When We Awoke

Alisa

My mind was still paralyzed by the complexity and horrid events of the last memory I had. I had only been surrounded by the sand and ocean for a few seconds before I was pulled back into another memory.

I saw myself open the back door and step into the kitchen, the same one I had seen before and kissed Arian in before. Arian was laying on the ground with his hand covering his chest, blood soaked his shirt all over. He was whiter than usual and gasping for breaths, almost wheezing.

I practically fell to the floor beside him from the horror of it all. The bang at the end of my first memory must have been a gun and the gun must have done this damage. It was breaking my heart seeing him like that.

A light bulb seemed to go off in my mind. I got up, got the nearest rags, and placed one on top of Arian's chest wound. I moved his hand on top of the rag and made him apply pressure. I must have seen something similar on a tv show. With the other rag, I applied pressure to the wound on his left arm. Two bullets had entered his body. This was completely tragic.

"Arian. Arian please look at me." I moved my unoccupied hand to his face and guided it until his eyes were toward mine. "Please hang on. Please. I ran to the nearest neighbor and called 9-1-1. You're going to be fine. Do you hear me? You are going to be fine and we are going to live our lives with each other for as long as it is possible. And you will live another day. You must. It isn't right if you go. I love you too much." Tears had already begun to fall down my face and some landed onto Arian's dark shirt.

Arian just stared at me, with pain coating his eyes and life almost gone. He then lifted up his wounded arm, the one that I was holding, and reached his hand to my cheek. He brushed his thumb against part of my lips slowly. "You know....I love you....right?" His voice was almost a whisper but I still heard him declare his love for me, maybe for the last time.

"Yes, I do." I said as I moved my hand to his hand that was pressed against my cheek. I moved his hand back to where it was and held it. I looked down at my hand holding his and caressed his palm with my thumb. "I love you Arian. I always will." I said and then looked back at Arian's face.

He was gone. His hand was limp against my hand and his eyes were slightly open and looking at me with their blue softness. It was so sad to look at someone who had been so alive and well just earlier in another memory and see them lying on the cold kitchen floor with all the life sucked out of them.

I closed his eyes and then hunched over his bloody body and cried. And cried. And cried some more. There must have been a never ending river inside of me with all the tears that streamed through my eyes and onto his soaked shirt.

I couldn't believe he was really gone. I couldn't believe the one I loved was gone. It was so surreal. Everything was completely unreal.

I awoke from this memory and had to wipe my eyes and cheeks, because I had been crying. My heart still knew the sadness that came from seeing Arian in the shape he was in.

I still didn't know what I was doing here and I didn't feel any closer to knowing.

I decided to sit up, seeing as though most of the weakness I experienced before had vanished. I stared toward the sea and watched the blue waves find their way toward the sand and then travel back to where they came from. Something glinted in the water as the next wave moved in. It seemed like glass.

I moved forward, closer to the waters edge and reached into the water where I saw the object. My hand felt something solid. I pulled it out and noticed that it was a glass bottle plugged up with a cork and a rolled up piece of paper was inside.

I moved away from the water with the bottle still in my hand. I looked at it curiously and then took the cork out of the bottle and flipped the bottle over with my hand underneath so I could catch the note when it fell.

I got the note out and unrolled it.

Delicate writing wrote out two simple words in ink that said:Start again.

Before I had time to wonder what that phrase meant to me, a blur of visions came to my mind. Small memories.

I saw myself cuddled up against Arian and watching a sunset. I saw us on the couch watching one of my favorite romantic comedies, I was laying against Arian's chest and he was stroking my hair and staring at me instead of the movie. I saw us holding hands through a beautiful park with beautiful trees and flowers and I saw us kissing beneath one of those trees, not caring if any passerby saw us. I saw so many memories and gained all of my life back. I had all of my memories back.

They must have came too fast because I was laying on the sand again on my side and everything was going black. No, it wasn't another memory. It was just darkness. I couldn't feel anything anymore. The darkness took me and the last thing I remembered was Arian's smile. I hung onto that as my mind and everything around me went dark.