Page 18 of Haunted Hearts

What’s happening to me?

Someone,please, help! I want to scream. If I had a mouth, I probably would. But I am bodiless while I am everywhere, and I have no mouth to voice my fear. So internally, I scream. I scream until even my inner voice is hoarse. I scream until my soul is so weary that the world begins to blur and I’m neither everywhere nor nowhere. My fear has no bounds, just like my essence.

Willow.

My name seeps through my consciousness, breaking through my fear. Warmth slowly leeches into me. It settles my nerves and forces me to focus on something, rather than on everything. When my name is spoken again, I feel myself retracting. The Realm of the Dead vanishes, and I’m thrown back into darkness. But this time, it’s different. This is not the place I considered purgatory.

No, now I’m somewhere in the recesses of my mind. As my name is called for a third time, I begin to feel my fingers and toes. The sound of my heartbeat is deafening at first, before it becomes background noise. When I suck in a sharp breath, I taste clean air and can smell something delicious wafting nearby.

Willow. This time, I hear my dad’s voice as clear as day, right beside me.

Relief causes tears to pool behind my eyelids.I have eyelids! Though they feel too heavy to lift and the idea of trying to force them open feels much too daunting, my tears have decided they have no limitations. They squeeze through my eyelids and spill down my cheeks.

Dad. I know I don’t open my mouth to speak, but I feel his hand wrap around mine and squeeze it. His presence and his comfort cause the flood of tears to stall.

I am here, Willie. Sleep now.You are safe and home, he says, hearing me despite the fact that I did not move my mouth.

Knowing that I’m back in my body, present and seen, I allow myself to embrace the darkness and succumb to sleep.

* * *

I’m becomingthe nothingness again.

As sleep fades away and awareness creeps in, I can feel the sensation leaving my limbs. It steals my breath, before stealing even my ability to breathe. It sweeps me up and away, sending me out into the realm like a speck of dust caught in a breeze. No, no, no! Not again. Please no! My heart slams against my chest, hoping to break free from its confines, to escape the wretched feeling of being nothing and everything once more. I’m breaking away in pieces, little by little. Soon there will be nothing left of me.

“Shit, it’s happening again.”

A voice! I’m not alone. The surprise is enough to slow the panic building my chest. But only for a second. And in that second, more of me slips away.

“Willow? Can you hear me? Come on, Little Minx, focus on my voice. Don’t leave us again.”

I don’t want to! I open my mouth to scream but find that I can’t. While I can still feel my tongue now, I know it won’t be long until that too is gone.

There’s movement around me and suddenly I’m surrounded by warmth. My back is pressed against something hard and vibrating, and my hands are taken into another’s. Two others. I notice at once that one hand is more callused than the other.

“We got you,Soiel Ywab,” a voice says close to my ear. The callused hand squeezes mine tighter.

“Are you guys trying that thing Death taught us?” I can hear panic in this voice. “I can’t do this on my own!”

“You’re not alone, Jonah. Now keep calm for Willow’s sake.” This calm familiar voice is a bit further away, but it isn’t far. “Willow, can you hear us? Try to focus on our voices, we’ll try to help you stay in the moment.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about. How can he help me? I’m already halfway gone. In my head, I start screaming again as the panic blossoms. But then there’s a flash of heat barreling through me. It flares across my chest and yanks at me. The screaming in my head turns into a yelp of surprise. Before I can figure out what’s happening, another flare of heat, followed by two more, slide down and across my chest. With each flare, I’m yanked backwards. It feels like I’m stumbling around in the dark, finding pieces of myself as I go, and becoming whole again.

“It’s working!”

“Don’t stop, Jonah, focus.”

“That’s it, Little Minx, come back to us.”

“Breathe my queen. We can hear your heart fluttering, but we need you to stay calm,” Theo… always in control and so certain.

“Listen to my heart, Willow,” Kwil whispers into my ear.

His heart? It takes me a moment before the wild panic subsides enough for me to focus. When I manage to control it, I realize that I can feel the rhythm of Kwil’s heartbeat against my back, overpowering the soft vibrations of his skin. With each passing moment I’m pulled back towards them, back into myself.

“That’s right, just like that,” he praises after a few moments.

Finally, I feel whole again. My heartbeat slows down, and this time, when I slip back to sleep, I’m in the safety of my men’s embrace.

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