The Freeing Blood

Prologue

I was surrounded by a bright light. It was so bright I could feel it burning my eyes through my closed eyelids. Was I being cooked alive or something? If this was Heaven I don’t think I wanted to be here.
“Aerolynn?” A confused voice asked. I tried to peel my eyes open so I could see who had called out my name, but when I opened them all I could see was a piercing white light.
“Goddamn it, would someone turn off the lights or something? Fuck. I feel like a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner being cooked in the oven,” I snapped.
The lights, or whatever they had been, lowered considerably. I opened my eyes and glanced around to see a beautiful meadow with lush green grass and a sparkling clear waterfall in the distance. Animals grazed out in the open completely undisturbed while the birds sang and danced in the sky. I glanced down at myself vaguely remembering a bright red stain on the front of my clothes. When I looked down, however, I was wearing a mid-length opal white gown with gold stitching; my long, wavy brown hair flowing around my shoulders.
Seriously…where was I? The sudden appearance of a small face in front of mine caused me to shout out in surprise and scoot back along the ground.
“Awh, don’t do that. You’ll get stains on your pretty dress,” a soprano voice whined.
The sun was shining directly from behind her casting the front of her in shadows, but that didn’t stop me from recognizing those familiar bouncy curls.
“Mary? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing in Summerland?” She asked sitting down beside me.
“Summerland?” I inquired confused by the term.
She nodded her head. “Yeah. It’s where trapped souls who have been saved or have finally finished their final objective on Earth come. It’s not Heaven exactly. It’s like a rehabilitation center for us before officially entering into the gates of Heaven. They want to make sure we get back onto the right path toward the greater good and follow the light. Make sure we don’t recede back into the darkness. Something like that anyways,” she shrugged.
“But you still haven’t answered why YOU’RE here,” she reiterated.
“I…I don’t know why I’m here. I-I think I’m dead,” I stammered as the realization of it all sank in. I remembered what happened now. I had turned around to go get the keys from Luke and all of a sudden my ears were ringing from close gunfire. I had been too numb from it all at the immediate loss of blood to really feel much pain. Zak…Zak had caught me as I fell backwards. I remember him yelling my name and trying to shake me awake. I could still hear his voice singing Breaking Benjamin as the last of my life drained away. The last words I heard were, ‘I can’t face the dark without you’.
“Zak…” I whispered as I remembered feeling his tears drop onto my face. I looked up at Mary, fierce determination shining in my eyes.
“I can’t be dead. I can’t be! I have to get back to Zak. He needs me. If I don’t get back to him soon…I may never be able to save him.”
“Maybe you’re not completely dead then. Maybe you’re just stuck in limbo,” Mary explained.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sometimes the souls of the near dead come here, too. Summerland is also kind of a place for souls who aren’t yet ready to make the trip to Heaven because their physical body hasn’t completely died yet.”
“So, you’re saying that I may still be alive? I might be able to get back to Zak?” I questioned excitedly.
Mary nodded. “Yeah. I honestly don’t see the big man upstairs killing you off so easily. Not when he has super big plans for you,” Mary replied cryptically.
“Big plans?” I asked suspiciously.
Mary simply nodded. “Anyways…do you really think you can save Zak? You don’t even know what’s wrong with him. You could be signing on for a bigger task than you think of trying to save him,” Mary warned.
“I don’t care. I love him. Isn’t that enough to at least allow me to go back to him and try before deciding to give up?”
Mary smiled and wrapped her small, frails arms around me in a soft hug.
“This might hurt juuuuuust a bit,” she smiled apologetically.
“What are y—?”
She placed her hand in the center of my chest and began to push. At first nothing happened, but then slowly her hand began to sink inside my chest. I glanced up at her in alarm, but her eyes were closed focusing on what she was doing. I felt her small hand wrap around my heart as she squeezed it ever so gently.
“Aaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!” I screamed in agony as she squeezed my heart again only harder. She did it again even harder. Then one last time as hard as she could.
She removed her hand quickly as a bright light suddenly exploded from the center of my chest and all went black.
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Beep….beep….beep….

What was that incessant beeping noise?

Beep….beep….beep….

Why did I feel so tired? And why couldn’t I move?

Beep….beep….beep….

Someone really needed to shut that damn thing off before I lost my mind. It was like Chinese Water Torture only with annoying beeps. American Beeping Torture, a new modern way to lose your mind, I thought drolly to myself.
Slowly, with what felt like having to use the strength of 10,000 men, I was able to blink open my eyes. I was immediately blinded by the overhead lights. Seriously, what was with people wanting to blind me each time I tried to wake up?
When my eyes finally adjusted to the bright light, I could feel the left side of my body completely cloaked in warmth. Yet the other half of my body was cold. What was with that? Was it some weird side effect of the meds they had put me on?
Concentrating all of my might, I turned my head to my left to see if there was a different reason one half of my body was so warm.
My face came within inches of the sleeping face of somebody I never thought I would see again after getting shot.
I had made my way back to him.
Zak Bagans.
Thank you, I mouthed silently to the ceiling hoping wherever she was…Mary could hear me.
I was home.