The pain was starting to fade away.
It was all I felt for a long time. I had been stuffed into that new dark crevice in the back of my mind by some unknown force with no remorse. I could feel the light reaching my eyes for some reason, as this new cracking sound started up since a while ago, and I felt something cold and constricting coming off.
Ah, the light was shining really bright this time. The pain was being washed away by it almost completely. I felt my throat unlock as air was allowed into it, and I could breathe again after so long. Relief washed over me like a slight breeze, and the horrible feelings I had up until now were dissipating.
There was this throbbing feeling in my chest, but as the light got brighter it numbed itself and I could see other things than light...silhouettes. There was a red one above me, and three black ones on the sides. Wherever I was warm, I could vaguely make out their shapes on my skin. They were hands.
Something was making a squishing noise below me as I turned myself over, moaning. Noises of alarm echoed faintly in my ears, but I ignored them, and snuggled closer onto the warm thing below me, burying my face deeper to warm it up.
Something was tugging on my sides, but I shrugged it off and tried to go to sleep, slurring, "Lemme alone, I wanna sleep..."
Maybe I shouldn't have spoken in the first place, because voices shouted out all of a sudden and a scream resounded, then a whip struck across my cheek. I was fully awake after that. The solemn mood was gone.
"That hurts damn it, I just want to sleep! Is that such a bad thing?! I said, leave me alone!" My eyes were wide open as I whipped myself up and glared at the wall I was facing. There were two people kneeling next to me with shocked expressions on their faces, but I disregarded them as I leaned back and fell onto the lap I had been using. It took seconds for me to get comfortable and again and sleeping, but then another ruckus was raised.
"Wait, you're alive?!" Kenna exclaimed with a high pitched voice.
I reached up my right hand and covered my ear. I was extremely irritated for some reason, the emotions I felt when in the dark were popping up and boiling properly inside of me this time, instead of freezing.
I exploded at them, while turning my head on her lap, "No shit Sherlock! And you're preventing me from passing on, so shut up and let me sleep! It hurts!"
She, with a surprised face, reached down and hugged me awkwardly. Darian had locked himself onto me when I first woke up like a needy child, but Cooper had been there for awhile, I could tell, with how bloodstained he was.
I remembered seeing a third black head sometime, so I slipped out of her embrace and looked behind her. There, Felix was standing with a shocked expression and wide eyes. His arms were folded as if trying to cover his eyes, but they immediately dropped as he came forward and sat besides Kenna, slowly, like really slowly.
I didn't get what the dramatics were about, but oh well.
He reached down and tried to pull me like a little child from under my arms towards himself. That didn't work even with his muscles, because I had some deadweights (people) holding me down, so he just came closer and hugged me tightly. Too tight, because I was struggling to breathe.
Even though I didn't need to anymore.
A post trauma of being squished into the deep crevice of my mind, which I was sure held the afterlife on the other side, bubbled up on my mind. I was squirming in his constricting embrace while trying to force out words so he'd let me go. Anymore and I would black out from fear.
When I found the words, they were laced with unprecedented rage because he didn't let me go no matter what. The two others clinging on to me felt like snakes binding and cutting off my movements, which made me flip even harder when I compared them to the animal known for its deadliness.
"Are you trying to give me a trauma of not being able to breathe or what?! Let me go, now!" I cried.
A slight, uncomfortable feeling rose up in my throat, making me think I was going to be choking on my own blood again, and I unthinkingly started throwing weak punches and elbowing around with a panicked voice.
Somehow, after prying them all off when they loosened a bit, I was hyperventilating after scrambling away to the kitchen on all fours and going a bit into the hallway where I wasn't seen. I couldn't move properly because my deathly pale limbs were numbing. My chest leaked a bit more, but it seemed there wasn't much else to give, so it stopped.
The blood hanging on my clothes flung off and splattered on the floor after I got my own space, unrestricted and able to actually exhale.
Only when we were deprived of something did we truly realize it's value. I wouldn't take my lungs for granted again.
It was the best feeling in the world to take a breath in, and then push it out. And then, I was able to take another full breath in, and I wasn't eternally choking anymore. After spending some time like that, I quickly pushed down any fear of being trapped like that again, and spoke.
"What happened?" I wanted to know why there was a slit the length of my foot making an obvious wind hole through my chest. It was scary, seeing my skin split. Curious, I pushed a finger inside of myself, and felt something weird so I quickly took it out.
Silence.
So then, I took that same finger and another, prying open the slit to look inside myself.
The creepy part wasn't that I did it again and actually took the time to look inside and prod stuff, naming them from science class with the cheery song we'd learned while poking the part of my severed aorta.
The creepy part was that I could do it so easily without squealing and going eww eww ewwwwww! over and over again. That's probably what normal people did, plus gagging, vomiting, or fainting; those were the realistic reactions. Well, I wasn't a normal girl, however much I wanted to be.
I thought I actually could've succeeded with keeping my life accident-free, all according to plan if I just lived passively. But it looked like my luck had run out before even graduating. I couldn't ride out my childhood peacefully, or raise Cooper with nothing traumatizing happening. Darian, the one aiming for a job in psychology, broke as easily as the others. Felix didn't look like he could keep it together. I sighed. Looks like I failed to keep us safe again. So much for not raising any flags.
I already knew. The whole plan was burning from conception because it was the gigantic flag, the jinx, that I couldn't throw away. I hoped it would work out without any interruptions.
Living life required a plan. Get through life doing this or that, taking this class or doing this sport, graduating from so-and-so college and marrying that one person you've always loved. Get that job, work under your favorite boss, going on vacation, raising your kids...the plan for that was already set. Extra parts, like a plan to specifically live a different way, was bound to have so many flaws they couldn't be counted.
It would just be another liability that could drag you down even further with the original plan. The higher you are, the further you fall. Anything could happen and throw it astray, and that "anything" fell under the arsenal of life. There was no way to avoid every knot or tangle in my path, except to plan ahead and go even higher. My stack of plans tottered like a stack of books, and I couldn't hang onto the shelf any longer and fell.
The ones you couldn't avoid were especially the unexpected roots that didn't just trip you, but grew just as you were about to walk over it and underhandedly uppercutted you in the chin, making it a KO before you even hit the ground. For me, my KO was very deadly. And the root was very irritating and unexpected.
How was I supposed to prepare for a black tree in my forest that could sharpen its roots and stab you in the back?! The type that could freeze people in place and cruelly prolong their suffering!
Yeah, I really held a grudge. A deep one, as abysmal as the crevice of death that had opened up in my mind.
I could still see it perfectly well if I closed my eyes and let myself fade away, but I pulled myself back each time it's entrance started to widen and use my own melodic voice to sing out sweet words of temptation, desires of freedom and anything else I wanted. Every time, it attempted to lure me closer, farther in until I would look back and be unable to see the far away light again...
Who was that death reaper jerk anyway? I asked myself while pushing away stray hairs with my bloody hand, leaving a smear on my temple.
Who did he think he was, stalking me and trying to kill me so many times? I didn't even know if that was the second time I had encountered him. I'd felt watched for the longest time, after all. I thought that the Crodys had finally caught on or something and hired a private investigator, or assassin.
I still haven't thought about that "found you," I heard in the school hallway. That thing definitely wouldn't speak with its absolute secrecy thing it had going on. Someone else had done it probably. Wait, am I turning into a supernatural freak?
I pondered for a while, and then realized, Oh dang, I am. I'm thinking about all of this while acting like it's perfectly normal, which in itself isn't normal! My plan is utterly destroyed as of now...and it was such a good one too, despite being boring as hell. The blackmails were probably my awesome subconscious trying to find some fun. Good job me, even if it cost you your life. However did you manage to tick off a supernatural reaper, I'd really like to know.
The thing was definitely here, I knew it. Darian and Coop's faces had told me enough before my vision went black. Also, how could I miss the giant blade going through somewhere it shouldn't? What I didn't understand was, I didn't understand how it found me in the first place? What for? Why search for so long just to kill me? My business with that thing was zip, unless anyone who had my name on their shit/hit/black list or whatever it was, turned to voodoo or demon summoning or something. Gary, from the down the street, had his cat go missing a week ago. A sacrifice? Who knew?
Not me.
Just as I was about to hop onto a different topic within my oxygen deprived head, Coop spoke up. For some reason, my thoughts were faster and more sardonic that usual. They lacked the usual composure, I realized, but quickly disregarded it because it didn't matter to me. Again with the quick decisions and hot blooded thoughts.
Yet, even knowing I was being extremely different from my usual self, I couldn't calm down.
Coop started after the long pause, "I'm-I'm sor...sorry," stutteringly. I didn't hear any movement closer to my direction, which I was highly thankful for. Cornered animals weren't the best to approach. "We didn't notice until you were already about to hit the floor. We were frozen and couldn't move until the ice thawed out," he murmured the whole time.
It was so silent that I could hear it all the way on the other side of the hallway, my back against the wall parallel to theirs. I looked over my shoulder at it and saw it was smeared with blood in a dragging pattern. I'd leave it to them to get out, I worked too dang hard to leave stains on the final product. It could be called my legacy, along with the hard work buried in the capsule in the backyard.
"I see," murmured the bloody one, me, as she tried to scrub the wall despairingly. It only smeared it further, so she kept on talking. She also had no idea why she referred to herself in the third person, but guessed that her mind, which was most likely supposed to be broken after her time in the ice, had released the limiters to abide to the "normal" plan.
It was very freeing, but not the right time. I couldn't be serious in this situation, and I should've thrown the plan away a long time ago because it felt much better to express myself freely. Too late.
It's not like I meant to, but my voice was inflecting strangely and made me sound energetic as I inquired, "Did you, perchance, see a reaper looking thing somewhere? Preferably one with a very long scythe?" I inquired, guessing they'd seen it with the expressions they had earlier.
"Yes," I couldn't tell who said it, and easily angered again, I snapped.
"Speak up, otherwise I won't hear you," I ground out. It didn't feel like Jodie Jackson was speaking at all. I felt bad somewhere in my mind, but I had went through too much to care if they felt sorry or not, or much about anything. "Look, if you're gonna be all mopey, I'm gonna just leave now. I have better things to do here, and not much time to do it."
The first time zones lasted seconds, then minutes, weeks, and then three hours. There wasn't a tell-tale sign to point out when reality would return, and my heart would stop. Actually, it had already stopped, but I meant when my soul would fly away like a disgraced owl. I didn't ever know when it would start either. It was probably just a miracle it happened before I completely died and left for the next world.
I tried to stand up, attempting to not touch my white wall while wobbling. It was useless because of the stains already on it, luckily not setting with the frozen time, but I was a stubborn maid sometimes. Perfectionist #2 of the family.
My head started pounding and I almost fell forward, but the dining table was in my path. I fell onto it from out of the hallway, and made a loud smacking sound.
Felix, the closest, dashed up and caught me when I was about to slip onto the floor in a coughing fit. A crushed look hung over his eyes, but soon a desperate light lit up in them. At the same time, the alarm bells in my head went off, and I looked around weakly, but saw nothing. Time was cutting short until it came back, probably. The job wasn't finished.
With that thought in mind, I made my next plan, which had an excessively high likelihood of crashing and burning with my next few words. The ones in denial would tear it apart themselves.
But Felix, not really thinking straight, spoke before me. Always the innocent one, a kind man who didn't want to see another of his family dead. It was too bad his efforts were for nothing.
None of my brothers deserved to go through stuff like this at all.
I liked to think that I didn't deserve it either, but people like Mr. Kent were living testaments to my guilt. That's what I got for wishing.
But I would never regret anything I did for the well-being and safety of my family, and the sake of my kindness. That wasn't something I could stop caring for so easily and throw away after so much effort was put into it.
"W-we could take you to the hospital! Since you're still fine now, all we need is to get there! Let's go to the car. Darian, get the door," Felix said while swinging me up into a princess carry roughly.
I knew his strong suit wasn't science, but I thought he could at least tell there was no saving me. The middle of my chest was bare, my shirt and sports bra only staying in place with sticky and dried blood. Yet you couldn't ignore the red slit that made a bit of my sternum poke out and let our squishing noises every time it was forced open and closed.
What I was most surprised about, was that the science lover Cooper and realist Darian didn't pick up on my lack of life and simply obeyed. Did they want me to not die that badly? I knew the trauma would be bad, but jeez. Get a reality check please.
I, the one who was going to die, should have been freaking out the most. I was perfectly calm though. Kenna simply did everything else they did like her name had been one of the ones mentioned, but they all worked in tandem anyway because the extra hands were helpful.
"...useless..." I said, denouncing their actions outright.
Felix didn't even look down at me and persistently made his way to the front of the house. When we reached the door, I stuck out my weak arms and grabbed the frames abruptly, jerking us back. It knocked my joints around weirdly, but I didn't let go.
My plan, which was rudely interrupted before, was put into action as I stubbornly glared in Felix's frantic eyes.
"I said, it's useless! Look around you, this isn't right. Something is wrong with your surroundings, and yet you don't even notice. Don't make me spell it all out! Realize it on your own!" I slapped my hands harder on the frame because he tried to take them off. It would waste the time we had left, but they needed to see the unnaturalness on their own, or they would keep rushing their nonsensical plan without a care in the world. It they noticed and came to the same conclusion themselves, they would let me talk. If I brazenly told them time wasn't moving, they wouldn't even bother to listen to the words of a lunatic who wasn't in their right mind and ignore me, denying anything that wasn't of convenience to them.
They listened to me and stopped, starting to think. Darian, who was on the lawn, snapped out of it as well. Kenna and Coop, who were in the house, forced their way past us, and stood outside in the light.
"That's odd," quipped Kenna as she frowned and stared upward. The frown started to dissipate into doubt as her eyes widened. "It...the sun...it hasn't moved since we froze," she paled when she noticed. The others looked up, same as her, and gaped. Kenna looked down at her digital watch, and probably hoped it was just broken or something, because she grabbed Coop's wrist and looked at his before shaking her head.
"Where are the people? Why can't I hear anything other than us? What's going on?!" Darian freaked out and looked around, about to stumble down the block searching for answers.
"They are there," I spoke up, struggling down from being held. I left a couple bloody handprints on Felix's clothes, but he didn't seem to mind as he continued staring at the sun.
You'll go blind dude, stop.
His eyes were watering until I reached up and put a bloody print on his face as I pulled it down.
"What do you mean, they are there? There is no one here!" Felix, breaking out of his stupor, looked like he was trying hard to not flip out and constrain himself to calm (almost) words. "I just came in a few minutes ago. Before that, there were children playing just over there, and cars coming by! Where did they go?"
I sighed heavily, unusual annoyance building up in my gut. This was taking too long, I realized as I tapped my foot harder on the ground. "You know what, making you realize is just a waste of time. I'll cut to the chase." Thinking up a way to explain it so they wouldn't look at me like I was definitely on something, I formed my words in the best way I could.
"The people are there, at least they will be there when time starts again, but for now think of it like we are in a place where time doesn't move. I have no idea why you guys are here now, why the people disappear every time, or why we are here at all. I don't know exactly what this is, but I named it to be a free time zone the first time it happened to me."
Then the sentence I had said seemed to strike a chord in me as I rephrased it as a question. It was a pretty good one, too. "Wait...why are you guys in here...?" It had only occurred to me now that I wasn't no alone. I would have smiled knowing I wasn't alone, if I hadn't known I would die the minute the free time space let out.
Also, when did the free time zone activate? The clock had been ticking even when the reaper was here earlier.
"We were with you the whole time. Ugh, hold on a second, I need to wrap my head around this," Darian was ruffling his head with both hands and putting on a scrunched face, showing how confused he was. Him showing that much emotion in one afternoon was as likely as the world ending.
Wait, my world was ending. Not funny, me. You are about to die, get it together.
"Don't worry, right now we have all the time in the world, almost literally. Actually, I'm surprised you believe me," I muttered, laying down on the lawn out of the porch's shadow and absorbing the sun. It felt great.
"Of course we would! You have a gigantic slit in your chest, your breathing, and when you move blood floats in the air! If time wasn't stopped, I would be pretty hard pressed for an answer to explain how these things were happening."
Kenna was shaking with disbelief as she stalked towards me from where she was and kneeled down, blocking my sun. I swatted her away so I could bask in it again.
Then...hmm? Oh she's right. The blood that lost contact with me was spread around in the air at intervals. Thinking it was kind of cool, I stared as they gleamed in the sun like red rubies with an amazed look on my face. I was tempted to hit it, thinking it would fly, but I knew it would only splatter smaller or stick on my finger.
They caught on to what I was thinking and started scolding me, but I didn't pay attention. They had completely (not really) calmed down, and that was what I wanted. They lost the momentum of their agitated emotions. The space could end at any moment, so I wanted to relax for a bit.
That didn't happen though, as I bolted up when my alarm flared again. My sun was blocked again, but I knew it wasn't Kenna.
I opened my eyes suddenly to see the black cloaked thing swinging down its beloved scythe at my face.