Cursed Angel (edited from "a dark angel turned me")

03-am i dead??

What’s that song? Who is singing, his voice so sweet? His voice is so soft yet so sad in my ears. His silvery tune sung like the caress of an angel. My heart leaped in recognition. His signature embedded into each melodious notes of his voice. Darrell. He’s right next to me, an arm’s reach away, singing softly, the words to a sad song whispering through the wind. Wait. That’s no wind. Wind doesn’t beat about, or at least not when you don’t feel it brushing against your skin, raising goose bumps by the sound of it. This felt nice on my face, gentle beating wisps of air.

Like when I held a huge white bird with a broken wing on my arm one day at the park. It had tried furiously to fly back to his friends of a feather but one beating wing just wasn’t enough to carry that magnificent bird’s weight. It was the first time I had come so close to an animal of the sky that beautiful, feathers aligning into an intricate white pattern. His half beating wing brought the wind to my face. His hopeful heart weaved the cool air into wisps of gentle breeze against my cheeks, making me blink several times at the snowy white owl.

My wavered attention was brought back by a touch against my cheeks. A second it was there, then it was gone, almost like I imagined the gentle caress. Soft whispers of my angel’s song ended to a sudden pin drop silence. NO. DON’T LEAVE ME!! WHERE IS HE?? Oh! I can’t remember his name... I cracked my brain, in search for his name, those two words that brought a face to match his beautiful voice. NO NO NO!!! I can’t recall his face either. Slowly the memory of his very existence slipped away with the fading of his song. My angel. Gone. His song, a string of forgotten words.

Hot tears welled inside the closed petals of my eyelids. Overwhelmed by the grips of self betrayal, I wept. I fluttered my sleeping eyes. Flexing my long fingers, I willed them to move. Nothing.  I lay like a lifeless corpse, screaming inside my head. I couldn’t move an inch of any parts of my body. Feeling so helpless, I screamed mindlessly yet no sound came out of my sealed lips.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. EEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH. KKKKEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKK.

There was screeching sound everywhere. Ear drum splitting shrieks that made my head ache and throb painfully. My arms instinctively went to cover the side of my head. Trying to block the wailing out, I clutched my ears for my life. I realized that my hands had just bent to my will. The sudden head muddling pandemonium had brought life back to my limbs. My eyes flew open and a blinding bright light hurt my retina. I blinked furiously to chase away the red spots in my vision. Scanning my whereabouts, I was dumbfounded to notice that there wasn’t any.  I was floating mindlessly in nothingness, hands flailing, trying to grasp onto a sense of reality. A new and distinct sense of dread took over me. Color drained out of my cheeks. Clutching my sides, I started shivering uncontrollably. 

“What’s happening?? Where am I?” I moaned to nobody in particular, not expecting a response in this demented dream I was having.

“Is anybody there??” I vaguely remember that someone was here with me. I felt the absence of a lost love by my side. The salty tears tracks on my cheeks told of the grieve I felt for…who?? I can’t remember. Like there was someone I should be thinking of but his face had floated astray, just out of my reach.

“All these desperate questions you seek answers for but not the one that’s truly important.” A singsong voice echoed like a symphony of soft bells.

“Who are you?” I whispered in a daze. Studying the curious scene around me, I was disappointed to come up with nothing. All white lights like a snow coated room but not a glance of any pretty face for the silvery feminine voice.

“Almost. The right question is who are you, Ruby Alice?” soprano music, woven into a string of words.

I was half relieved and half confused to hear her response. Ambivalent about the beautiful voice that spoke to me, “Where are you? What you mean by that?? You said it, I’m Ruby Alice.” I said incredulously.

“Not anymore, little one. Ruby Alice was a passing point in your life.”

“Who are you?” I asked again, this time a suspicious note lacing my words.

“I am Evangeline, The Guide, the trail of bread crumbs for the lost such as you.”

“You are lost, Ruby Alice. You’ve got to find your indefinite future. Ask your heart, who are you?”

“Are you crazy?? I AM RUBY ALICE!!” I screamed, affronted by her.

A soft sigh, whispering of a single leaf broken off a branch, falling to the ground…

Out of nowhere, an ephemeral cloud formed before my eyes. Floating colors merged to form a moving image. It was a funeral scene. A middle aged couple stood grieving over an open casket. I impulsively strained my neck to get a clear picture and suddenly found myself being sucked into the illusion like a vortex. Standing among a crowd of black clothed mourners, I watched the sobbing mother, holding on to her husband like a pillar for strength. Looking closely, I found resemblance in her perfect chignon and his broad shoulders.

I ran to the pair, frenzy with nerves. A creeping dread griped me like a vice. Standing before me, shoulders hunched in gasping sobs, mum looked beautiful even in her grieve. I looked up to face my dad, saw his eyes well with sorrow filled teardrops. No. Fearing what I’m about to find, I turned to peer into the coffin and shrunk away when I saw...

A beautiful girl lay in peaceful slumber. Face pale with the ivory paint of death. Her once sweet cherry lips now a sickly bloodless pink.  Her raven hair shone, elegantly framing her pretty face. Her blue as forget-me-nots eyes now closed to the world. Her thick dark lashes fan out beautifully over her colorless cheeks. She was a vision of beauty in frozen youth.

I was enthralled by her loveliness only to be dumbfounded when recognition hit me. That girl… She was…me. That is me, lying dead in a coffin. That’s my parents mourning for their daughter’s death. This couldn’t be.

MUM! LOOK AT ME!!

 DAD! I’M NOT DEAD. STOP IT!! NOOO!

 I’M STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. CAN’T YOU SEE ME???

NO. GET ME OUT OF HERE.

 THIS IS A HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE.

I WANT TO WAKE UP.

EVANGELINE, STOP IT!

“So be it.”

Just like that everything evaporated before my eyes. The funeral, my grieving dad, mum sniffling in his arms, all the mourners and me, lying in the black shiny wooden coffin, vanished. I was once again in the bright room of nothingness. I didn’t know which is more frighteningly fascinating. Standing at a funeral watching my own body laid in a coffin or floating in the air talking to an enthralling bodiless voice…

Out of a corner in my vision, I saw a golden haired woman. Sadness etched her radiant face. Shoulder hunched forlornly. A rush of emotion took me over, I felt sorry for her sorrow. My arms ached to reach out and help her. But something told me I had caused the pain she felt. Evangeline. Guilt washed through me. A sob escaped my lips as I watched her turn around fly away from me, her silvery wings fluttering softly.

Suddenly I wasn’t floating anymore. Free falling into a void, my arms flailed out, desperately clutching empty air for something to break my fall. My fingers closed into fist, failing miserably. Slowly the lights faded out. Dimming into a dusky blackness, like the midnight sky when moon doesn’t show. Instinct told me I was about to crash land. My hands defensively went up to my face.

SPLASH!!

My whole body submerged into a deep depth of water but I floated miles above the ground beneath me. The impact of the fall made me let out what little air I had in my lungs. Gagging with onslaught of water choking me, I thrashed helplessly underwater. Kicking my legs and arms as panic set in motion. A little voice in my head said I couldn’t swim to save my life. The murky unknown water dominated and my lungs screamed painfully for oxygen. Every nerve in my system burst with excruciating agony as the water filled me up like air blown into a human sized balloon.

**