AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Did he say week? A monitor nearby beeps frantically and the voices merge into one as panic strikes me. A moment later, something cool moves into my veins and the world fades again.
The next time I wake, I’m able to open my eyes. The light is dim enough it’s not an assault on my vision but it still takes a few moments for the fog to lift. I guess it wasn’t just a bad dream, I really am in the hospital. The stark, white walls and monitors glare down at me and I have to forcibly swallow down my unease.
It's quiet in the room. And from the partitions and sliding door, I know this is an ICU. My monitors are beeping normally and a blood pressure cuff is inflating on my arm. God, I hate that thing. Why does it have to pump until it feels as if your arm will fall off? No nurses walk in and I’m grateful for the quiet moment before the storm that I’m sure will follow me being awake. My chest is aching something awful, and my entire body is sore.
How did I get here?
A brief flash of memory hits me. The truck colliding with us, Raven’s screams, then my head slamming into the steering wheel.
An icy cold fills the room and I nearly scream at the sight of a woman walking in. Well, floating would be more accurate. I can see right through her pale form, her long hair billowing in a nonexistent breeze as she comes to my bedside.
Her eyes don’t focus on me, but a spot above me, like she’s seeing the room in a different way than it is in reality. Raven talked about these types of hauntings before, where they relive their pasts over and over, unaware of any other existence or world.
As she moves closer, her fingers brush against my arm. The cold is nearly unbearable before the hospital room fades, replaced by a different one. The walls have a gaudy floral wallpaper, the equipment outdated and chunky compared to what I’ve just seen. An old man rests in the bed, frail and wasting away. His monitor flatlines and I’m slammed with grief so strong it has my bones aching and tears falling from my eyes. Glancing down, I see I am the woman, her white hair forming a curtain around us as our tears fall. Pain flashes briefly through us before she crumples to the ground, officially separating our consciousnesses as she joins her husband in death. Her grief is too strong to bear, her body too weak from months of worry and not taking care of herself.
“You always said we’d go together,” she whispers before darkness overtakes her and her heart officially stops.
I blink rapidly while dark and light swirl around me, clearing the vision as my hospital room comes back into view. My monitor isn’t so calm now and a nurse comes rushing in a moment later.
“Hey there, it’s alright,” she soothes as I force my breathing to slow down. She checks my vitals and I use it as a distraction to calm myself. “You gave us quite the scare, Mr. Ridley.”
“What happened?” I want to make sense of the flashes I had earlier and how awful I feel.
“You coded,” she says as gently as possible. I just appreciate that she’s being honest. “The fact you three survived is a miracle on its own, the fact you keep surviving is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. You must have one hell of a guardian angel on your side.” Or a ghost with a warning. The wreck may have been bad but if I hadn’t been on edge and vigilant it could have ended far worse.
“And the others? They’re okay?” I ask. She gives me a sympathetic look that has my heart stopping until she explains.
“I can’t give much away, but they’re stable,” she promises, giving me a gentle pat before walking away. Probably so I can’t ask her more questions she can’t legally answer. But the last thing I want is to be stuck in this hospital bed alone with whatever ghosts decide to walk in. My emotions are still in an upheaval from my last unwanted encounter. But I can’t wrap my mind around the fact I saw her at all. I’ve always indulged Raven’s spooky fascination, but I’d never witnessed it myself. Did something follow us back? Was this from the accident? I’ve read about near-death experiences before, could that be the reason?
More than anything I need to talk to Raven and Jayce, partially to reassure myself that they’re really okay, but also to figure out if they can make sense of this new experience.
God, what have we gotten ourselves into?
Raven
The hospital stay dragged on much longer than I was happy about, but when the doctor walked in and announced we were all getting released, I could have gotten out of my bed and danced. Instead, I kept it together until I was sitting in the back of Eli’s mom’s minivan, then I let myself truly believe it. She tried to convince us to stay with her or for us all to go home, but I’d spent enough time without them. The wheelchair visits were too few and far between. Not to mention there was always a nurse present, so we couldn’t discuss much.
Now we are all settled on the sectional at my apartment. It’s big enough for them to recover on and I’ve got a queen-sized bed to switch out with them. We’ve got a whole stack of takeout menus and subscriptions to nearly every streaming service between us. All the makings for a relaxing recovery.
“I got an email from my boss,” Eli announces as Jayce is scrolling through things for us to potentially watch. “They gave me temporary leave, and it’s paid.”
“Oh good,” I say with a smile. He’s been worried about it, we all have. But so far he’s the only one who has heard back from his boss. Either way, the doctors have given us strict orders to stay home and recover at least until our appointments next week.
“Has anyone noticed anything different since the accident?” Jayce asks as he clicks off the TV. “We haven’t had a chance to really talk and I’m dying here.”
“Like seeing ghosts?” Eli’s voice is casual and even and we both turn to him. “I got to witness the last few moments of her life, too, so that was fun.” His snark has me shaking my head, but I can't deny what he’s saying.
“I actually thought I saw a few but had convinced myself it was just my concussion,” I admit.
“I can’t see any, but I can feel emotions. Sometimes they flare when no actual people are around me, so maybe it’s a mix of living and dead? But just now I could feel Eli’s relief,” Jayce continues.
“Do you think it was Lucien? How did this happen to us? Maybe we should go back to the college?” I ask them.
“That is the worst idea, in the history of worst ideas. Rav, we just survived a car wreck, admitted we have ghostly abilities, and you want us to go back to the place that may have caused all of this? Fuck, I’m in.” Eli smirks.
That is the thing that attracted me to him in the first place, he was in the back of my first college class cracking jokes and bam, I was done for. I knew he was my person. That same class, when Jayce sat next to me, I told him just that. He shrugged it off but here we are. A ping of regret hits me as I glance at my best friend. One thing I’ve been thinking about on repeat was the night of Halloween. How his eyes caught on mine and Eli’s joined hands, the looks of longing. Maybe in another life we would have been together, but neither of us seemed willing to break what we had. Now it’s too late.
“We will have to wait until we are cleared to drive again,” Jayce pipes in.
