After Forever

by Krystal McLaughlin

  “Hello? Is anyone here?” I called out through the halls. Nothing.

  I rubbed my arms absently against the goose bumps that were starting to pop up. A shiver worked its way up my spine and I looked behind me, hoping to see someone. Still nothing. I was afraid to look into the rooms that I was walking by. There was an unexplainable fear taking hold of me and I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that was snaking its way through my bones.

  Phillip.

  His name rang through my brain and I began walking toward his door more and more quickly until I was running down the halls. The sound of my shoes hitting the tile was deafening in the otherwise silence of the building. I didn’t know what was going on. The only thought running through my head was that I had to get to him. I had to make sure that he was still here… that he was real.

  When I finally stood before his door, my heart beating from exertion, I was suddenly not sure I wanted to open it. If he wasn’t there, I would have to admit that something terrible had happened. Even if he was, I’d have to admit that something wasn’t right. Businesses weren’t run this way. People didn’t just disappear… buildings weren’t just left empty.

  Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I reached forward and turned the knob. Surprisingly, it turned and the door swung open. What I saw on the other side was something from a nightmare. Mallie, with her arms extended over her head and sparks flying between her fingers, stood over Phillip with an evil grin on her face.

  A scream tore from my throat and her attention shifted from him to me. “I won’t let you have him.” She said sweetly.

  Before I could ask her what she meant, she threw her arms down toward me and the blast of energy she sent my way knocked me off of my feet. Her malicious laughter was the last sound I heard before blackness took me.

  “Time is running out.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. “Why would you say that?”

  We were inside the house this time. I couldn’t remember ever having been in here before, but I knew instinctively that we were in his bedroom. He was lying on a huge four poster bed and I was sitting next to him, his hand tucked protectively in mine. Even in the dim light from a few candles, I could tell that he was ill. There was a pallor to his skin that hadn’t been there before. Dark circles framed his honey toned eyes, and a sheen of sweat covered his face.

  “Because it’s true,” he said sadly. “If you don’t find me soon, I’ll be lost forever.”

  I shook my head, confused. “I don’t understand. How can I find you when we are already together?”

  He brought my hand to his lips and I could feel the fever burning on his skin. “You have to find me in the other place… the other world. It’s only there that we can truly be together forever.”

  I gulped back fresh tears. “I don’t like the other place. Bad things happen there. I’m… different… there.” I lowered my eyes and let the tears fall freely. “You won’t love me there.”

  “I’ll love you anywhere Rory.”

  I looked up, hopeful, “but you don’t know what I’ve done.”

  “Yes I do, I told you – you’re a hero.”

  I shook my head. “The other you. You don’t know what I’ve done. I’m ashamed.”

  He laughed softly. “I’ll understand – I promise. I can help you. I can take care of you… all of you.”

  It was too good to be true so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to ruin what little time we had left together. Instead, I crawled all the way into his bed and lay down next to him. He held me like that for what seemed like hours. Murmuring promises into my ear and wiping the tears that continued to fall. I was so scared to lose him, that even the fever raging between us wasn’t enough to stop the chills that wracked through my body.

  “Aurora… Aurora! Wake up!”

  Cold water splashed on my face and I sputtered and flailed my arms as I struggled to sit up. Bright light assaulted my eyes when I opened them and I squeezed them shut. I tried to push whatever was holding on to me away, but my whole body ached. It was like my bones had shattered and then put themselves back together with pieces missing. I hurt… bad.

  “She’s fine, give her some space, Mallie.”

  My eyes flew open when I heard the name and my heart sputtered with fear. Her eyes looked into mine with malice and I wondered briefly why I had never noticed the evil that shined through them. I would have screamed then, but there was something wrong with my voice. I opened my mouth and moved it to form the words and sounds I wanted… but nothing happened.

  “I think that she is in shock,” Miss Merriweather said.

  For a second, when she looked at me, I was reminded of the two ladies from the bus. The warmth and goodness had radiated from them… just as it did now… from her. How could I have been so wrong about everything? I wanted to apologize, explain what I now knew was truth, but I couldn’t. My voice had been taken from me, stripped away so I couldn’t expose what I had seen.

  Things happened quickly then. I was lifted to a wheelchair – one much like those the other residents were trapped in. My body ached and cracked much like I would imagine an older person’s would. Then I saw my face in the mirror and I wasn’t even surprised by what I saw. A blank expression staring out of a wrinkled face. My body felt old because it was old.

  “Now Aurora, how did you even get out of your room?” Mallie asked nastily as she wheeled me into one of the rooms that I was pretty sure had been vacant before. “I guess that we are going to have to put everyone on lockdown again.”

  Right, I thought, so we can’t escape and expose this place for what it really was… something out of a nightmare. My dream came back to me and I could still feel Phillip’s arms wrapped around me. He had tried to tell me that we were running out of time. Had he meant this? Somehow I didn’t think that this was all of it.

  She spread the newspaper from earlier on my lap. “I thought you might be interested in this.”

  It was turned to the page about the family who had disappeared and there, staring back at me through the black and white photo was Phillip. I tried to pick it up to look at it closer, but it fell through my stiff and cracking fingers and pages scattered across the floor. Mallie laughed at my complete helplessness while she walked out of my room.

  The next few hours were the worst of my life. Visions of my brother and sister vied for prominence in my thoughts against visions of my mother. The truth was, when she had gotten sick, there was no one to work and no money to come in. So I had done what I had needed to do. I stole. Food, money, toothpaste. Whatever those kids had needed, I had gotten for them. Phillip called me a hero… the judge had called me a criminal.

  Now, with me tucked away in this body and this place, I couldn’t help wondering what was happening to them and how they were managing without me. I knew that Marcie and her family would care for them. At least until my mom was released from the hospital… if she was released…. But that didn’t ease my fears or the desperation I felt trying to choke me.

  Then, one morning after a night of restless sleeping, something amazing happened. Just as the morning sun began to rise and throw my room into a rainbow of pinks, oranges, and yellows, my body began to tingle and come to life. I threw the covers off of my bed and ran to the mirror. My own normal face stared back at me.

  Heart practically beating through my chest, I tried opening my door. It opened. I took a deep breath to give myself courage, certain that I would run right into Mallie. I was wrong. It was like I was in another place completely. I was inside my dream. Only instead of seeing Phillip outside of this stone mansion, I was greeted by the faces of hundreds of people.

  One of the ladies from the bus smiled sweetly at me from a few feet away. “Welcome Rory, we knew you’d come.”

  “Is this a dream?”

  She shook her head and a few of the other people chuckled. “No. This is our home.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She walked forward and put her arm around my s
houlder. “We are under a magic spell that keeps us trapped in an almost paralyzed state. You are the only person who can save us.”

  I backed away from her. “No. You’ve got the wrong person.”

  The other lady from the bus moved forward from the crowd. “No, Rory, we don’t. Phillip chose you to be our hero. He believes in you… and so do we.” She gestured to the crowd and I began to see familiar faces and features on faces. Every person whose room I had been cleaning for weeks now, was here. Just like me, they were all trapped. This couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t happen in real life.

  I gulped. “I don’t know what to do.”

  She walked me to the front door of the castle like mansion. “You will.”

  Just like that first day in the assisted living home, the door opened by itself. Mesmerized, I walked over the threshold and then jumped when the door slammed behind me. It was disconcerting to be alone after having so many eyes trained on me outside. I tried to open the door and go back out there… back to safety, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Follow your heart Rory, and you’ll find the way.”

  I turned back toward the interior of the front room and found myself looking at Miss Merriweather. Only she didn’t look like the nurse I had met that first day. She looked… magical… youthful almost and beautiful.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  She smiled sadly, “you had to find it for yourself.”

  The only light in the room was from candles which threw shadows around the room that seemed to shift and shimmer ominously. “This is crazy.”

  “There is magic in everything, Rory, you just have to decide if you are going to embrace it or run from it.”

  I took a step forward, remembering how it had felt in Phillips arms. How I had never felt like I had belonged anywhere as much as I had belonged with him. Another few steps and I had passed her on my way to the stairs. When my foot was on the first step I turned back to her… but she was gone and I was once again alone.

  There was a heaviness in the air it weighed me down. With each step I took up, it threatened to bury me, but I pushed forward. If this was my destiny, I couldn’t back away from it. I had to find the courage and strength inside of me to do the right thing.

  When I finally reached the landing, a blast of frigid air took my breath away. It was freezing up here. The hallway was icy and my shoe slid on the slippery surface. My teeth started chattering and my lungs protested when I was finally able to inhale the chilled air. Still I moved forward. Slow, but steady.

  There were three doors in the hallway and I when I opened the first one, I almost lost all of my strength. My little sister was lying on a bed with her hands folded neatly over her chest. I ran to her, forgetting about the cold and ice and just before I got to her, a blast of energy threw me backwards.

  “Oh Bella,” I sobbed. “What has she done to you?”

  Almost as if she had been waiting for me to ask that question, Mallie appeared. Only she looked even more evil and frightening. “I will give you your sister right now if you leave this place and never come back.”

  Tears where streaming down my face, hot and steady, leaving a moist trail for the icy air to cling to. It was so tempting to accept her offer. It would be so easy to take my sister, my small innocent sister, and put this all behind me. But Phillips eyes swam before me, steady and strong, giving me the courage and motivation to move on.

  “I will defeat you,” I told her with a catch in my voice.

  She threw her head back and laughed. “You are a fool.”

  The room darkened and when I turned back to Bella – she was gone.

  Unwilling to leave any room unchecked, I moved back to the hallway and tried to turn the knob on the second door. The metal was so cold that my hand burned when I touched it. For a moment I thought that the delicate skin of my palm was stuck to it, but after a few seconds, I was able to turn it and the door creaked grudgingly open.

  It was Artie. Sweet, brave, and fearless Artie. Only it was worse than seeing Bella lying in that bed. Artie was awake. I couldn’t hear him, but it looked like he was screaming at me from across the room. His arms were restrained with what looked like old fashioned manacles above his head and even in the dimmed light, I could tell that they were rubbing the skin of his wrists raw from his movement.

  “Artie!” I screamed, but I couldn’t get to him. My feet were glued to the floor.

  He pulled and fought the chains, with his mouth open, screaming words that I couldn’t hear. It was worse… so much worse than Bella. With every second, my desperation grew more intense as I fought against the invisible force keeping me in place. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Mallie returned and I fell to my knees, free at last.

  I ran to my brother, but it was like a wall separated us. I couldn’t feel it, but I couldn’t move through it either. Nor, could I hear what he was still screaming at me with tears running down his own face. His lips were turning a scary blue from the cold and I could I feel my heart breaking in my chest.

  “I will release your brother if you take him and leave this place.” She smiled toward him, enjoying the pain that marred his face. “If you promise to never return.”

  I closed my eyes and buried my face in my arms. It was tempting. So very tempting – much more so than before because I could see the pain that he was feeling. I even imagined that I could feel what he felt and I rubbed absently at my wrists while the pain of my decision sunk in.

  “No.” I said – slightly more forcefully this time. I looked up at her, hatred blazing through my eyes from the depth of my soul. “You will not win. I will beat you.”

  She narrowed her eyes slightly before throwing her head back and laughing. “No.” She told me. “I will devour you.”

  Once again the room went dark and when I looked for Artie, he was gone. The only evidence that he had been there were the manacles still dangling from the wall. I shivered, noticing that the air had grown even cooler. The puffs of white my breath made in front of me were practically freezing into icy clouds. My bones were starting to groan and crack with each move that I made.

  I moved slowly toward the hallway and paused when I saw my reflection staring back at me from a mirror. There were ice sickles dropping from stands of my hair and my eye lashes were frozen. My lips were a purplish blue and there were trails of ice where my tears had fallen.

  Forcing myself forward, I moved to the third door. The knob was hot. My skin sizzled when it touched it, such a contrast from the cold I was standing in. With extreme effort, I turned the knob. Heat blasted over me and I staggered backward a few steps. I had thought that any warmth would be appreciated after such cold, but I was wrong. It was like I was burning.

  A staircase loomed before me and I gritted my teeth against the burning air. My body protested the change in temperature, but I forced it on. There was a mantra repeating in my head. Right. Left. Right. Left. I forced first one foot and then the other up the endless stair case. I had to be climbing into a tower. There was no other explanation for the winding endless staircase. Toasted air blew past me, melting the ice in my hair and eyelashes. Sweat and water dripped down my face and shoulders making my clothing stick to my skin.

  Still I moved up. One step after another, I worked toward my destiny. I wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t give up. Just as I had refused to let my siblings starve, I refused to be the destruction of these people… of Phillip. I would save them.

  At first when my feet reached the landing of yet another staircase, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Then I noticed the door. It was the same ornate wooden door from the assisted living home. I was sure of it.

  “Phillip,” I whispered, my throat damaged and dry from the heat.

  As soon as the name was uttered, fire sprang up in front of me, blocking my way. I reached out toward it, hoping that it was an illusion and then cried out loudly when my hand was scorched and burned from the unforgiving flame.

  I sunk to
the floor, just out of reach from the fire, and leaned back against the wall. “I can’t do this,” I whispered to myself. “It will kill me for sure.”

  I wiped at my face, but in the heat my tears had disintegrated before they even left my eyes. It was then that I noticed my hand. The one that had been burned from the fire. It was healed. Rosy from the heat, but otherwise the skin was unmarred.

  Then I knew. I could do this. I pushed up against the wall and closed my eyes against the fear within me. Then I took a huge breath of air and took my first step into the flames.

  I wanted to move quickly. The flames licked at my clothes and skin burning them, devouring them, but the air was thick and movement was slow. I could smell the hair being singed from my head and face and body. It was an acrid disgusting smell. My vision was clouded with the smoke from my burning clothes and flesh, but still I forced myself forward.

  When I finally made it to the door, I knew that I didn’t have the strength to open it, so I fell forward and cried as the flames continued to chase me. The door flew open against my weight and I welcomed the cool air that greeted me. I lay there for seconds, minutes, hours… I wasn’t sure how long, just letting the air kiss away my burns and soothe my throat and skin.

  “Rory?”

  I froze. “Mom?” I whispered.

  It was my worst nightmare. The thing that I was so very ashamed of. I couldn’t bare the sight of my own mother. She wasn’t just sick… she had cancer… and I didn’t recognize her.

  I opened my eyes and realized that I was in her hospital room. Complete with her hydraulic bed and monitors beeping next to her. Tubes were hooked into her arm and an IV was dropping water and pain medicine into her veins. Her once beautiful long blond hair was almost completely gone. A few long out of place strands were clinging to her bald head giving her a sickly appearance. Dark circles surrounded her sunken in eyes and her normally golden skin was bleached white from the illness.