I See You

Clarity

I don't go to school anymore.

My parents just think nothing of it.

I don't let Kellan go to school by just suggesting he take the Friday off for fun.

My parents readily agree, and don't care he doesn't go in on the following Monday.

When playing with Kellan, we play exactly what I remember playing as a kid- the park, climbing trees in the backyard, and digging holes for absolutely no reason at all except playing pretend.

The world is crumbling around me.

It started with the school, when I started paying attention to how it's the same lessons, the same gossip, the same everything.

Now the school is empty, emptier than when I haunted it. The park has no shouting parents nor giggling children. The neighborhood has no joggers or people checking the mail. It's a ghost town.

From everything Remy (who I now remember I've never ever met) said, this is all me. It's my illusions.

But why was this world so well put together before that I didn't see it as fake? Why is it emptier than empty now? Why is it dissolving? Try as I might, I must not be doing it right, because I can't get even one thing to come back?

What am I even doing? What are Remy and Venus doing? What is Mystic doing?

I thought I needed to get out of here.

I sigh, looking at my watch. One pm.

On que, I mouth the words my mother shouts from the back door.

"Kellan, time for your nap!"

I mouth his response: "But Mom! Five more minutes, please?"

"Kellan, you heard your mother," my dad calls from his tool shop garage.

My brother hangs his head in defeat, but instead of going straight in, like he usually does, he runs over to me with a grin. He throws his arms around me, squeezing tight.

My stomach drops, melancholy suddenly overwhelming me from head to toe.

I hug him just as hard because this doesn't feel like a see- you- later hug or just a spontaneous hug that little kids sometimes give with no explanation.

It feels like a goodbye hug.

His hug gets impossibly tighter. "I love you so, so, much Kaitlyn. You'll always be my big sister. I miss you."

With a final squeeze he runs into the house, only turning back at the door with a wave, his six-year-old image fading to the one of a four-year-old. He disappears inside, a weight settling on my shoulders.

I get up, but instead of heading for the house, my feet feel like cement and I'm stuck in place. Both my parents come out from where they were, and envelop me in a hug. The weight that is on my shoulders gets twice as heavy.

"I wish we could've told you we loved you more than you might have understood," my father whispers into my hair, "I wish we could have saved you." He kisses my forehead like he use to do.

"I wish we had had more time with you, that we'd gotten to see you grow up and do all those great things you wanted to do," my mother whispers after him, "I wish we could see you again, just once more."

After a long moment, my dad asks where I'm going, and I want to tell him I have absolutely no idea, to beg them to guide me, but instead I hear myself say, "The park."

Dad puts his arm around Mom's shoulders, both of them smiling proudly, their position reminding me of how they looked at the open house for the high school two years ago, telling anyone who would listen their baby girl was growing up too fast.

I think I understand what this is now. I know what's going on, and I know I have to accept it if I want to find myself again.

You do, it's your last thread to this life. It allowed you to hear the thoughts that cross their minds the most when they think of you, my Azalea voice says, it's time and you know it. You were finally ready to hear them and so they came through.

She makes a lot of sense.

Somehow I know I'll never see Kellan or mom or dad again, in this reality as well as in the real world, and I finally except that I, Kaitlyn Gabrielle, was laid to rest by them two years ago. The only person who hadn't accepted it before now was me.

I'll miss them, and I love them, but we all need to move on, including me.

Like I told my parents, I head towards the park, listening to the silence that surrounds me.

As I sit on the red swing, a voice starts to speak, and I'm more surprised that I'm not surprised than actually surprised.

"Do you want to understand?" It asks.

For a long time- seconds, minutes, hours, as there is no real concept of time here- I say nothing.

With a deep breath, I feel the heavy weight fall off my shoulders, a lighter one settling.

"I'm ready."

Azalea strolls over, seemingly out of nowhere, and with every step gets bigger, her white pelt getting deep black lines stretching across it. My illusioned Savannah returns to what I can only assume is her natural state. She lays her head in my lap and I immediately start to pet it.

No sounds other than our breathing disturbs the silence until another cat as well as a dog, appear in the distance, both transforming as well, one a beautiful bright orange tiger, the other a white wolf.

They all lay together, Azalea between them, and the look they give me is so inviting that I don't realize I'm off the swing and into the fray of animals until I am snuggling up to Azalea and she's affectionately licks my face.

Slowly my memory returns in bigger chunks, and I reconcile them to who I was before I died, after I died, and to who I am going to be.

It's Clarity.

Clarity.

(A/N: Okay, I can't say much other than life stacked itself on me, both good and not so good, so the story went on the back burner for awhile there. "That and we tend to get distracted, especially by Jarlie fanfiction." -- <And Doccubus /Copdoc! *sighs* Dr. Hotpants> -- (And Paily. When we get in a fanfiction mood we're more like obsessively reading than distracted by life.) --- ~Don't forget Nysara! It's addictive, all of it! The only thing more addictive is our girlfriend-~ Oh, okay, stopping you there, that's the chapter as requested, thanks for reading, bye all!)