Dating the Dead • lrh

40. graveyard

"How was your physical therapy, Luke?" Doctor Amarynth Moyes asked her first question of the session that she had been asking me for the past eight days.

"I wheeled myself from the lift to here," I told her.

The week after I woke up from my coma, I started my physical therapies. More than a month of being asleep, my broken bones had healed but my muscles had stiffened. So far, I can take three steps before my ass hits the wheelchair.

But the major injury I had was on my head. That's why I'm meeting Dr Moyes for my psychological therapy. It was a relief I didn't have amnesia.

She scribbled on her notes and then looked at me through her spectacles. A smile broke on her lips. "That's great. You keep at it, and you'll be running out of here in no time."

I laughed, constricting a few muscles in my chest. "Doing that will only extend my time here."

Dr Moyes nodded, her smile lingered and then dropped. She tucked stray strands of brown hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ear. She does that when casual talk is over.

Here we go.

"So, Luke, tell me about your dream," she said, adjusting her spectacles.

While I'm stretching my legs on therapy, Dr Moyes talks to whoever was with me the night before. By the end of the third session, she figured out my recurring dreams. The next day, I tried to lie my way out but she was too good not to notice.

I took a deep breath. "Well, it's the same dream. Do we actually have to do this again?"

"You and I very well know that they're not all the same." She looked at me sternly. "If you want to talk about what I've observed so far, I'll tell you all about it after you tell me what you saw last night."

"Okay," I nodded, taking another breath. I began telling her what my dream was about.

It's always the same, though.

Shelby would call me in the dark, her voice echoing. Everything, then, will brighten up behind her. It was almost blinding.

Her silhouette would walk to me until she reached for my hand. The moment our skins touched, the light faded and I could see clearly. Except for her. I knew she was there but I don't remember seeing her face properly.

She would guide me towards a tomb. Every time we went there, I always hesitated. There was something about the statue on top of it that scared me. I don't even know what it was. It was just misshaped.

For a week I have dreamt until that. I would either run or wake up. Depending on how scared I got.

But Dr Moyes encouraged me to go on. She said that humans, sometimes, are capable of controlling their dreams. She doesn't even think it's a dream. "I think she's trying to tell you something," she had said.

I remember scowling at the thought. But I ended up doing it anyway.

Last night, I held Shelby's hand tighter. The closer we got, the faster my heart beat. Just as I felt the need to run, the misshaped statue grew clearer.

It was actually a kneeling angel.

"There was an inscription on the tomb but I didn't understand what it said," I closed my eyes to remember the letters but they were already lost in my memory.

Dr Moyes scribbled on her notes. "Anything else you want to add?" She looked at me with peering eyes. Their gray shade always seemed to hypnotize me. Even with her spectacles on.