It was weird being back home.
Everything was so different but everything looked the same. Perhaps it was just the atmosphere, but I felt like something was out of place and I had a strange feeling that it was me.
The first thing I had done once I was alone with myself in my room was look into my mirror. Not counting the casts, bruises and paleness, I looked fine.
I peered closer, tilting my head one way and then the other. Something was off.
My eyes. Was it just me or had they changed colors?
I sat back, figuring that my mind was playing tricks on me. My eyesight was probably a little off too.
I stiffened, feeling eyes on me.
I turned towards my door and saw my mom standing there, leaning against the door frame. Her arms were crossed and she was studying me silently. When she realized that I was staring at her, she gave me a sad smile.
"Mom," I said, "I'm going to be okay."
They were words that I knew she was debating on telling me. She had never lost friends at the age I was or had ever had an experience like I had. Well, not that I knew of anyway.
She smiled at me like I was comforting her, her eyes slightly watering.
"I know you will," she whispered, not able to make her voice any stronger.
I stood and walked over to sit on my bed.
She sat beside me and pulled me into a hug. She was squeezing me so hard that I was afraid she was going to squeeze all the air I had left out of me. But I didn't pull away.
I don't have kids but I know that I would not my child to die, especially at such a young age.
"I'm sorry," she said pulling away. "I'm probably hurting you."
I shrugged. "Mom," I said then stopped unsure of what to say.
She turned towards me, tears streaming down her face.
Guilt washed over me. I hadn't brought myself to cry yet. Why hadn't I?
"When I got that phone call," she told me, her voice on the verge of breaking, "I... I had a heartattack. I didn't... even think to consider your if your friends were okay. I could only think of you. And when I was told that Alicia and... Chris had died and that you were going to live, I was so relieved. So relieved that I hadn't lost you. And then I saw Alice's mom crying her heart out. How was I suppose to comfort a woman for losing her child when I was so glad that I hadn't lost mine? I felt so... I don't even know. I just held her, not saying a word."
She broke down then and it was my turn to put my arms around her as she cried, slowly rocking her form side to side. Something she had always done when I was little to comfort. How dramatically the roles had changed.
My eyes watered as I thought about Alicia, Chris and both of their parents.
I didn't have the heart to tell her about my experience. I couldn't predict how she would act if I told her that I died and that for a few moments, I had lost her and she had lost me.
"Are we in hell?"
The whisper reached me through all of the images that flashed through my mind.
"Morgan, are you okay?"
The familiar voice echoed and caused me to wince.
I wanted so desperately to cry out. Alicia!
Mumuring reached my ears. Voices I recognized. Voices I didn't.
Their words clashing into each other until they didn't even make words but meaningless jibberish.
Then fierce, loud words reaching me. "You're not suppose to be here."
I gasped, sitting up, fully awake.
I had forgotten all about that voice. Those words.
Someone had brought me back. Someone thought I wasn't ready to die. That I wasn't suppose to. Not yet anyway.
The question was, who?
And why?