talk with someone about your life, but you can't quite share it openly because all of them seem so... personal and touchy at the same time. I'm not the kind of person, who can talk openly to someone else. I've always thought that solving my own problems by myself is the best solution, so far. Except for Claire. She is the only person whom I can confide in. And probably Chris.

I sometimes still doubt talking things over with him. Maybe I'm too shy, or cannot focus entirely on what I'm going to say just because his presence is just distracting me. The way his gaze met mine, the way his mouth lifted its own edges. It's all driving me insane. I'm sometimes pretty annoyed at myself for letting my soul drift away with his, especially not being able to look at him (while he looks at me that way) without setting my cheeks on fire.

For 10 minutes, I tried to quit thinking but haven't successfully managed to doze off. I fumbled for my phone out of the drawer beside my bed and plugged the earbuds in. I squinted my eyes to adjust in the dark, to let my thumb scroll in a round motion to select the perfect album. I picked U13's 'Dreamers on The Run'. The faint glow of electronic instrumental always did its work in bringing me to another realm, to carry me away. My guess was right. After two tracks humming in my ears, my eyelids were getting heavier each minute. I was fast asleep before I knew it.

I was standing on a mountain peak. Everything seemed so small in my eyes and I could hear the wind whispering in my ears. It was so peaceful. The sky wasn't blue, but purple. There were colours hovering over a small island, northeast of me. Strangely, a plane was coming down to land there yet something turned out wrong. The sky wasn't purple anymore, but scorching red. Fire was everywhere, and there was a big explosion in the sky. It was the plane. The engine burned down and it hit the island. Never in my life I have witnessed something so frightening; a major catastrophe. There were wails everywhere, screams of the dead flooding my ears and all went straight into my head. I'm supposed to be terrified, but all I could do was fall on my knees as they hit the ground beneath me. My entire shoulders shook and I sobbed painfully. Somehow an overwhelming sadness took over, like the wailing voices were not just for nothing. Those voices sent vibrating, piercing sadness into my soul. For a moment I could understand the pain they went through and memories of the family left behind as the plane exploded into pieces. Tears streamed down my cheeks like small waterfalls, painting clean pathways through my grey, smoke-tinted face. Then a different kind of voice whispered in my ears. That voice was really small, yet so sharp. It was calling my name but it seemed... so distant.

"Kim..."

The voice was persistent, calling my name over and over again.

"Kim... Kim..."

I searched for it, but I find no one. The voice grew louder and was almost real.

"Kimberly..."

Then I woke up with a start.

***

"Kimberly."

A familiar face was hovering over me. A pair of emerald, translucent eyes was illuminating in the dark, part of it brushed by the moonlight coming from the half drawn curtain of my window. They looked as if they were glaring at me because of the intense glow.