Ronan: To the Moon and Back

40. All the Voice In My Head...Turn Into Photographs

There's this one small moment in a photographers dark room, a moment when the blank photograph sits in the developer tray. That moment when the photo begins to develop, just cloudy enough, blurry enough to not yet anyone know what the picture is of, before it blooms into a clear image. Black spaces and grey fog surrounds the photo, like it surrounds Rae's mind. It's strange, feeling like that moment of the photo while she just stands there, in an empty room, squinting through the fog to see who's calling her name.

It's quiet all around when the voice stops, she could hear a pin drop if she had one to drop, before it starts again. It keeps calling her, a youthful, chipper voice, beckoning to her, wonders where she is. She doesn't know that answer for herself. Then she takes a small step forward, blinks, and suddenly everything blooms around her; like the moment after the photo finishes.

Rae's standing in Ronan's hospice room, next to his bed, blinking in confusion. He's there, holding her hands smiling up at her, bright like the sun. It's clear that her brother was the one shouting her name over and over, from the way he's tugging on her hands. She smiles back at him, watches as he pulls himself up, using the leverage he has with his sister's hands, and falls into her arms. He squeezes his arms as tight as he can around her waist, giggling.

"You went away, Ra-Ra." Ronan says into her stomach. She can feel his breath, warm puffs of air seeping through her shirt.

"Never, Bud." Rae promises, still confused on how she drifted off like that in the first place. She wraps her arms around her brother, holding him close.

"Stay."

"Always."

There's a long pause of silence, a curious drop in the temperature around them, cold settling in on her skin. Goose pimples erupting on their arms when Rae looks down, and Ronan is shivering in her arms. Ronan turns his head to look up at her, his chin digging into her ribs, blue eyes like frosted ice. An ominous presence comes over the room and whatever her brother is about to say when he opens his mouth, she has a bad feeling about.

"But I will." He whispers hauntingly.

"W-what?" Rae stutters, utterly perplexed. "You will what? What are you saying, sweetheart?"

The room just keeps getting colder, and now Rae is starting to tremble from it, before she realizes Ronan is the one turning colder. Like the blue ice in his eyes is freezing him from the inside out. She hugs him close, trying to transfer whatever body heat she has left onto him. Ronan widens his eyes, big and every bit of the innocent child that he is.

"I am going away." Ronan tells her, still speaking like it's a secret. "Far, far away."

Fear clenches Rae's heart, makes her stomach swoop sickeningly. "Ro-"

Raelyn cuts herself off when she notices shadows dancing on the wall behind her brother. Realizes too late that they're snaking around Ronan's legs, coiling up around his small body. Rae holds on tighter, attempting to lean back and pull him free of the shadows, but they just pull back. This can't happen again, not with her physically in the room this time. She refuses to let this shadow take her brother away, so she fights back, pulling and tugging, with Ronan whimpering in her arms.

"I've got you, Ronan. They won't take you!" Rae tells him like a promise.

She pulls one more time, as hard as she can, but it's like pulling at a concrete wall with a rope. Ronan doesn't budge, and the shadows hang on. There's another voice in the room, malicious laughter she's heard several times before, all too familiar to her. And another voice, different from hers, from Ronan's. Different from the laughter, but she can't hear it clearly, can't focus on it, not when another shadowed arm appears from behind. All she sees is a flash of sneering smile, before the arm wraps completely around Ronan, yanking him back.