For Real? ✅

Chapter 37

LEAH

The afterlife seems to be a pretty boring place.

For one thing, there are no stars. Instead, a continuous black void of darkness extends in all directions, beyond my line of vision.

I don't feel my body, I just exist, hovering in the dark void, as a mere presence.

I try to recall my name, and I can't remember. All I know is that I've done a terrible thing that I'm being punished here.

My thoughts wander, and I hear a faint word being repeated.

LEAH

I search for the source, and I can't pinpoint exactly where it is. Something tells me what I hear is not here, in the black void.
Instead, it is outside, away from here.

I feel like wherever I am, it's real.
It may be a figment of my imagination, a random thought that popped into my brain, a dream that disappears as soon as I wake up.

That doesn't mean that it's not real, because everything I'm feeling now, every emotion, every thought is real.

LEAH

I try to leave the black void and focus on the one thing that can get me out of this world of darkness, my name.

I am Leah Sanders.

And I have done a terrible thing.

Panic runs through at the very thought of what I've done, emotions of the pain, the seeming reality that I had built comes back to me.

I gasp and shudder, and suddenly there's light, bright light so blinding that I'd prefer the black void any day.

My eyes fly open, to see my parents looking at me.

My mom, with her strawberry blond and grey hair, her blue eyes worried and her small smile.
Beside her, my dad, with his straight nose, green eyes and a steady look.

It's strange how much I look like them.

"Is she awake?" Asks a woman in a white coat, and comes before me. I figure out that she must be the doctor.

My eyes wander to see that I'm, in fact, in a hospital room. Tess is watching me from a nearby chair, her dark eyes filled with anxiety.

"How are you feeling?" My mom asks in a soothing voice, and I suddenly think of how much pain I was in.

Not physical pain, but the pain of even thinking about what I had done.

Something I should never be forgiven for.

Tears fall out of my eyes, warm and fast, as I engulf my parents into a hug.

They hug me back, and I am filled with guilt. They don't know what I've done, don't know that it's something I can never be excused for.

My breath catches in my throat, and I realise that if everyone knew about what I'd done, they'd never be this nice to me.

I should've died, but why am I still alive?

I pull back away from my parents, realising that if I was capable of inflicting so much pain to myself, then how much more would I be able to inflict to them?

"No! Go away... Please!" I cry, feeling my breath rise with every passing minute.
"I've done a terrible thing."

My parents draw back at my wails, now eyeing me with apprehension.

I must look crazy to them, with my hair flying wildly, my hands trembling and my constant screaming.
"I've done a horrible thing. I DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE!"

The doctor looks at me with alarm, as she approaches my bed. She's carrying a syringe with a liquid.

Behind her, I see Tess standing, her eyes wild. "What have you done? Tell me, Leah!"

"I can't tell you! I've done a terrible thing! I DESERVE TO DIE!" I cry when I feel two nurses holding down my arms so that I stop flailing about in the bed.

"Calm down, Leah," The doctor says firmly, motioning more nurses to hold me down.

I can't stay here, I can't kill myself if I do.

I have to die. I need to die.
And for that, I need to leave this place.

Otherwise, I'm bound to hurt myself again.

That's when the needle sinks into my skin, injecting whatever medicine the syringe was holding.

"Please!" I gasp, but it's so faint that no one hears me.

I find the image of the doctor and half a dozen nurses fading away, as I enter the black void I had inhabited a while ago.

Every single thought vanishes from me, except a heavy burden of guilt.