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I’m scared to open my eyes. I’m frightened of what I might see and who will be waiting for me.
Did I really see Mark? Or do I still have some lingering guilt inside my soul that’s manifested an image of him within my mind? I thought I was ready to let go of his memory, but maybe I was wrong.
“Emily,” I hear phantom Mark say, “open your eyes. I’m real. I’m not a figment of your imagination.”
He can’t be real. He can’t be real.He can’t be real!
“Don’t you want to see me, Emily? Don’t you love me anymore?”
It sounds like Mark asking the questions, but it can’t be him. He’s dead. Long gone. A casualty of the war my father instigated. I’ve lost my mind. There’s no other explanation that makes sense. I’ve completely and utterly gone insane.
“Emily, open your eyes!”
The strength of anger in his voice makes my eyelids rise on their own accord.
I’m lying on a couch in a room I don’t recognize. Strange, melancholy music plays in the background, and Mark stands beside me, staring at my face with his undead eyes. They’re just like Iris’s, completely white except for a pale black circle that wraps around the pupil.
Who would be sadistic enough to bring Mark back from the dead after all these years? It’s obvious someone kept him from me, but who?
The only person who comes to mind is my father. He would keep Mark’s body hidden from me just to resurrect him out of spite for taking his crown and humiliating him in front of everyone.
Still feeling shaky, I sit up on the couch, doing everything within my power to weave my thoughts back into a reality I can comprehend.
Mark sits down on the other side, staring at me, waiting for me to speak.
“How are you here?” I whisper.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he says, sounding lost. “I was in a place full of light and warmth when something grabbed me and pulled me back into this body.”
“Who resurrected you?” I hold my breath, waiting for him to say my father’s name.
“She calls herself Carina.” Mark tilts his head, but his movements are unnatural, stiff. Even for someone brought back from the dead, he isn’t acting normal. “I believe she’s your mother.”
Immediately, I shake my head in total denial of what he just said. “That’s not possible. She wouldn’t do this to me. She loves me too much to be so cruel. Why are you lying?” I shout. “Did my father order you to tell me it was her instead of him?”
“Why would you think I’m lying?” he looks confused by the concept.
“Because my mother is a good person. My father is the cruel and vindictive one. This is just the sort of sick and twisted thing he would do on my wedding day.”
Mark rakes my body from head to toe with his eyes. “How can you be married to another man when your still married to me?”
“You died! You’re still dead! You just don’t know it.”
Mark raises his right hand and stares at it like it’s a foreign object. “I feel alive. How can I be dead if I can see, hear, feel and taste? Aren’t those the hallmarks of a living thing?”
“Listen to the way you’re talking. My Mark wouldn’t sound so stiff and emotionless. He would have taken me in his arms and told me everything is all right. You are not my Mark. I don’t know what was brought back in his body, but I do know my husband loved me beyond anything in this world. You are not him.”
“I am him,” he says, “but I don’t have any memories of who I was. Carina said they would come back in time, and that I would have to be patient. I believe she planned to help me remember who I was, but she said she ran out of time. She told me to show myself to you now so we can all be one big happy family.”
“A happy family?” I ask incredulously. “This is not the kind of family I wanted to have with you. You’re dead, Mark. You should have stayed that way.”
The eerie sound of a baby’s cry interrupts our conversation. When I turn my head to the right, I see a dark corridor with a faint light coming from an open doorway. I stand to go see who is inside the room, but Mark grabs my arm, preventing me from taking a step forward.
“She said to wait here for her.”
“Let. Me. Go!” I pull my arm out of his strong grasp and make my way down to the room.
As I stand in the threshold of a nursery, I see a woman rocking a baby swaddled in a light blue blanket in her arms. When she raises her head to look at me, her eyes are just like Mark’s. Undead and haunting.
