RAISING SUMMER

WAKE UP

I sat on cold dark asphalt. It was quiet I couldn't help but feel a type of unknown pain. I was cold and wet and the wind clasped onto my damped clothes with sent chills all over my skin. I sat up cautiously as I gripped onto my abdomen which I discovered was the source of pain. I looked around in the cold dark night. The only thing illuminating the dark quiet street was a few dimly lit street lights and the headlights from foreign car in the middle of the road with dents in the front and hood of the car. I turned to the right examining the large body of water that was closed off by a series of weak railings. The railings were split and distorted revealing missing chunks of wire. I approached the railing with caution. At the bottom a car was sinking by the seconds as the panic had begun to dissolve into bubbling.

"Help, help, somebody help!" My horse's panicked voice turned into agonizing cries.

"Somebody help them!" I turned around in a panicked frenzy. A man sat disturbingly next to an immobile body. He looked like he was attempting to perform CPR.

"Help them!" I screamed at him. My cries were somehow oblivious to him. The car was almost fully submerged. I desperately in an attempt to attract his attention.

The body coughed up water as the man sighed gratefully, He rushed past me with a thick stench of Bourbon. My heart dropped. It was him. He did this it was all his fault,

"No, no, no." He cried kicking the railing angrily before stepping away to his car.

"No, you did this, you have to help them!" I yelled viciously at the man fleeing the scene. "They're dying!" I shouted beating on the windows of his car before the engine revved leaving me alone in the cold darkness of the abandoned street. Boiling tears spilled onto my cold cheeks as I peered over the body. I collapsed to the ground in agony next to my lifeless body. I warm my hand gently. I turned with a tear stained face to the owner, I embraced the warm figure never letting go.

"Mom." I cried without looking up, her embrace was enough to reveal her identity.

"It's time." She soothingly brushing my hair.

"No, please, no." I cried as another hand stroked my head. I peered up to see my father and my brother next to him.

"Please, please don't leave me." I pleaded. "I can't lose you again." I sniffled into my mother's cashmere cardigan.

"I love you."

My body jolted in violent sobs. Summer was crying violently in her crib as my light was on and a figure began to shake me awake. "Don't leave please!" I sobbed. "Please just bring them back." The tears stung my eyes fiercely. "I just want to say goodbye." I pleaded. The figure wrapped it arms around me comfortingly. I was so surreal which made it all that much harder to wake up. My mother's voice, my father's touch and my brother's comfort was just a cruel fabrication of my memory. I wanted to return to the memory, I wanted to live in it forever. Because waking up from dreams like this made it more difficult to keep moving. The realization that you once had that, I once had that, a family and waking up knowing that you can't go and hug, hear, speak see or feel that again was a whole other kind of lifelong torture. It took me a couple of minutes to regain sanity. I examined the comforting arms wrapped around me.

"It's okay, I'm here, it was just a dream." Luke repeated softly. I recoiled away from him, breaking his embrace. I sat at the top of my bed.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Please get out." I stared blurrily pulling my knees into my chest and wrapping my arms around my body calmingly.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay, you left the resort without telling me and when I heard you crying in your sleep..." He began to explain as I sat numbly on my pillows.

"I said get out." I demanded sternly. Luke stared at me calmly before leaving my room silently.