Chapter 5
Hours later, I unwillingly awoke. You know that feeling that you get when you want to keep sleeping but you just can't because you've met your sleep limit? Yeah, that's how I felt. I forced myself to sit up and look around the room. It was dark. That was my first observation. After a few seconds it clicked into my brain that it must be night. My second observation was that my stomach and my head didn't hurt as much as they did before I fell asleep. What had happened before?
Well, I seemed to remember trying to go to sleep and this really cute guy came in. I think it was Johnny Depp… Yeah it was Johnny Depp. Anyway, Johnny Depp came into my room and brought me some kind of drink. I think it might have been like tea or coffee or something. No it wasn't coffee because then I wouldn't have fallen asleep. It must have been tea then. Maybe that's what made me feel better?
I put a hand to my forehead. I didn't feel so sweaty and hot anymore. That was a good sign. With a heavy sigh I stretched and swung my legs out of the bed and stood up. I needed some fresh air. I stumbled toward the door and pulled it open. After leaving my room, I eventually found my way through the blackness and ended up on deck so I could get some fresh air and finally enjoy the ride a little.
It was such a clear night and the sea was very calm so the stars and the moon reflected off the water. With a slight smile I leaned over the railing and stared at the water. In the corner of my eye I saw a man come and stand at the railing a little ways away from me. I was about to turn and look at him when out of nowhere my stomach gave a huge jerk making me almost lose my balance. My heart felt like it was being ripped apart and my body felt bruised all over. What was going on?
I took several deep breaths as my legs shook underneath me. I wrapped one arm around my stomach and put the hand attached to the other arm over my heart, cringing from all the pain I was feeling.
"Oh gosh." I groaned.
"Are you all right, Miss?" the guy next to me asked. He sounded a nervous, but who wouldn't if they were in his shoes at this moment?
I shook my head. The next thought that ran through my head was the fact that I was going to throw up, and there was no stopping it. I grabbed the railing and tossed the tea I had downed earlier. I thought I would never stop puking at the rate I was going. If there had been a world record for throwing up, I would have won hands down. When I was finally done, I tried to stand straight and take a deep breath. The only problem with that was the fact that my lungs decided to stop working at that moment. It was like I was choking on something, but there wasn't anything stuck in my throat, I just couldn't breathe. My vision started blurring as I tried to hang on to the rail and stop myself from falling over, but I felt my grip slipping, and then everything went black.
X_X x_x X_X
"Are you all right, Miss?" I asked her. She looked like she was going to be sick.
She shook her head, and then she puked over the side of the ship. Poor girl. I figured she wouldn't want some random guy staring at her while she threw up and turned to leave. I had taken one step when I heard her start to choke.
I turned to her. "Are you choking?"
The girl swayed before her grip on the railing slipped and she fell toward the deck. I ran and caught her so she wouldn't end up with a concussion and listened for her breathing. I didn't hear anything and her chest wasn't moving, so I tried the Heimlich maneuver, but nothing came flying out, and she still wasn't breathing.
So there I was, standing with a mystery woman in my arms. She looked about eighteen, I had no idea who she was or where she had come from. The Heimlich wasn't working, she seemed dead, and I had no idea what to do—
I heard a loud click behind me. "Put her down."
Tensing like mad, I looked over my shoulder. The barrel of a gun was pointed between my eyes. I glanced down at the girl and back up at the gun. "Oh, is this yours? I was just wondering what I was going to do with her because I didn't know if she came with anyone, but I guess I can just leave her to you, then, can't I?"
"Put her down."
"If I put her down on the deck, you'll just have to pick her back up again. I might as well just hand her to you personally. She'll catch a cold if I set her down here. She's not breathing, so the faster we do all this the better, and I think that this whole mess will take less time to resolve if you don't have to pick her up again, not to mention the fact that if I did want to harm her, you wouldn't have your gun hand to shoot me with if you were using both arms. You should just lower the gun so you're arms are open to take her from me. I' won't try anything funny, I promise, and--I'm rambling, aren't I? Just don't shoot me."
The barrel was lowered and I focused on the guy in the red cape who was holding it. Must have been her boyfriend, I thought, shaking my head. Pretty dedicated boyfriend, if you asked me. He holstered his gun and took the girl from me, resting her head on his shoulder as he started to walk away.
I was just about to walk away myself when the girl started writhing and making odd noises. The man looked at her for a moment before looking back at me.
I put my hands up to show I was innocent. "I didn't do anything, I swear!" Then something clicked in my head, and I lowered my hands. "Wait a minute. May I please take a look at her? I promise I won't hurt her."
The man looked at the girl, whose movements seemed to be slowing, like she was dying. In fact, that was almost exactly what she was doing. He looked up at me, unsure, and then nodded.
I walked over to where he stood and checked the girl's vital signs. She still had a pulse, steady as a pulse could be, but she still wasn't breathing. She soon stopped moving, her eyes open and glassy.
"Is she dead?" the man asked.
"Myeeh, sort of. But she's not lost to us."
He looked up at me, his brow furrowed. "What can I do for her?"
"A phoenix down should do the trick. I'm guessing you know how to use one, so from here I leave it to you."
"Is that all? You do realize that phoenix downs don't work on the dead, don't you?" I could see fire in the man's eyes.
I swallowed and wrung my hands nervously. "Yes, I know. She's just unconscious. I-it's hard to explain. Just trust me."
The man stared at me for a few seconds, then turned to leave.
"Oh! One more thing: Don't show her to anyone else. They wouldn't be able to help her anyway."
He looked over his shoulder at me before walking below deck.
I could only stand there, staring after him and the girl he carried. I was bewildered. I didn't know anyone else had done what I'd done. I would have to talk to that girl when she woke up. If she woke up. I hoped the woman in my dream had been telling me the truth.
***
I felt groggy that next morning. I had been up thinking practically all night about that girl from the night before. In fact, I would have been thinking about her situation for the whole day if my stomach hadn't growled at me. Hunger defeats almost all thought.
Not able to ignore my appetite for another second, I got out of bed and put on my robe before I left the room and started heading toward the dining room. While I walked down the hall, I got lost in my thoughts again, but a different woman was in my head.
"This was a mistake. You weren't supposed to come here."
"Where am I? Can't you just send me back?"
"I'm sorry, but you can't go back."
"Why not?"
"You're body on Earth is gone, Shawn. If you were to try, your soul would disintegrate, and you will cease to exist"
"…You said this was a mistake, right? Why am I here, then?"
"I don't know. This experiment has more flaws than I expected."
"Was someone else supposed to come instead?"
"…"
When I focused on the real world again, I realized that I was not heading in the direction I'd been going before. "Why am I going backwards?"
I looked over my shoulder when my feet met the ground a second later and spotted the guy that had been with the girl from the night before. His hand was gripping the back of my robe.
"Oh, it's you. Good morning! Come to thank me, eh? That's very nice of you. Where is your girlfriend, anyway?" I asked, looking around him, searching for the girl. I looked up at him when I couldn't find her, and that's when I realized he didn't look too happy. Okay, that was an understatement. I think he wanted to destroy my very soul. "She's not your girlfriend, then? Maybe your sister, or cousin? Some distant relative?"
The man's grip on my robe tightened.
"Why didn't it work?" he demanded.
"She's your aunt, isn't she? Your granddaughter? She looks a little--didn't work? What do you mean it didn't work?" I now feared for my life.
The man let go of me and told me to follow him as he started down the hall. I did as I was told, and we soon reached the girl's room. I went through the door and saw the girl unconscious on her bed with a phoenix down over her heart. It hadn't been absorbed, and that meant that…
"She's not completely dead yet," I said, starting to wonder who this girl was.
"What do you mean? I already told you they don't work on the dead--"
"I mean, she has another self in another world that is only a shell. Part of her soul is dying with that shell. We need to give her time. The phoenix down will absorb when she's ready."
"Are you sure this will work?"
I looked at the man and nodded. "I'm sure."
He and I waited at her bedside for hours. I pushed the fact that I was hungry out of my mind and instead took to looking at the girl. She looked so familiar to me, but I couldn't put my finger on who she was.
It seemed an eternity before the feather on her chest dissolved into her skin and she looked like she was about to open her eyes. My eyes lit, and I looked over at her companion, but his face was blank. You'd think he'd be a little more overjoyed at the fact that I just raised his girlfriend from the practically dead.