by Kim Cormack
Angels wouldn’t be crying. Her heart leapt. “Daddy?” She whispered, “Can you see me?”
Her father knelt before her and she was afraid. What if this wasn’t real, just a cruel taunting nightmare. He reached out and touched her shoulder. He was real. Her father opened his arms and she sprung into his loving embrace.
He cradled her, sobbing, “How… How are you alive? How are you here with me?”
Tears blurred her vision as she whispered, “Are mom and the boys with you?”
“No,” her father choked out, “They’re gone…I thought you were gone to?” They clung to each other and sobbed.
They were still crying in each other’s arms by the side of the road when a police car pulled up. An officer got out and exclaimed, “Oh my God!”
Melody’s father looked up with his eyes overflowing with tears of joy and replied, “Exactly.”
After experiencing Melody’s first death and resurrection as a Healer they moved through her immortal experiences to the day of her Correction. When the Correction had come for her, Melody had been afraid, but instead of succumbing to her fear, she had blown up her house while blinded by fury. None of them had seen the dark side of Melody but now they knew what she was capable of. When it was time to redo the events they all watched as she made the conscious decision to remove her seat belt once again and allow the scenario to unfold just as it was meant to. Melody was ready to battle in the crypt. She had chosen to keep everything the same. She understood the concept of what was going on. Melody was advanced emotionally beyond her years but this was a common trait for a Healer to possess.
Zach’s Sweet Sleep
The school bus dropped Zach off, temporarily blinding him with dust from the rural road they lived on as it pulled away. His three younger siblings walked behind him with their backpacks in tow. They knew better than to attack him with chatter after school. He’d smack one of them with his bag in a heartbeat. School was not easy for him and his home life consisted of a house load of children with not an inch of personal space. Zach had not even come close to learning to appreciate what he had, before it had been taken away. His yard was a scavenger’s dream, adorned with shells from trucks amidst thigh high weeds. His younger siblings raced past him into the front door of the house as Zach chucked his bag down on the sundeck and made himself comfortable on the porch swing. He took a moment to treasure silence while slowly beginning to swing. All he could see for miles was cornfield and blue sky. A small chill, a nagging thought that something was off. What was that scent in the air? He’d felt strange all day. A murder of crows took off from the center of the field. Was something out there? He was curious for a second. Maybe he should go check it out? He decided against it and continued to enjoy the peace and quiet. His mind prodded, murder of crows. Anything could be hidden in that field. It was probably just their dog chasing crows. Usually their dog met them at the bus. He stopped the repetitive creaking of the swing for a second. Where was the dog? It was too quiet. There was no commotion and no familiar sounds of laughter, or his siblings fighting coming from within the house. There was usually something to irritate him but today there was not a sound. It was both wonderful and unnerving. Zach had three older siblings; he was a middle child so he was never the one in charge of the younger ones. Why did he have this nagging feeling like he should be paying attention today? It was weird…His younger siblings never left him alone for his porch swing ritual.
Zach spent a good hour on this rickety old porch swing each day dreaming of his future. Right now, he was just a scrawny built sixteen-year-old boy with moderately passable grades who dreamt of hopping on a greyhound bus and leaving this place forever, but a part of him secretly feared he’d be stuck here with no options for the rest of his life watching this empty cornfield. He lived in a house with six siblings, his grandparents and mother. Zach was the only one in his entire family that was unattractive. Even his grandfather was better looking than he was. A girl at school today had said it best. She told him he should get an afterschool job standing in people’s yards scaring off crows. A dozen crows suddenly lifted off in flight from the field...Again? That was a weird thing to happen twice. It was probably the dog. He thought about calling the dog’s name but decided against it. If he made it known that he was out here relaxing the silence might stop. Once again, he noticed the lack of noise coming from the house but chose to ignore it. The phone started to ring. It rang ten times. Nobody was picking it up? He swore and thought, frig, there is like ten people in that house and not a damn one of them can get off their asses and walk five feet to answer the damn telephone. It stopped ringing and then started again. Oh, Come on! He let it ring out of sheer stubbornness as he began to swing again with the steady creaking sound. I’m such a rebel. The phone began to ring again and the quite murmuring in his mind that had been whispering something is not right began to scream. He stood up; the wind whistled past him, blowing an empty juice box across the wooden porch. It made an oddly loud sound as it scraped across the wooden deck until it hit the front door. One of the kids had left the front door slightly ajar…That was strange. As the phone began to ring for the fourth time unanswered, he launched himself to his feet and began to swear. He ran into the house and grabbed the phone off of the end table. “Hello?” he said as the voice on the phone informed him that his mother hadn’t shown up for her shift at the diner.
He responded, “I just came home from school. Give me a second, I’ll check and see if she’s here.” She must be deathly ill. She never misses work. Zach carried the phone with him calling, “Mom?” as he ran up the stairs that creaked under foot. He pushed open his mother’s bedroom door. She wasn’t there? He placed the phone to his ear and said, “She’s not here. I have no idea where she is, but she would never miss work unless it was an emergency of some kind.” Her boss seemed genuinely concerned, not angry. He asked Zach to get her to call work as soon as he found out where she was. Zach kept walking through the house. Where in the hell did everyone go? He checked each bedroom and nobody was there. He passed by the kitchen and saw his mother’s purse and the car keys on the counter. The house was ominously empty.
He ran back outside and walked around the back of the house. The field rustled. Could they be playing a game with him? Logic told him his mother wasn’t skipping out on work to play a prank. What was the other option? They all disappeared for no reason? Her car was there and her purse. She could have forgotten her purse. Maybe one of his grandparents had to go to the hospital? The car was still here. Where was everyone? This didn’t make sense. The cornfield rustled again in the distance. There was someone out there, he was sure of it. There had to be a logical explanation for this. There was a logical explanation for everything. Zach felt sick to his stomach as shivers raised every hair on his body. Oh no…He found us. He sensed someone behind him but before he could turn he was hit over the head. His vision wavered as his ears rang for a second and it all went black.
He was being dragged into the cornfield by his legs as he awoke with his head scraping and bouncing in the dirt. He remained as limp as he could as his survival instincts kicked in from his years of abuse. He had to play dead. He’d lived this exact moment before. He heard shrill screams but kept himself from stiffening in response to their pleas. He was the middle child, one of the older ones would help them, knowing once again that his job was ugly whipping post, not savior. His father had found them. He’d always found them, it was only a matter of time. No matter how far they moved. He’d always found them. His father had despised him from the moment of his birth. The older three and the younger three were his, but Zach had been sired by another man during a time when his mother had successfully gotten away from him. She’d given up running for a while until the beatings started again. Once the adorable baby disappeared and Zach, the child that was not his became visible, his father began to beat his mother again. Zach knew he was a constant reminder that his mother was capable of finding freedom. Zach had been beaten savagely o
ne night and when his mother came home from work, they ran again, with all five of his siblings. His father of course found them again. The last time they ran his mother was six months pregnant and Zach had been beaten to a pulp. He had to play dead, for this was the only road to survival for him. He had been pulled for what felt like forever deep into the field. He remained limp as he was kicked into a hole. He rolled into it while still playing dead, for if he moved it would only bring more pain. He was on his side in the dirt. The smell of the moist earth was thick with the scent of rich manure. He could smell something else... It was smoke. Smoke so thick the scent burned his nostrils. The screaming had stopped. Until the shrieking disappeared Zach hadn’t allowed his mind to think about why they could be screaming. It was only now in the silence that he wondered if his father could be heinous enough to burn his own children alive. He wouldn’t do that. Why search for them and then kill them all? He felt something heavy thrown in the hole with him. The weight of it and size was jarring. He was paralyzed with fear. This was no longer the stealthy wisdom of survival. He was sure someone else’s body had been thrown into the earth with him. If it was one of his older siblings, they might be playing dead. The beatings were usually reserved for Zach and his mother. Something light was thrown over them… A blanket perhaps? Maybe his father just didn’t want to see what he was burying. Zach felt freedom under cover of the blanket. He opened his eyes. He was facing away from his grave companion. Zach felt the trickling weight of the earth and the repetitive sound of the shovel. Oh god, please help us, he prayed while trying to remain calm. He couldn’t move his chest or breathe too heavily or the grave digger would know someone had survived under the blanket. He was being buried alive. They were being buried alive. His mind whispered, don’t move. No matter what…Do not move. He does not have time to do anything more than cover us up. If the house is burning someone will come to save us. He could hear muffled voices as the heaviness of the dirt above them began to silence the outside world. Was there more than one voice? He was sure it was more than one voice. They had air, a small amount of air under the blanket. He began to count to a hundred slowly in his head. He would wait until he reached one hundred before attempting to move. At about forty, panic set in. Zach kept telling himself to stay calm, use your mind. Zach reached the edge of the blanket and began clawing at the earth with his fingertips.
Zach whispered, “Who’s in here with me? Are you alright?” There was no answer, no answer at all. He could smell something... Cologne. It was Johnny. He was only a year older than Zach and the only one of the boys who wore it. Why would he hurt Johnny? He was his favorite. Maybe Johnny tried to save him? With a clear head, Zach vigorously clawed at the ground. He struggled under the blanket but the weight of the dirt kept the earth solid above them. Help us! Please help us! He was going to have to move the blanket but that was the only thing keeping the pocket of air with them. It had to be done. Zach peeled the blanket from around his face and the dirt slipped into the gaps, smothering him. He kept attempting to take shallow breaths but there was no oxygen. He was breathing in the earth. Right when his head was about to explode from lack of oxygen, it seemed the hand of the savior himself broke through the dirt and pulled him out. Zach was gasping for breath, sputtering out the soil, choking out his brother’s name, “Johnny.” Zach, covered in mud, saw the group of strangers that saved him. He didn’t have time to discover if they were friend or foe as he frantically dug his brother out and pulled him free from the shallow grave. The whites of Johnny’s eyes were open and speckled with the putrid smelling earth.
His brother was gone. Zach began shaking him while begging, “Wake up! Wake up! No! Please no!”
It was Triad that had saved him from his grave. Tiberius said, “He’s gone kid. He’s long gone. We need to get out of here if you don’t want to join him.”
“I can’t! What about everyone else?” Zach panicked.
In an almost kind voice Tiberius replied, “They’re all dead. Trust me, even if they weren’t dead, you’d be coming with us.
No… They can’t be… No…” In shock Zach stared at his brother’s dead body and asked, “Why did you save me? Who are you?”
“I’m Tiberius and we are Triad, nice to meet you.” Tiberius grabbed Zach’s hand, roughly turned it over and branded Zach’s flesh with his ring.
The sensation of his melting skin stunned Zach momentarily but he didn’t scream. Zach could turn most pain off, for sadly he was used it. Zach’s battered mind valiantly attempted to reel through the horrific events. Dead ... They can’t be dead. Zach whispered, “Triad, is that a biker gang?”
Amused by his biker gang comment, Tiberius smiled and said, “No such luck ... Sorry man,” as he unceremoniously snapped Zach’s neck like a brittle twig. The vision faded to black.
“Call this a hunch but I have a feeling he is going to attempt to redesign these events and blow it. He’s never had closure,” Orin declared.
Once they had all experienced the end of Zach’s life, they each knew that the boy had endless possibilities if given the proper guidance. The survival instincts from his years of abuse would come in handy down his road.
Jenna looked at Lexy and declared, “He might be the sleeping Dragon.”
“What do you mean by that?” Lexy asked.
Jenna smiled and explained, “I have it on good authority that if one of them becomes a Dragon during their Testing, they all come home.”
“I am betting on the dark horse today. I think I’ll change my vote. I say the boy lets it all happen as it went down,” Orin made his bet.
Zach had seemed unimportant until they’d seen the end of his life. He did as Jenna suspected. During the redo of his Sweet Sleep Zach tried to change it all. He would find out that even if you endeavor to revise a few of the chapters, the ending to the story always remained the same.
Kayn’s Redo
It was Kayn’s turn now...Lexy placed both hands on the tomb and it burst two times with brilliant light. She was returned instantly from the darkness and into the safety of the tomb. Jenna ran her hand through the puddle of water so they could all witness her original Sweet Sleep.
As they pulled up in front of her house, she leaned across the seat and thanked Kevin’s dad with a huge hug. She opened the door and took a deep breath. The air smelled like wet cherry blossoms. It must have been raining while they were eating dinner. She stepped out of the car, into a puddle and twisted her ankle. Of course, she thought. With a soaked foot, eggs and school bag in hand, she hobbled her way up the steep driveway towards the front door. Normally she would have darted from Kevin’s dad’s car into the house, but her ankle stung each time she put pressure on it. As she came closer to the house she noticed that the door had been left partially open. This was not normal. However, it was a little windy out and quite normal for the door to be unlocked. Maybe it was left ajar and opened by the wind?
They lived in a beautiful yet somewhat isolated area. She heard the sound of tires and turned around just in time to see Kevin’s father driving away. Kayn felt off, apprehensive as she walked up the long gravel driveway towards the door that seemed to have a life of its own. The door shifted from cracked open to almost closed again with the shifting of the breeze. She dug her cell phone out and looked at the time. It was quarter after eight. She was fifteen minutes late. The door shifted again. She shook her head and laughed. This was obviously a prank. They had left the front door open and entrance lights off to freak her out. Chloe was probably hiding around the corner. Practical jokes were almost a daily occurrence in the Brighton household.
The slivers of light from the moon flashed through the branches as they shifted in the wind and for a moment it felt like they were waving her away. Kayn shoved her cell back into her pants, pocket dialling Kevin by accident. “I’m home!” Kayn yelled as she kicked off her shoes and dropped her school bag. She flicked on the light switch, nothing happened. The power wasn’t out. She’d seen the lights on upstairs as she walk
ed up the driveway. It’s just a burnt out light bulb. She massaged her ankle for a second. Great, there goes the track meet. Kayn tried to take off her wet socks, a stab of pain from her freshly twisted ankle caused her to place her hand against the wall while attempting to balance herself. Her hand slid off the wall as she struggled to tug her second sopping wet sock off. “Kevin’s mom gave us eggs,” she called out quietly, suddenly aware that she seemed to be alone in the house. Where would they go at this hour? Her mind sorted through the possible scenarios. Something wasn’t right. “Mom…Dad?” She called out. She was answered by silence. She moved to close the front door but felt that sticky sensation again. A faint sliver of light was streaming through the doorway. She stepped to the threshold and held her hand up. The palm of her hand was covered in blood. Ripples of adrenaline coursed through her body. Whose blood was this? It felt like thousands of spiders had run across the surface of her skin. Kayn froze for a second, paralyzed by fear, shivers of terror crawled across her flesh as she gingerly took a step back towards the door. A dark figure loomed at the end of the hallway. Who was that?
She heard her sister’s voice scream, “Run Kayn!” In a pitch so raw, primal and shrill that it lit her survival instinct on fire. She spun around and ran, bringing the eggs with her. She could sense someone chasing her, but knew looking back would only slow her down. Kayn ran with no rhyme or reason in the direction she was pointed in. Halfway across the back lawn she threw the bag of eggs behind her hoping to slow her attacker. She slipped in the wet grass and scrambled forward, knowing someone was mere seconds behind her. She spotted the overgrown opening to the trails and raced towards them, knowing from her childhood that there were a million places to hide. Fuelled by the animalistic instinct of survival she burst through the blackberry brambles blocking the path, ignoring the pain as they tore at her flesh for it only heightened the survival instinct which now possessed and drove her forward. She barrelled through the overgrowth, where instinct prompted. The crunching of leaves and twigs in the trail behind her told her he was close; far too close to do anything but react. She slipped in the mud again, skidding yet not falling. Kayn had now lost her precious half a second lead, allowing her hunter to close the space between them. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, threatening to burst right through her skin as her tired legs propelled her body through the winding trail. The rocks on the path brutalized her feet as the sharp reaching branches and twigs slashed at her legs.