Kimberly stood motionless for what felt like forever at the base of her stairs. She felt him there, in front of her. As if the parallel between wherever he was and her was so thin she might be able to reach right through and touch him. She felt the hair on her neck and arms stand and she tried to fight off the nervous shaking that was beginning in her hands.

"Tommy," she whispered again and waited to no avail, so she continued, "Tommy, I know you're here. I know you can hear me. I feel it. Please, Tommy, please come back to us. Come back to me." She stood alone in the foyer for a few more minutes before the tears began to fall and she couldn't anymore. She dropped to her knees and sobbed, pounding her fists on the hardwood.


Tommy heard her pleading with him. It felt like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He couldn't understand it. His head was pounding from the pain and blood was getting in his eyes. He glanced around for something, anything that might be able to reach her. Then he saw it. A black Sharpie marker that must have been left behind was laying on the floor in front of the coat closet by the front door. Tommy stumbled over to it, he didn't realize how hard he'd hit his head until he stood up and had double vision. Still he picked up the marker and prayed it still worked. Then he got down on his hands and knees and removed the cap.


Kimberly, sobbing, tired and defeated, stood to return to bed and hopefully sleep. Something caught her eye just before she was about to turn off the light that lit the foyer. Something was moving on the floor by the closet. At first she thought it was a bug, but then she really saw it. Scrawled across the floor, in Tommy's awful handwriting were the words: I'm here, Kim. Her jaw dropped and she fell to the floor. Her hand traced the letters over and over for a few minutes and then she looked around, hoping to find something she could right with. There was a sharpie on her kitchen table. She got up and ran to the kitchen and grabbed it off the table. She tripped on the leg of a chair but kept going until she reached the foyer. She threw off the pen and began to write.


He stood, his bloody head pounding, waiting for anything. Underneath his scrappy words, he saw something appear. He couldn't make it out without more light so he picked up a few of the candles that had made it down the stairs with him and dug in his pocket for a lighter and lit them. As the candlelight illuminated the foyer, he saw her beautiful script below his that read: Tommy wake up. Please. His brow furrowed and he wrote under her words: Kim, you're dead. Why haven't you moved on?


Kimberly watched his words appear and she was utterly shocked. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she couldn't understand why he would think she was dead. She remembered that night. She knew how bad they both were injured. She knew they both could have died. Was she? Was this all her version of the afterlife? Was she going crazy?

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," she whispered, "What the hell is happening?" Tommy had been in a coma all this time. She gave birth to their son. She raised him and she cared for Tommy. She talked to him everyday. This was not some crazy afterlife, unfinished business ghost story. Was it? She knelt by his words and wrote.


Tommy waited patiently. He began to think that maybe this was the message she needed. Maybe her spirit didn't know she was dead. Maybe he wasn't as crazy as he felt. Then the words came across the floor: I'm not dead. You've been in a coma for five years.

"What the hell," he whispered and stood up, staggered backwards to the wall. Things started to come back to him. That night everything happened and their lives changed. He knew he lost her but he could still feel her presence. He could hear her voice. He 'd heard her voice all this time. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. The headstone was blank. Why else would the headstone have been blank? Could he really be inside his own head? Or was this some pull from the other side looking for him to join her in the afterlife? Nothing about this made any sense. Tommy dropped the marker on the floor and staggered to the stairs. The room at the top of the stairs made him so queasy, he couldn't stand to get near it but he remembered feeling sick and yet not wanting to leave the last time he entered the room. He stumbled to get there. The closer he got the sicker he felt but he also felt this magnetic pull in his chest, like he had no control over his own body. Finally he reached the door knob and threw the door open.


The writing had stopped. Kimberly's heart sank. Some part of her felt like this had to be the craziest dream she had ever had or she was actually going crazy. The writing on the floor was proof. She just wasn't sure about what, yet. Nothing prepared her for this. Strange things happened to them all the time as Rangers but nothing like this. Nothing this paranormal. How could she possibly be speaking to Tommy this way? Was his spirit finally returning to them? Had he left and just didn't know how to find his way back? Was she really dead and her own spirit just couldn't let go so instead, she created this afterlife illusion so she didn't have to let go? Just thinking about it had her head spinning and she couldn't figure out which way was up.

"This is crazy," she said to herself out loud, "This is absolutely crazy." She turned and went up the stairs. Each step, her feet felt like they were weighed down. When she finally reached the top of the steps, she stood stunned at what she found.


Tommy stepped into the former library and he looked around. The further he stepped into the room, the blurrier his vision became as he was becoming more and more light headed and nauseous. His head was pounding but at least the blood stopped flowing. Now it was becoming a dried mess on his face. As his vision clouded, things started to distort in front of him. He felt himself losing balance and he stumbled farther into the room and saw flashes of a chair, books on the shelves, hospital monitors, and a bed. Everything seemed to be spinning and he felt like at any moment he was either going to pass out or throw up or both. His head felt like it weighed eight thousand pounds and yet was floating on air all at the same time. He stumbled a little bit more and could have swore he saw himself on the fuzzy, wavy bed in front of him but his vision was so blurred and starting to go black that he couldn't be sure it wasn't just his mind playing tricks on him. This room was making him physically ill and he felt the need to run away but also didn't think he could move a muscle. With a sudden heave, he felt himself vomit onto the floor and then his vision faded and with that, Tommy fell forward toward the bed that he wasn't even there.