Page 113 of A Perfect World
"Who said the story is over?"
EPILOGUE
Ollie
Present
The undulating red sky never changed.
Sometimes I could touch it, and when I did, I was greeted with a sky full of memories- a life played out all at once. Smiles and tears and whispers and screams. The threads connecting to the four other precious souls with me were separate- held in that red stasis I couldn’t access, but safe, nonetheless. When I couldn’t stand the sight of the blank white floor or the fluid red sky, I reached for them, always unsuccessful and only gifted with memories.
Here, in this purgatory of my own making, there was no temperature or comfort or anything aside from bleak nothingness.
I bit my finger until I broke skin, squeezing a good amount of blood out before pressing it to the white floor. The words came out as a whisper.
Dear Angel,
I have no idea what day it is, or if time exists here. I miss you. I replayed the memory of us on the dock and cried. I cry a lot here, but no one can see me, so I guess it doesn’t matter. I can scream and cry and scream some more. Sometimes I laugh at how utterly fucked I am. I worry about mom, but I worry about you more. I worry you moved on without me. A better man would want that for you. But I’ve never been a better man. So instead, I’ll keep dreaming of a perfect world where I break free of this prison and find you. In that world, you still love me.
I know I’ll always love you.
A flicker drew my attention away from my bloody letter.
The sky was swirling like a whirlpool.
Nowthatwas fucking weird.
I scrambled up, my bare feet smearing the words. The whirlpool began to funnel towards me, the point lowering until it was only inches from the white floor. For a moment, I was paralyzed.
The other threads weren’t moving. Just the sky.
If I got out, maybe the others could too.
I snapped into motion and lunged for it-
Agony exploded though every inch, every nerve, every muscle. My lungs flooded right as my jaw dropped in a silent scream. Memories crackled like lightning as the whirlpool whipped me in a sea of red and white.
White light. Real light.
Heaven or hell, I dove head first, no matter the pain.
Air. I needed air.
“What the fuck?” someone shrieked. It’d been so long since I heard a voice- a real one, not a memory.
Goddamn, I want air.
Lava in the shape of a book scalded my hand. I shifted enough to shove the little molten journal against my chest. Pressure lessened on my lungs, blissful air cutting through the sludge- I cracked my eyes open, lashes stuck together while I continued coughing. I wasbreathing. Beautiful heat continued pulsing in time with my heart.
My heart was beating.
My heart. Was. Beating.
“Are- are you a ghost?”
It was a valid question I asked myself all the time.
Feeling returned in bits and pieces to my limbs as fire pumped my cold, dead blood back to life. I was living and breathing, and it was too real to be a memory. It hurt too much- so much I smiled like a fucking psycho.
