2 Corinthians Chapter 12
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such a one was caught up to the third heaven.
How does one even begin to explain, being caught in between two astral planes at once. Not being able to physically get back into their body until they have seen what God has wanted them to see. Leaving them with the ultimatum of whether to stay or to go.
A loud piercing stream of light explodes in her face, blinding her by its brightness. The light is killing her, it is frying her howling brains, but she doesn't let it win. Too late for that now. The resonating of an explosive cry is what forces her hazy eyes to flutter open, that same ringing pounding in her ears like an unbearable screech of car tires.
Where is she?
What is going on?
Why has the all consuming tearing pain she has been feeling for the past twenty five minutes suddenly disappeared when it had been there for what only seemed like a mere second ago. It had been the most distinct and excruciating thing she has ever experienced in her seventeen years walking this earth and now it is just gone leaving her with a feeling of utter solace. The image of what she deems to be the beleaguered hallway is a blur.
She tries in vain to get back her focus, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to blink away the temporary ablepsia that is deceiving her at this moment in time. The whole nine yards.
When her eyes finally adjust she takes note of how eerie the hallway looks. It is like being trapped in a Stephen King horror novel the brilliant bursts of color it once possessed has been sucked dry and all that is left in its wake is something ugly and bleak. Surreal if you will.
Her hands moves to feel where the pain was previously fermenting but she feels none, in fact she doesn't feel anything. She can't feel the touch of her palms running over herself or the cool summer breeze that was blowing in from outside earlier. The knowledge of that fact begins to send her into a frenzied state of panic, her breaths beginning to come in shallow freaked out pants.
Hauling herself to her feet with great effort, she glances around her surroundings and walks towards the shattered glass door, she sees a few dark red beads dotting the linoleum and it only grows bigger until she stops before she steps in the river of rubies
Then she sees something that makes her rapid breathing stop mid-gasp. She straightens up trying not to retch at the sight. She wants to look away, needs to tear her eyes away, but she can not. Lying in a pool of blood behind the obliterated door is...her seemingly lifeless remains.
"This is a dream, th...that's all it is I'm dreaming" she mentally tells herself, as her terror mounts. But somehow even she knows that is a denial of the following truth.
Her feet begin to slowly approach her crippled form. No footsteps. Why can't she hear her footsteps? It feels like a dream within a dream and she wants to wake up. She is encircled by blood; a fountain of it pouring out around her. Her usually tawny skin, an awful milky pale and supposedly deceased along with beads of cold sweat at rest on her pale forehead. The blood is brilliant against her white skin.
Immediate shock sets in and she starts to shiver.
Her hands fly to her head, yanking at her straightened sandy hair like mad. This isn't happening, this can't be real. If she clicks her fingers she'll wake up and find herself in her bed thankful that it was all just some fucked up nightmare that she could forget about. Hell she'll laugh at it...right?
It has to be, because how is this possible?
She drops to her knees a wail tearing its way out of her throat. And begins pounding her fists into the hard floor, screaming but yet she still feels nothing. The only thing she feels really is simply seizing to exist.
She reaches out a hand to touch the shell that she has left behind but her hand goes straight through herself. So what does this mean now? Is she a ghost or something? She has never believed in ghosts. "Everybody just shut up, shut the hell up ok" she knew she heard something before and god how she knows that voice all too well, it was the cause of her waking up so suddenly. Waking up like this...Her eyes trail of to the closed door at the end of the doorway and she rises to her feet.
Her body is moving before she can even think and then she breaks into a run. Peyton ran in what felt like slow motion. She sees one of her own feet, clad in a brand new pair of sneakers, stride out and clop down. Then it disappeared behind her as the other foot strode out. All slow, slow. Like watching the baseball replay of a person trying to steal second.
Coming to a halt when she reaches the door. From where she stands, she can see Nathan, Skills, Rachel, Mouth, Marcus and a few other students she doesn't know the names of stood backed up against the back wall, their expressions almost identical. The perfect image of consternation.
She would've entered if she could but all she can do is watch from the sidelines as this misunderstood delinquent waves a pistol in all her friends faces.
"Jimmy please just let us go, you haven't hurt anybody so they can't arrest you. The most you'll get is a penalty" Mouth tries desperately to talk his friend down. Somebody has to.
Deep down they all know the truth he is going down for this whether he has hurt anybody or not and he has hurt somebody...that somebody is her. "Bull I've seen what they do to guys like me in there" Jimmy is a mess, fixated on the belief that what he is doing is the right thing.
"No Jimmy your wrong ok, your not gonna go to jail. You haven't done anything wrong, they'll put it down as some sort of breakdown. I mean you didn't hurt anyone right?" This time it is Rachel who speaks, her voice trembling and face stained with dried mascara.
Peyton's eyes glance expectantly to Jimmy who for a brief moment has a flicker of regret and mere terror in his coppery eyes.
"Right?" Rachel repeats a little louder, her voice bordering hysteria. Jimmy stands shock still, chewing on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. She can almost see him walking through his actions, as if trying to remember. He taps the gun to his forehead almost manically, letting out a quivering puff, he looks towards Rachel with scared eyes before choking out "I don't know".
"Jesus Jimmy" Nathan chortles with false humor, trying his best to take some of the heaviness out of the situation. But she loathes how she can hear the uneasiness laced within his gruff voice, she has never seen Nathan so scared in her life. "I don't know" he repeats sinking down to the floor and cradling his head in his hands. The others watched him carefully, no doubt anticipating his next move.
The frail chubby boy glanced up at all of them with dazed, wonderful eyes and Peyton can't tear her eyes away from the scene for the life of her.
"I'm so scared" he freely admits as his bottom lip begins to tremble, always a tell tale sign of the tears that would soon be following. "We know man, but this isn't the answer dog" Skill tries, not doing himself any justice in hiding the crack in his voice. No one can hide now, everyone who has ever carried themselves in such a way that no one had dared to mess with them, everyone who had ever shoved a kid into a locker or gave them a swirly or publicly humiliated anyone is now being revealed as the insecure people that they were and she can tell that, that was exactly what Jimmy's intentions had been.
"No...no you don't know, if you knew then you would've been there when my dad left me to get my ass kicked on the quad or when I hadn't been in school for months and nobody noticed" Jimmy cries waving the gun, frantically. "So this about popularity" Marcus finally spits out after having been quiet throughout the whole altercation, she watched as Jimmy's eyes flicker with hatred burning with so much flare she is surprised Marcus doesn't burst into twisting orange-red petals of fire, and then he is down on the floor before the gunshot reaches her ears. She rears back, her hands flying to her ears. She thinks she would be used to the sound by now.
"IT'S BECAUSE I'M FUCKING TIRED OF IT ALL!" He squawks his voice breaking with distress. It is a enough to shut the entire room up - a noise that heralds death and destruction. It broke the air in stark contrast to the voice of the birds chirping in the morning.
Rachel screams at the top of her lungs, and begins to sob uncontrollably covering her eyes from Marcus' bleeding form, they all watched in a trance of horror as he gags and choked on his blood to overcome with distress, something now all of them will have to live with on their consciences for the rest of their lives.
The girl who has been pale and sweating in the back corner, starts yelling bloody murder. Hyperventilating, and clutching her chest for dear life.
"YOU KILLED HIM, YOU KILLED HIM!" she shrieks over and over again, Peyton steps back from the door on the verge of throwing up, this day just went from bad to worse. First her, now Marcus. She sunk down the lockers opposite from where the door was, her own cries starting to wrench there way out of her throat.
She looks around her surrounding half expecting Marcus to appear next to her and realize that he is gone too but he never does come. Why is she the only one?
Her attention is grabbed when she sees members of the SWAT team creep through the front entrance and start signalling various orders at each other. Relief begins to seep through her but it is short lived when she notices a team member move towards her body. She scrambles from her place at the locker and bolts towards the tall dark swat guy who i checking her body over. "Get away from me" she tries to shout but it comes out more as a whisper, the man makes no inclination that he hears her which tells her all that she needs to know.
"She's alive but barely, her pulse is faint" she catches onto him breath out to one of his team mates. What? how can she possibly have a pulse, she is dead isn't she? if she isn't dead then what the hell is she, how can she see everything that is happening around her yet be outside of her meat suit?
The rest is a blur, she watches as they run and burst into the classroom leaving the man who has been looming over her to tend to her. And it is then another gunshot splits the air and she hears the chief at the front of his squad bark into his Motorola talker that the shooter has committed suicide and that they are about to escort the rest of the hostages out.
The man also says that there has been one casualty and there is a girl who was critical in need of medical attention who they will be bringing out. That girl is her.
She sees the figures of the students begin to emerge out the room before they actually come into her line of vision and her breath catches in her throat. All their attention begin to draw to her crippled figure on the floor, gasps and sobs coming from them when their eyes captured the mess that is her and then she sees Nathan lunge forward screaming her name but he is held back by one of the police force.
"THAT'S MY BEST FRIEND SHE NEEDS ME!" he chokes out as they pushed him off towards the exit, they can't do this, not to him. Not to Nathan, she knows how it felt wanting to be there for somebody and being completely powerless, oh how she knows that feeling all too well. He protests the entire way they lead him out the door.
Her eyes dart back down to the bloody mess before her as the man loops one of his arms under her knees and pulls her up carefully, nestling her safely against his chest. She watches in horror as her head lurches backwards and her arm drops lifelessly.
"I've got ya kid, I've got ya" he coes and she feels her patience reach boiling point.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR GET ME OUT OF HERE!" she screams at the man, and like he has just heard her he begins moving to the exit, she follows close behind him her breathing labored.
What does this mean for her, what happens now? Is she going to die?
Authors Note: There is the update guys, I know it's different but I didn't want to take the cliche route. I was inspired with this chapter when I watched Patrick Swayze's Ghost the other week and like when Lucas had his OBE after his heart attack the same thing is happening to Peyton. I hope it was up to your standards and there is much more to come. Thank you for previous reviews.
Thanks.