A curious feeling tingled through her spine, and she suddenly existed. She hadn't felt not existing, which must've been what she was before, but she knew there was a difference.
She'd been here before, but when escaped her memory. In fact, everything did. She knew things that were general knowledge or could be learned at school, but what school she had learned at or even the simplest things like her name wouldn't come back to her. She didn't mind, though. She felt okay here. Safe.
And then something felt off, and she realized she'd have to stand up soon at the same time that she realized she was lying down.
It was white, white all over. There were no real doors, only the lonely, unfilled doorframes that led to more of the white, seemingly never-ending hallways. Yes, something was definitely off in here. She could see the illusions for what they were, but that didn't stop them from creeping in through the edges of her mind.
She stood. Her eyes were immediately drawn to her hand, which she held out in front of her stomach. The hands seemed to flicker in and out of her existence, like a faulty light bulb. As she glanced up and down her body, she confirmed that all of her was like that, somehow flickering in and out of existence like the light bulb.
She moved around and walked through doorways, desperate to get out of this place. She wanted to find a mirror, to see what she looked like; she wanted to meet people, to see if anyone remembered her and could help her remember, too. Just when she was beginning to think she wouldn't be able to find anyone, she heard a man calling out to someone.
"Audrey! Audrey!" he yelled, obviously frustrated and worried. His black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but he looked nice enough. As she moved closer, she started to wonder why he didn't ask her if she had seen this girl, Audrey. When she moved close enough, she got her answer. He walked right up to her, right through her, and right past her.
Oh, she thought, so I'm a ghost. She didn't have time to let the revelation sink in. The man just kept on walking, and since he felt more friendly and familiar than the dreaded building that was beginning to seem like an exitless maze, she decided to follow him in the hopes of finding a way out. Unfortunately for her, he wasn't even trying to look for an exit, just wandering the endless corridors aimlessly, searching for his elusive "Audrey."
He didn't find her, but he did find another man. This one was familiar as well, even more so than the long black hair man.
"What's happening?" the new man asked, a small, confused frown on his face. In a lower voice, more worried like the other man, he asked, "Where is she?"
"I haven't found her yet," he replied, not bothering with the first question. "Come on. We have to keep looking." He walked off in yet another direction.
Before following, he looked around and muttered to himself, "It wasn't like this last time." Then he took off at a jog to catch up with the other man.
The walls suddenly started flickering the same way she was. It made her feel dizzy and weak, and she collapsed into a sitting position. She instinctively reached her hand up to her nose, and when she brought it down, it was stained red with blood. The men wandered back over to where she was.
"James," the man with the longer hair began, "where did the barn go?"
She realized that they couldn't see the barn any more than they could see her. Both she and this barn must have been on the verge of existing and not existing, of dying and not dying. Cautiously, she stood and moved forward. Perhaps she could see outside like the men. She stumbled toward the white wall. It switched between being transparent and opaque quickly, so she couldn't see through it very well, if at all.
She walked through the wall like James and his still nameless friend had. The barn tried to pull her back, but she moved out into the world, not letting it be her prison. Things all seemed to be okay and natural until she noticed the bodies. They were littered around; a black-haired woman, a black man in a suit, and another man. This one…she wasn't sure what it was about this one, but she ran up to him faster than she could think of why she was.
There were dark red stains nearby him and surrounding him, telling her that he'd already lost a lot of blood. In fact, with the amount of blood he'd lost, there was no certainty that he'd make it, especially since he wasn't in a hospital, just bleeding out in a field. Her mind told her his name was Nathan, and she wished her mind would tell her more, perhaps something useful like how to help him.
Of course she knew him. It felt like she had always known him, even though she didn't remember ever meeting him. He couldn't die, not today. She leaned over him and placed her hand on his, though it slipped through it like it did for everything else. That got his attention. He seemed to look right at her, though that couldn't be true. No one else had seen her; why would he?
But his eyes found hers, and she knew he wasn't just looking up at the sky. "Hey, Parker," he croaked out, his handsome features forming a smile.
"Nathan," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she could hear the fear and sadness choking her.
He smiled. "Are you really here? Did I stop it?"
"Yes," she lied. "I'm here. You got me out." It was remarkable that she was able to hold the tears in at all, but she had to stay strong for him. If he really was going to die, his last sight wouldn't be her crying.
He looked down at her hand in confusion, and she realized it still went through his. She quickly pulled it back, but it was too late. "You're lying," he told her. "You're not really here. I guess that's okay, though. I can still feel you."
She tried not to show her confusion. The least she could do for this man, who she could tell meant quite a bit to whoever she had been before, was pretend for him in his last moments.
"Nathan!" she heard someone yell from behind her. She looked up. It was the man whose name she still couldn't recall. He didn't see her and nearly stepped where she was sitting.
"Careful," Nathan warned. At the risk of sounding crazy, he added, "Watch where you're stepping."
He ignored that statement, probably writing it off as the blood loss talking, but he didn't step where Nathan told him not to. "We need to call an ambulance," he said, stating the obvious. She snorted, and Nathan grinned at her. James found them where they were, and his eyes widened slightly.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nathan got hurt," the other man answered, still dialing furiously on his cell phone. "Dammit! No service. I'm going to run that way," he said, then ran off as fast as he could.
She looked down at Nathan. "They can't see me," she offered as an explanation.
"Hmm. I guess it's because of what I did to Howard."
"Howard…you mean the black guy?" she thought out loud, then regretted it immediately.
"So you don't remember?" he asked. She sighed and shook her head.
"Uh, Nathan…Dad?" James asked, his confusion etched into the lines of his face. "Who you talking to?"
"Your mom." Her eyes widened, and she looked over at James. Seeing as how she and Nathan were still fairly young, that didn't even make sense. How could they have a son who was around their age?
She suddenly felt incredibly dizzy and slumped over.
She heard whispering coming from somewhere above her and opened her eyes to see the man who was in a suit and dead leaning over her. "How are you doing?"
"Fine. Where are we?"
"Right to the point, I suppose. We're in a place that doesn't exist."
"Do you hear yourself when you speak?"
He chuckled, but then his expression turned somber again. "The cycle has been broken, but not in the best way. If nothing is done, you'll fade until you don't exist. There's only one way to be certain that you won't."
"And that is…" she said, trailing off to let him continue.
"Killing the one you love."
"No," she said without hesitation, knowing without any need for her memories that he meant Nathan, and even though he was dying, she wouldn't, couldn't, do that to him. Not for selfish reasons.
"You were sent into this to be punished. If you do this, shortening his life by only a few minutes, you could have your life back. If you don't, well, that's the end of you, and I don't just mean Audrey Parker you." After a moment of thought, he added, "Killing him would take away the troubles, while not doing so would keep them around forever." He stretched to his full height, having given his entire argument. "Your choice, of course. The entire town of Haven will suffer if you don't make the right one."
In an instant, she was back exactly where she had been, with Nathan by her side looking worried. Ha. He shouldn't have been worried about her. Maybe he should've been worried because of her.
"Audrey?" he asked questioningly, unsure if she was really there.
"I'm here."
"Where did you go?"
"Was I gone?"
"Parker," he said firmly, not buying it for a second.
She tried to hold her ground but looked into his eyes and saw that she couldn't win. "That was Howard."
He gestured toward the federal agent's – or whatever he really was – body lying only yards away from them. "Yeah. That one."
He raised an eyebrow, and she could sense that he was about to ask more questions. She didn't even know what the troubles were, but her instincts told her they were bad, and if she had the opportunity to stop them, she should. But her love was far too much to ask, even if he was dying and she couldn't remember him.
His eyes flickered to her face, reading her expression, and he asked, "What's wrong?"
She tried to shake herself out of it. "Nothing. It's fine." She plastered on a fake smile, but she could tell he wasn't buying it for a second. "Nathan," she tried again, "don't worry about it."
"There's something to worry about?" he asked, and she pulled off a shaky laugh.
"Oh, there are so many things to worry about."
James gave his father a funny look and decided he would go help Duke with whatever was taking him so long. When she put a bit of thought to it, she wasn't even sure how she could kill Nathan; she couldn't even touch him, much less kill him. His smile was faded, though, and she decided to just focus on keeping him company for what would almost definitely be his last couple of minutes.
"True enough. Now what did Howard say?"
"Nothing," she answered automatically.
"Audrey," he said, and she knew that she had to answer him.
"I have to kill the one I love, which really sounds like it comes from some bad movie, but apparently if I don't, the troubles will stay forever, which sounds bad. But I can't even kill anyone like this, and I wouldn't if I could. Okay?" she said in one breath.
"Audrey. I'm dying anyway. And I can feel you when you touch me, even now. You're Agent Officer Parker, and you know pressure points that can knock someone unconscious, in this case for the last time." He spoke as if he were talking to a small child about something easy and trivial, not to a ghost girl about his own death.
She shook his head. "No. I said no, and I'm going to keep saying no."
He sighed at her. "Are you really going to be stubborn on this, Parker? How would it change the outcome? Either way, I die, and if you do this, you'll be helping countless people." His words tugged at her inner logic. As much as she didn't want it to be true, it seemed like the only answer.
"What if I don't want to live here without you?" she asked in a small voice, feeling slightly childish.
He let his hand drift into hers, but before he could reply, his eyes glazed over. "Nathan!" she yelled. "Please," she added at barely a whisper. She knew that this was her chance; she had to do this now or she had damned hundreds of people, maybe more, but she couldn't think of anything but him and his unseeing eyes in that moment. Before she could even think of being ready to respond, his hitched breathing ceased completely.
She already began to lose what few memories she had gained. The barn seemed to be more transparent now than opaque, and it rarely flickered anymore. When she looked down at her body, she discovered that the same thing was happening. She felt like crap. Her head started pounding, a pain that was growing by the second, and her nose had started bleeding again.
Nathan was dead. She understood all the things that were happening now. She and the barn would really be gone, and the troubles would stay forever, all because the only chance to change it was gone.
Maybe her loving him had put him in too much danger. Now the world was probably ruined, or at least this little segment of it was. Her concentration faltered, though, and she couldn't think of anything particularly profound as the pain, blood, and exhaustion overcame her. The world crackled into a nothingness that she didn't feel any more than she had before.