Dead Lines

21: Family, pt. 2

Unedited. 

I woke up gasping for air, a million thousand-watt light bulbs blinking above me. They were supposed to be stars, I knew they were supposed to be stars, but they were so much brighter. Someone was holding me in their lap but the second I started moving, it freaked them out. I knew I did. If it were me, I’d be freaked out too. They let me roll off their lap and even moved a good distance away. I laid still against the folded cornstalks as I grappled with being back in my body, with being able to breathe fresh air.

It all felt different, more vivid and in my face. Loud.

“What—Tally?”

For now, I ignored them and what the sound of their voice did to me. My body felt foreign, much different than the floaty, unanchored feeling of being dead. It was like I was a frozen pork chop saran wrapped to a porcelain plate with extensive freezer burn.

I had to get up.

Very slowly, I propped myself up, first on my one elbow and then my hands until I was able to shove myself to a sitting position. I stared down at my forearms, opening and closing my hands to double check they were working. When that came back ok, I felt at my neck, my fingers and palms coated in my blood and sliding on even more of the stuff. It was a detail, for some reason, that wasn’t bothering me. Maybe I was in shock. Maybe…

My breathing was labored and I could feel my lungs trying to expel some of the blood that had made it down my throat as I died. I started to hack it up and within seconds, my body was ridding itself of the intruding substance.

That only had to freak them out more. There was swearing and stumbling as they tried to move further away. I couldn’t blame them. I would do my own swearing and shuffling away if I was able.

“Tally?”

“It’s not her! It can’t be her!”

“She’s dead!”

“Stay away…”

“Her body’s been possessed!”

I wanted to yell back that it was me and for them not to worry but there was just…too much.

Carefully, I raised myself up on one leg and then the other. It felt like the first time my father had taken me out on a boat and I hadn’t gotten my sea legs yet. I was unsteady for a few seconds before I got the hang of it and only after I was certain I could stand without falling over, did I spit out the remaining blood. Yes, it was unlady-like but I had to get it out. The taste was deplorable. My hand rose to wipe at my mouth but then I caught sight of my hands and lowered them instead.

Gross.

I took several deep breaths and then looked up, meeting a pair of familiar blue eyes. Getting trapped by that gaze was reaffirming, life anchoring. The look in them triggered the emotional linkage I hadn’t gotten back yet and it had me tearing up.

Knowing who they belonged to was a knowledge rooted deep inside and for a second, I got a brief flash of them evolving. From the dark, unknown color given at birth to the strange color change as he got older, to the way they would smile without his mouth reflecting the action. To sympathy and compassion melting into an all-knowing understanding of who I was. To being surrounded by dark circles caused by the Sickness and the way they would bore into me the years that followed, lifeless. Hard. Cold.

They were far from cold now as he didn’t understand what was going on. They were filled with anguish and suffering.

“Cecil.”