Just Another Stupid Love Story

Chapter Sixteen: Survival

“Alisa, Alisa, Alisa, wake up Alisa,” a familiar female voice continued to coo as I shifted my position on whatever I was laying on, my eyes still shut.

My hands seemed to lie beside my body, my fingers brushing through the loose texture of whatever I was laying on, the warmth acting like a pair of gloves. I could feel the heat radiating off of the suns glare, the light easily noticeable through my closed eyes as the voice of my mother continued to coo—wait, Ma?

My eyes instantly opened before I shot up into an upright position, instantly surprised by what surrounded me. There were no clouds in the sky as I sat in the middle of the desert, sand dunes surrounding me as the familiar voice had stopped speaking. I could feel the sun’s heat radiating on my back, my shadow shading my legs that were covered by my favourite red skinny jeans, matching my old dinosaur converses that Ma had forced me to throw out because of how torn they were.

Covering the upper part of my body was a green t-shirt that had a sketched on monster on it along with ‘GRRR’ written beneath it. I could feel the tightness of a bandana around my head as I ran a hand through my naturally blonde hair, my waves falling down to my hips.

Biting my lip nervously, I whipped my head around, a small gust of wind blowing as I did so. Looking up I noticed Ma standing in front of the sun’s beam, the sun making a light glow around her body, as if she were an angel or something of the sort. A smile grew to my face as I rose quickly to my feet, as questions ran through my mind.

“Ma,” I breathed before running at her to tackle her into a hug, ignoring her protests.

As I tried to wrap my arms around her while I was moving I ended up stumbling and falling onto my stomach, my arms passing straight through Ma’s body as she stared down at me sadly.

“You can’t touch me, I’m not really here,” Ma said with an apologetic look.

“But you are here, I can see you,” I exclaimed, climbing back up to my feet.

“No, I’m not. I’m simply a figment of your imagination, here to help you and your friends before I move onto where I’m supposed to be. Here before I go face my parents again,” Ma said, shrugging as if she didn’t know a better way to explain it.

“Why—How, how can you help me or any of my friends if you-you’re dead?” I asked my bottom lip quivering as I spoke.

“Easily, I need you to wake up. It’s not your time to go sweetie, these things happen for a reason.”

“How do I wake up?”

“I don’t know, you have to survive honey. I tried to survive, but my mission was pretty impossible,” Ma responded, shaking her head sadly.

“Mission? What are you talking about?” I questioned.

“When you get killed or are about to die you get sent to a random place, you got a desert, I got a flower field full of viscous wolves that wanted to tear me apart. I had to survive those wolves, but I couldn’t, I got killed instead. You have to survive this desert, please, sweetheart, try your best to stay with your friends and your brother,” ma said, smiling sweetly as her body started to fade away, “I love you, don’t ever, ever, give in.”

“I won’t I promise, I love you too,” I replied as tears slipped down my face.

I knew I couldn’t stop Ma from leaving, and I knew that this would be the last time I would ever speak to her, whether this was real or not. When Ma had fully disappeared I could feel as the wind slowly started to pick up, it starting to swirl into a circular motion next to me, the sand building up as it continued to move.