Remember Me

Chapter 21

Lupa

I relax on the gurney and stare up at the ceiling as the nurses roll me into the elevator. I know the curse is broken. My body has proven that much. I know that my spirit is worn out, as is my body. I have lived long enough. I know I am going to die in this surgery. There is a feeling in my gut, and I accept it. I have lived many lives as many different people, and I know I would not be the person I am today if I didn't live each and every one of them.

Another door opens and I am in the operating room. It is dark and filled with machinery. I look at the faces of my nurses. They all show me that it is going to be a complicated surgery. I see my x-Ray on the screen near the table. I have two bullets embedded in the ribs on my left, and one almost directly centered in my sternum. My bones have been growing over them for many years. Ouch.

I hear the door opening again, and three doctors enter, all scrubbed in with latex gloves and masks and hair caps and gowns on. There is the dark haired woman from earlier, the doctor that brought Ava into my room last night, and Ava's mother.

"Well, well, well, Lupa," Cassandra Hughes says as she preps the instruments. "Do you have any preferences in music?"

The machine is still breathing for me, so I write on my book, do you have any Green Day?

Dr. Hughes nods and the song Twenty One Guns comes on. I close my eyes as the breathing machine is taken out and the anesthetic is applied. I drift out just as the lyrics begin.

"Do you know what's worth fighting for

When it's not worth dying for?

Does it take your breath away, can you feel yourself suffocating?..."

***

When I wake up, I feel nothing. I am still in the operating room but there is an irritating dull flatline sound in the background. The nurses and doctors look defeated but I am confused.

"I am awake, aren't I?" I ask. Everyone ignores me. I frown and stand in front of the dark haired doctor, waving and screaming in his face. He doesn't react. I am about to push him, when he walks right through me. It is a chilling feeling, having someone walk through what should be solid body.

I turn and my stomach drops into my feet. I am still there, on the table. My face is relaxed underneath the ugly blue-black color, but I know what has happened. The doctors cover me up in a white sheet and unhook everything from my body. Ava's mom storms out of the room. I follow her because I hear her crying softly. She walks to the waiting room.

Dr. Hughes hesitates when she reaches the large room and wipes off her tears before squaring her shoulders and walking in. I look into the room and see Ava. My heart breaks as she stands up, eyes shining in hope. Her mother shakes her head and I watch as Ava's legs buckle. She falls to the floor, sobbing and screaming in her grief.

I walk over to her and wrap my invisible arms around her. I rest my head against her warm shoulder, but I know she doesn't feel me there.

"Don't be sad, Ava," I whisper in her ear. "It'll be okay now. I promise."

We both look up as the nurse wheel the gurney with my body on it through the doors at the end of the hall. Ava gets up and follows after them. I do too. They take my body to the elevator shaft and wait for the doors to open. Ava catches up and I do, too, just as the doors open. There isn't a lot of room to squeeze in without the unnerving feeling of someone's body intruding mine, so I sit on the edge of the gurney.

My friend is still crying her heart out. The male doctor wraps his arms around her and holds her up as her body begins to sink to the floor again. I look away, down at the sheet that holds my still body beneath it.

I sit on the gurney as the nurses push me into the morgue. They do an autopsy on me, then put my body on a cold metal drawer and push me into the freezer. I sit at the empty metal table on one side of the freezer.

I don't know what time it is when Ava, her mother and Moira reappear, but I know it has to have been a long time, maybe a day or so. Ava is more put together, although there is something hard in her eyes that hasn't been there since I met her. Moira is grimly silent as they pull my body out of the drawer and show her. She looks away after a moment and stalks out of the room. Ava watches her go sadly.

I follow the tough girl out into the hall where she takes a chair that's resting against one wall and slams it into the other wall. She kicks it a few times before sitting down on it and crying.

"There's a lot of sadness here," I hear a familiar voice say. My eyes widen and I turn to see Red standing beside me. She looks real, dressed in a cotton dress and red cloak, just like I always see her in my mind as.

"Red!" I gasp, rushing over to her and hugging her tightly. She feels warm. She hugs me back tightly.

"It is good to see you finally, Lupa."

"And you. But... Isn't Ava your reincarnation? Doesn't she have your spirit?"

"She has part of it. Not all of it. Same with Maria Sophia. There had to be something here when it was your turn to join us. And now that time has come. Take my hand and I'll lead you to your peace."

She holds out her hand, and I take it gratefully. There is a blinding white light, and I blink open my eyes. I am in a field of golden grass, with trees on all sides. I look over at Red, and she smiles back at me.

"Where are we?" I ask wonderingly. I look around and down at my own attire, seeing I am in a dark brown cloak and a dress similar to Red's.

"I think you know the answer to that, Lupa!" Someone else replies. I turn and look into the dark woods behind us. Maria Sophia-the speaker-appears, along with Hazel and Jack. Jack's shock of unruly golden hair hasn't changed, nor has his mischievous green eyes. Hazel and Maria are both the same from memory, too.

"You haven't changed one bit," Jack laughs, fixing his tunic.

"None of you have either!" I exclaim happily. Hazel smiles and picks up a mud ball. She throws it at Jack and soon it is a mud ball fight. Laughter rings through the air, and as the five of us make out way to the forest waiting in front of us, I know the question to my own answer.

I am in paradise.