Norah & Daniel

Chapter-28

I am in a cathedral, St. Benno in Coral Hills to be precise.

The neatly decorated nave is lined with one occupied pew after another. I look up to the Gothic rib-vault ceiling and then towards the high stained glass window. Everything looks dark, except for the lines of burning candles beneath the high windows.

At the altar, there's a priest, clad in a violet robe. He's saying something but I can't focus on his words. I want to know what he is talking about, so I move closer, passing all the people sitting in the pews. I could name some of these people, but most of them are unknown.

I am confused. Why am I here?

I stop at the end of the aisle, beside the first line of seats but there's still no sound. My eyes travel to the mass of people once again and then I spot someone.

Nathan.

With his hands clasped together and his elbows rested on his knees, he's leaning forwards. He's wearing black clothes, like all the other people sitting in the cathedral. It takes me a moment to acknowledge the life in him because he looks so still, not even a small flinch. I stare at the hollow look in his eyes.

There are just vast depths of nothingness in them.

I take a step forward to approach him, but I am stopped in my tracks as I take in the person sitting beside him.

It's me.

A younger me. Maybe a few years back from now.

If it's possible, the younger version of me looks even worse than Nathan. My blonde hair is limply lying around my sans emotion face. My parents are sitting next to me too, with the same kind of sadness on their faces like I had seen on those angel statues in that cemetery once.

Consuming sadness.

And then it clicks.

I immediately turn on my heels to face the altar again, and this time my eyes fell on the open casket. With tentative steps, I stumble my way up the stairs.

I gasp as the absolute still and lifeless face of Emma comes in my view.

I don't cry or anything. I simply stand there until I feel the presence of someone beside me. Nathan steps forward, drops a rose on the casket and then there's a wave of emotion on his face.

I feel my heart twitch in pain as Nathan's lips quiver and tears well up in his eyes. He looks so weak and vulnerable, as if he's ready to give up on living altogether.

"I love you," he says in a whisper, looking down at the casket.

Feeling like a intruder, I turn away and close my eyes, hoping that doing so would take me away from here.

When I open them, I am still here and then there's a flash of a dark figure that starts from the epistle side and then vanishes off out the door. I hurriedly run down, covering the stretching of the aisle in a just few seconds, and then stopping in the narthex of the cathedral.

It's empty but it's still just as ornamentally decorated as the insides of the church. I look in all directions to find the dark figure but there's no one there. I feel defeated.

I pace towards the heavy wooden gates of the church to run outside but they are locked, and so are all the other doors, except for the door that leads back to the service.

I don't want to go inside, but I can't stay here either. I am suddenly afraid of the dark figure that I know will come for me. It's puzzling to me how I know that.