Connected

Chapter 9: Memories

"Why do people endure?

Why honor the hour of suffering?

Day only opens wounds,

the night its healing grace."

A low rumbling sound filled her sleeping ears that her closed eyelids distractedly began moving and unaware she awakened to her senses. Her running thought before fully becoming conscious was this time for sure she must be dead.

Disappointment and relief flooded her at the same time when once more the outcome she was expecting wasn't it. This couldn't be the other side. No. Leah thought assuredly.

Adjusting her eyes to the pitch darkness that surrounded her, she saw that she was seated on a dark brown leather armchair hovering above an ocean of inky water. A deadpan silence permeated the atmosphere that Leah wondered in her head where the sound which had awakened her came from.

When out of nowhere a beam of white light burst forth from her forehead shooting straight to the open space right in front of her, jolting her. The light drilled a small circle of light in the empty blackness.

Then the circle began rapidly expanding occupying the whole of her peripheral vision. It was growing and growing, that Leah sunk back into the chair gripping tightly on its armrest afraid that she'd be devoured by the immense scintillating radiance.

She thought the light would wipe her out in its surging pace that she'd disappear in its wake. Her heart drummed in dread when abruptly it died down instantly an inch gap before touching the tip of her fingers.

A second passed and slowly the light glowed back to life again in the middle of the dark and this time it depicted an image.

It was of a cabin surrounded by tall and green coniferous trees. She could see the blue of a lake glinting beside it. Wait, Leah recognized this place. Yes, of course. It has to be. It's Lake Norman. Her family usually spends their holidays there.

As if on cue the image started moving. It zoomed in to the door opening that it was as if her eyes were the ones directing the motion.

Leah gasped. For in the living room, she saw Joyce pacing ill at ease before marching to the kitchen.

"Leah?" She called her voice tinged with worry.

The scene came to a quick focus in the kitchen making the hairs on her hands stand when she saw her version of eight years ago leaning on the kitchen counter. Her earphones stuck in her ears, and she can weirdly recall listening to FM Static's Tonight.

"Do you have a minute?" Joyce asked, hanging back on the entryway.

Leah blankly regarded her for a second before putting down the bowl of cereal she was eating. She pulled her earphones off as a sign of her acquiescence to her request.

Joyce understood her action and proceeded carefully. "It's about Frank," she said. Leah merely stared at her. "More of our family actually," she timidly added looking down on the floor.

Turning her back on her, Leah placed her half-eaten cereal in the sink. She switched the faucet on, feeling the cool water running through her hands. Joyce's reflection profiled on the window looking disconcerted.

Leah instinctively knew that–that wasn't a good sign. If it's up to her though she would rather not want to hear what Joyce was about to say because she predicts it's going to be a whole lot of awful. And she wasn't sure if she was prepared for what's coming.