CHAPTER 5

"Join me."

Theo's eyes snapped open with a start. It took him a few moments to regain his bearings, but before long, the events of the previous night came back to him. He was in Lima - or rather some cheap, dodgy trailer park on the outskirts of the city - and he was stuck there. Without a working RV, he had no way of leaving. Virtually, he had nothing asides from a roof over his head, and an extremely beaten and banged up body from the night before.

He still had one question though… the voice. The voice that had woken him up. Who was it? It didn't take him long to find out. Slowly, Theo dragged himself out of bed, ignoring the screaming pain rattling around his skull as he sat upright. As he glanced around his trailer, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped slack with shock as he saw who was standing behind me.

"Join me."

Marley spoke again, Theo's late wife standing before him, her voice like a delicate echo, yet echoing with an inexplicable urgency.

"W-w-what?" Theo stammered, his voice barely audible, terrified that speaking too loudly would shatter the illusion and that Marley would disappear. He was unable to find the words to capture what he was feeling right now. Marley was alive! Or was she? There was something… different about her. She seemed like she was further away somehow, despite standing less than a few feet in front of him.

Staring at her gorgeous, beaming face, disbelieving that he could be reunited with his wife, Theo stumbled to his feet. He ran towards her, desperate to hold her again, desperate to feel her again. He reached out to take one of his wife's hands in his own, ready to feel the warmth that had been so endearing to him for 4 years, but all he felt was a biting cold. His fingers met only air like she wasn't even there, like she was a ghost.

"Join me."

As quickly as Theo's heart had soared, it plummeted. He had been so wrapped up in the throes of shock and longing that any common sense had evaporated, or at least been pushed to the background. She wasn't here. Of course she wasn't here! There was no way for him to ever be near her again unless he… well, unless he joined her.

"Join me."

Her voice quickened, ramping up in urgency. It was as if she was beckoning him to cross a threshold, to leave behind the realm of the living and embrace the afterlife where she now resided.

Theo and Marley had always possessed the uncanny ability to hold telepathic conversations. They didn't even need words to be able to know what the other was thinking, and somehow always knew exactly what to do to help each other. And right now, as Marley called out to him to join her, she was doing just that. She was encouraging him to join her in a paradise filled with nothing but joy and jubilance. She was encouraging him to break out of the prison cell, the hell loop, he called Planet Earth, to leave his sarcophagus of a trailer and reunite with her. She also knew that when they were together, they would be able to face whatever came their way. Theo couldn't do that while he was alone. He wasn't strong enough to do so.

All of a sudden, something changed. The dream shifted ever so slightly. Marley was still there, but something else also appeared in Theo's trailer. Theo's hands grew even colder as the eerie feeling of steel pressed into them. He didn't even need to look down to see what he was holding, his trembling finger curling around the trigger.

"Join me."

It wasn't Marley who was speaking anymore, but instead the gun in his left hand whispered the same sinister lullaby, enticing him, beckoning him, coaxing him to pull the trigger. It would be so easy. So simple. Just one pull and all of his pain and suffering would be gone. The weight of the weapon pressed against his palm like an anchor, a stark reminder of the darkness that lurked within him. He was going to do this.

Making the decision, any nervousness within him died, and instead, he felt more free than he had in 8 months. The tremor in his hand stilled to a halt, the beads of sweat forming on his brow evaporated, and the rapid beat of his heart faded into the distance.

"Join me."

BANG!

Theo shot upright, for real this time. It was all a dream, he told himself. There was no gun. Marley wasn't here either. This had all just been a nightmare. But Theo didn't feel in any way relieved by that. Instead he felt… disappointed. Another agonizing day on this Earth without Marley.

Theo sat up on the sofa bed of his trailer, the rest of the memories of the previous night flooding back to him, and he fought the urge to close his eyes once more and let the nightmares overcome him. To say sleep last night had been tough would be an understatement. Nightmares had plagued the few hours of shuteye he had managed to get, culminating in the chilling scene that had woken him up that morning.

As if on cue, Theo was hit with the wracking pain that he had grown so familiar with over the past 8 months. It was an inferno, consuming every fiber of his being in its flames. It showed no mercy, tearing through the fragile tapestry of his soul, leaving nothing but smoldering ruins in its wake. But as scaldingly hot as it was, the agony was also frigid cold. It was an icy river, creeping its way towards his heart, freezing everything it touched, rendering him emotionally numb. It was an invisible weight, an unliftable anchor that dragged him down with each step he took. It clung to his shoulders, pressing him deeper into the floor of his trailer, making even the simplest actions feel like an insurmountable burden.

Needless to say, Theo was already in a shitty mood, already on edge, as he clambered to his feet, running a hand through his disheveled hair and wrinkling his nose in disgust as the stench of alcohol and despair crept up his uninviting nostrils. His life was a mess, he thought to himself. The sooner he was on a first-class ticket out of this place the better. But he couldn't leave this world just yet. Not since his long introspection last night.

After getting his trailer towed to the trailer park late the previous night (or early that morning, depending on how you looked at it), Theo found himself unable to sleep. No… unable was the wrong word to describe it. Unwilling was probably more accurate. He had desperately fought back the impending throes of a nightmare-filled sleep for hours. This gave him plenty of time to think. He thought about Marley. He thought about being stuck here in Lima. He thought about everything. 8 months of being able to do nothing but think while stuck behind bars in juvie, and he still found himself pondering his existence some more.

He wanted out. That much was certain. He wanted away from this world: away from the pain, away from the suffering, away from all of it. But most of all, he wanted to be reunited with Marley. Every day away from her was a hell, an unyielding agonizing assault that he wanted nothing more than to quell. But unfortunately for him, as he realized last night, even if he died that day, he wouldn't be reunited with Marley, for one simple reason…

Theo was by no means a religious man. He had grown up in a religious, Christian household - as many Texans before him had too - but over time, Theo had begun to lose faith. Not only had he stopped going to church, but he had lost his faith in God, and in religion entirely. That being said though, on the off chance that it was all real, especially the concepts of heaven and hell, Theo was well aware that there was no way that him and Marley would be reunited after death. She would be up there in Heaven and him… well, safe to say he wouldn't be joining her, and would be instead taking a trip a little further south.

He couldn't allow that. He knew that he wasn't going to live forever - nor did he want to - but before he could go, he needed to redeem himself. Right now, he was at rock bottom, but he couldn't afford to stay there. He needed to live a life good enough to eventually make his way up to heaven. As soon as he had done that, he was ready to make his permanent exit from planet earth.

Unfortunately for him though, "redeeming" himself was easier said than done. The previous night, he had thought long and hard about how exactly he could achieve this. If it was even possible. How were you supposed to redeem someone who truly and utterly believed with every fiber of their being that they couldn't be redeemed? Someone who believed they were past the point of no return?

It took him a long time to answer this. Truth be told, he still didn't quite know the answer. The irony of that was all too evident to Theo: the only person who might know the answer, the only person who always seemed to know him better than he knew himself and always seemed to have the answer, was the person who he felt so guilty over losing. Eventually though, he came to 1 solution: he was going to clean up his life.

After Marley's death, everything had gone off the rails for him. The euphoria of winning the Texas High School State Football Championship had come crashing down around his ears on that haunting New Years Eve. He had pled guilty for vehicular manslaughter, so had been kicked out of school and sentenced to 8 months in juvie. That needed to be his starting point now, Theo thought to himself. Getting back into school needed to be step 1. He needed to complete his senior year, graduate, maybe even go to college. Whatever it took for him to feel like he could finally look himself in the mirror again, however long it took.

So glancing at the small clock at the corner of the room and seeing that morning was beginning to creep on him, Theo forced himself to feet, groaning every step on the way as he fought off an immense hangover as he prepared for the first day of his "fresh start". He first walked over to the fridge and opened it, but he quickly found that there was no food. Of course there wasn't. He hadn't been in this trailer for the better part of a year. He sighed, ignoring his growling, ravenous stomach, and instead began to gather whatever he needed for school.

After a few minutes of rummaging, he managed to find his old backpack and began to fill it up with whatever he needed. The last thing he did before leaving his trailer was picking up one of the small pictures he had of Marley, kissing it, and putting it in his bag. He then walked out of the RV and away from the sketchy RV park, ignoring the dirty looks he was getting from those around him as he did. He had a mission now: find the nearest high school and enroll.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Theo decided to go for a walk. The sun had just started to rise, and it still wasn't close to the start of the school day, and it had occurred to him that he hadn't quite seen any part of Lima yet. This would be the city he would be stuck living in for the foreseeable future and yet, after his drunken stupor the previous night, he couldn't remember seeing any of it. It was an hour into his walk though that Theo realized that there was quite literally nothing for him to explore. If the city looked run down last night, it looked even worse by the light of day. So instead, the boy found himself walking along the outskirts of the city. Somehow, he managed to find a walking and hiking trail of some sort, so he followed it for a while, burrowing within the lush shelter of the treeline.

An eternity later, Theo came to a clearing and he stopped dead in his tracks. For once, he was actually in awe of Lima, and the site that was before him. As the dense forest cleared, a small opening appeared. The tall trees that once engulfed the path now allowed for the warm, golden rays of the early morning sun to peek through. The clearing was alive with the sounds of rustling leaves and chirping birds. The sweet smell of wildflowers filled the air, intermingled with the earthy scent of the forest. As Theo stepped out of the tree line and into the clearing, a breathtaking view awaited him.

The town below was so small, yet bustling with life. The rooftops glimmered in the sunlight like precious gems, and the sounds of an early morning rush floated up to his ears. The contrast between the peacefulness of the forest and the liveliness of the town was stark, but the clearing was the perfect vantage point to take in both.

Marley would've loved this place, Theo thought to himself, as he sat down in the clearing. It was perfect for her. She had never loved living in the big city of Austin, Texas. She had always much preferred the peaceful tranquility of a small city, like the one Theo himself had grown up in, and Lima not only provided that, but was still full of life. Just like she was.

Sitting there in the clearing and watching the sunrise, it reminded him of all of the mornings that him and Marley had climbed to the roof of her house and done just that, all bundled up in blankets together. The familiar aching pain in his chest amplified considerably.

"Hey, babe. How are you today? I hope everything's going well for you up there." Theo whispered, staring up at the sky as he spoke to his wife again. "So I'm here. I'm in Lima. Don't worry, I'll be with you soon. But something doesn't feel right."

Theo looked down at his feet for a moment, before staring back up at her.

"I know I need this fresh start if I want to have any chance of being with you again, but I just… I don't feel like I really want a fresh start to be honest. I definitely don't feel like I deserve one. It all just feels so unfair. Why do I get a new start but you don't? Where's the justice in that?"

Theo gulped and took a deep breath.

"I just feel really guilty. About everything. About what happened to you. I don't know what to do next."

Theo sighed.

"You were always so good at guidance, you know? The biggest things and the smallest things, you always just knew what to do. You made life so easy. You seemed to always have all of the answers. And I guess when we were dating, I figured that at some point, you'd have rubbed off on me enough that someday, I would too. But now, without you, I just… I feel like I'm clueless. Makes me wonder whether it was the same for you, and you were just better at hiding it."

Theo forced himself to keep his emotions at bay as he continued to speak to her. He spoke to her for a while longer, before eventually he was forced to drag himself away from the clearing as it was time to head to school…