Anger fills Raymond’s body, “Cherish our good times?!” he yells. He grabs Dr. Habian by the throat while throwing him against the wall. Other nurses and doctors come running in, grabbing Raymond. He feels himself getting stronger and slowly cracking Dr. Habian’s trachea.
“Put him down!” yells Amanda in the hallway.
Raymond turns towards her and drops Dr. Habian to his feet. He walks towards her and grabs her by the wrist, walking down the hall.
“What the hell is happening to her?” he sternly asks.
Amanda crosses her arms, “They are dying,” she says, sliding the curtain revealing Jonathan lying in a hospital bed looking fragile and sick.
Raymond puts his hand over his mouth, “Jesus Christ.” He pauses. “I need you to help me remember what happened so I can understand what’s going on now.”
Amanda shakes her head, “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” he asks.
“If I tell you, I will die,” she responds.
Raymond scratches his forehead, “I don’t understand.”
“We made a sacred pact over 1,000 years ago. You told me you would never forget what we have. You said if you ever forget to tell you the numbers: 5,3,0.”
He bites his lip and shakes his head, “I don’t know what that means. You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”
Amanda touches her hand on his face, “I’m sorry my love.”
Raymond goes back and sits down in the chair next to Kara’s bed. He pulls out his phone and cries while looking at pictures of Kara and him. As he continues scrolling to the right through the pictures, he gets progressively sadder. He texts his mother who has Alzheimer’s, telling her that Kara is very sick in the hospital and may not make it.
She responds with a picture of Raymond as a little boy standing in front of their small blue house, house number 530, and the text: “So no grandkids?”
He gives a small smile as he wipes his tear-filled eyes, “The small blue house.” He pauses and looks at the picture closely, zooming into the 530, then zooming out. “The house used to be blue, now it’s red.” He grabs his jacket and bolts out of the room.
5. 1534 Letter
The sky goes grey and is covered in clouds. It’s thundering and lightening as the hard rain pours down. Raymond runs along the road, hopping over rain puddles, to get to the small run-down red house on the expressway.
He stands in front of the house, identical to the one in his mother’s pictures.
He opens the creaking wood door, “Hello?” he says as he enters, using his iPhone as a flashlight. He walks through the abandoned home still filled with old furniture. He walks up to an old tarnished piano and presses a key. It plays the A note perfectly. He sits and plays “Bella’s Lullaby”. When he presses the Middle C key he notices the key is shaky and broken. He presses the key once more before removing the key from the piano. Stuffed in the back of the key is a note dated the year 1534. He un-crumples the paper and reads:
Raymond,
You have written this letter to yourself to help you remember who you are. You are immortal and amnesia from your coma has clouded your memory. Victoria’s Island was your home over 400 years ago. It gifted you with powers. Your nosebleeds are normal; they are caused by your distance from the island. Anyone not immune to the island will gain the powers as well and will slowly change over time but eventually will have to be killed. You and Amanda were paired centuries ago and are the last of your kind. You both have lived for over five thousand years. You made her swear to never remind you of the past if you could not figure it out on your own first. You were shot twenty times and wounded saving Amanda before you went into a coma which will cause amnesia. You can trust her. She is more than a friend, she is a lover. You will soon learn that the closer you two are to each other the more your matching scars will hurt. You both have been branded with a matching lovers’ coil that will keep you together for eternity. But the longer you two are around each other the weaker the both of you will become. I hope this helps you in the future old pal.
Your friend,
Raymond
Raymond slowly walks out of the house as the sun beams down and the sound of chirping birds fills the air. He walks back into the hospital and sits next to Amanda.
She looks over at him, “Now you know.”
“How did we get like this? I feel like I’m losing my mind,” Raymond moans as he hangs his head. “And for some reason, I find it hard to believe that Kara originally booked our vacation here.”
“You’ve always known, you just didn’t know the right questions to ask. When Kara booked your original vacation to Hawaii I knew it was the perfect time to flip the script. I had to.”
“What powers do we have?” Raymond asks, twiddling his thumbs.
“We can fly, read minds, move objects telepathically and have the strength of 1,000 gods.” She pauses. “When Jonathan and Kara wake up, they will wake up as unborns. They will be like us only stronger. They will eventually sense that we have a connection and try to kill us from jealously, which is why we have to kill them,” Amanda says.
“I can’t kill my wife,” Raymond whispers.
Amanda sighs, “I know it will be hard but she will try to kill you.” She pauses. “Or even worse…”
Before she can finish her sentence, they are interrupted by loud monitors beeping as nurses and doctors run towards Kara’s and Jonathan’s rooms. Confusion and chaos fill the hospital.
“She’s gone!” yells a nurse.
“He’s gone too!” yells another.
Amanda stands up and faces Raymond, “It’s begun.”
Without
A Short Story
Part II of Within
to be continued…
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank God for blessing me with the amazing gift of being a writer – I plan to use my storytelling skills until I no longer can.
To my amazing parents, Louis and Kimberly – thank you for reading such great stories to me as a child. Each and every story impacted me in ways that you can’t possibly imagine.
Special thanks to my editor Lisa Maguire for sharing my vision and polishing my work.
Last but not least, I would like to thank all of the beta readers who read the story and helped accomplish my goal.
About the Author
Christian Edwards was born in Alabama, raised in Maryland and is finishing her senior year at The University of Alabama. She is also the author of the series The Mafia Diaries. To learn more about her and her books, visit www.christianedwardsauthor.com.
Within (a short story) Page 2