Voices From Beyond

Chapter 19

I feel my heart contract as something plunges into my chest. The light flashes on, I scream out in pain. I look down at my chest to see a hand buried deep into my chest. I slowly raise my gaze up to meet the eyes of the attacker. The face is pale and dead. The plain, glossy white eyes look toward me. There is no color to the figure I see in front of me, no emotion in their facial expression. Fingers scrape against the walls of my rib cage as blood squirts out of the hole inside of me. The ghostly person tilts her head ever so slightly to the side, as if she's trying to read what I'm thinking. I am getting dizzy, the lights flicker back off again as I feel myself losing consciousness. I hear Sydney screaming, Bruno fighting for his life through his breaths on the floor beside me, and Mitch fumbling around in the darkness. My breath catches in my throat, I try to swallow but my mouth is too dry. The hand rips out of my chest as my missing skin somehow replaces itself. What did she take from my chest? What did she do to me? Why didn't she kill me?

I know it's unfair to say, especially since I've made it this long, but I want her to kill me. I know that makes me appear weak, or cowardly, but if I'm being honest... I just want to be with my dead friends. I miss them more than words can describe. Kennedy was my best-friend, and Noah was well on his way to being my best-friend too. In fact, they still are. I miss all of them; Ryan, Kennedy, Noah... I don't know if I miss Samuel, but I don't want him to die. I miss what my life was like before all of this. Even in its most boring simplicity, my life was still worth living. Now, I'm not sure if I am really even alive. I know I'm not living, all I'm doing is suffering through constant paranoia, pain, and grief. I am living in the memories of my past and the thought of what life could be like. The more I think about it, the more I lose sight of who I really am. Or at least, the person I thought I was. I thought I could be strong, I thought I could keep it together. I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams.

The lights are on again, the woman is nearing beside Bruno. She places her bony fingers over his nose and mouth as he struggles for air. I wince as I lurch forward in hopes to stop her. I have to be brave, I have to save Bruno. She screams at me, my eardrums rattle inside of my head. I feel the blood trickle down the sides of my face out of my ears, Mitch and Sydney clench their hands against the sides of their heads as they close their eyes tightly. The woman wraps her arms around Bruno and fades away into the air, taking him with her.

"No! Fucking hell, no!" I yell so loud that the words scrape against the walls of my throat like a sharp blade. I impulsively strike my clenched fist against the wall as I hear my knuckles crack inside of my skin. I cry out in pain as I shake my hand in the air and stumble away from the wall.

"She took another fucking one of us! I'm done, I'm absolutely done," I shake my head, my chest feels as though it was just stabbed multiple times but there's no visible wound.

"It's alright," Sydney runs forward and sympathetically runs her hand on my back, but she is holding her breath so much that I know that she's fighting her tears. Sure enough, they begin streaming down her cheeks and before I know it, she's crying so hard that she starts to cough. I gain my composure, my emotions distance themselves from me so that I can help her feel better.

Mitch stands silently in the corner of the room, his eyes are locked on the floor. He shows no emotion. I hold Sydney in my arms as she cries. I want to cry but I know that if I let myself then I won't be able to make her feel better and then we will all be miserable. Sometimes, you have to help someone else before you help yourself because you can't bear the thought of losing them. I wipe away her tears as the last of them fall.

"Thank you," she sniffles and forces a smile.

"It's okay," I assure her, forcing a smile in return. It feels unnatural to smile, uncomfortable even.

There's three of us left; Mitch, Sydney, and I. We have to end this before it ends us. We stumble out of the break room into the diner, the ouija board is sitting on the counter.

"What do we even do?" Mitch breaks his silence.

"We wait for her to come for us, don't we?" Sydney whimpers.

"No," I sigh, placing my finger on one side of the planchette. It's colder than I expected, considering it was just on fire.

"We play?" Mitch looks uncertain.

"We play," I state blankly.

Sydney flinches when Mitch places his finger on a corner, but she hesitantly follows his lead. I know this game is going to kill us. I can feel the end as if it's a storm cloud hovering only inches above my head. If the board doesn't kill me, the grief will anyway.

Once the three of our fingers meet with the wood, I feel the board vibrating beneath me. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I swear it's moving. I can never tell what's real anymore as it is. That's when I feel it, a sharp pain in my chest. I cry out, my fist clenches my shirt where the pain starts. It travels down my stomach and up onto my shoulder. I wince, tugging my shirt down a little bit to see the bubbles forming where my heart is. My skin seems to be boiling, it's spreading over my body slowly. I tremble in pain, I can't make any noise. Sydney and Mitch don't seem to hear me, I can't ask for help. I'm frozen, my finger is still placed on the planchette. I glance up at Sydney and Mitch, pleading inside the walls of my mind for one of them to look back at me. I feel as though I'm melting, my body temperature is rising so quickly that beads of sweat trail down my forehead.

The tables and chairs around the room begin to fly in every direction, smashing against walls and the counter. Sydney screams in terror, Mitch ducks as a chair flies over his head and smashes onto the wall. They still haven't noticed my struggle. Neither of their fingers have left the game. The planchette rises in the air. I try to warn them as it slips from under our fingertips and aims itself at Sydney but no sound escapes my mouth. Mitch turns his face to Sydney just as the planchette flings itself toward her head. It happens so fast but I see it all in slow motion. Mitch gasps, fear shows in his eyes as he tries to push her out of the way. She stumbles away from the flying piece just as it crashes into the side of Mitch's skull. It breaks through the bone with a loud cracking noise and tears into his brain as if it were a thin piece of paper. The light leaves his eyes instantly as his body crashes to the floor. Sydney yells out, tears pour from her eyes as I feel my feet give out beneath me and I crash to the floor. I fall to the ground behind the counter, I see Mitch's boots from the other side. His feet are motionless as I flash in and out of consciousness. There's a ringing in my ears that blocks out Sydney's screams and cries. I can't help her now. I don't even know if she can help me.