In an Instant

"...Did Delilah do that?" He asks still looking at the door with fright, but also amusement.

"Yes, she's been able to do that for the last little while. Leaving us signs that she's here with us, you probably upset her. She probably witnessed that entire exchange we just had." There is a sense of sarcasm buried in her voice which makes my father roll his eyes and storm out of the room.

I had enough of hearing of their bickering and turned and left the room as well, I see Travis sitting on the floor just staring out the window at the dark sky and the snowflakes silently falling to the ground.

"So, that's your father?" Travis asks as I exit the room and walk towards him. He is twirling a pen around in his hand and tapping his foot on the ground.

"Yeah..." I tell him sitting on the floor next to him, I slumped my head down and glance at the floor. Suddenly I feel his hand grazing my back ever so slightly, in a comforting kind of way. I look up and see the sympathy he holds in his eyes.

"He looks familiar and I can't place it for some reason." He lets out a deep sigh and stares up at the ceiling trying to figure out where he had seen my father before.

"I'm just trying to figure out why he's all of a sudden trying to be in my life now, and why he never wanted anything to do with me before." I almost feel tears welling up in my eyes again, but hastily shake them away again reminding myself of the promise I made.

"I fear he has the wrong intentions, I could be wrong but it's just the vibe I get from him." Travis confessed turning to look at me, I stare at him for a moment. His brown eyes give me shivers in my spine, and a feel something within me.

"I feel that way too, he said before that he wanted nothing to do with me. Now he suddenly wants to fix things. It just doesn't add up to me." We both sit there in silence until suddenly the lights start flickering from above us, I look up trying to figure out why they were doing that; weirdly enough, Travis has no reaction to the lights.

"Whats wrong?" He asks suddenly with concern filling up in his deep brown eyes. "You look like you just seen a ghost."

I let out a chuckle and punch him on the arm jokingly. "I am a ghost."

"Well... not technically."

"Whatever." I roll my eyes at him, and the lights flicker again but for longer this time. I shiver fearfully and stand up to try and investigate the incident. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah, I did... the lights don't normally flicker like that around here." Travis replies in a moment of realization and he follows me down the hospital corridor, almost watching around him for anything he needs to be weary of.

Just then a woman suddenly appears in front of the both of us, a look of anger planted on her cold face as she watches us make our way towards her.

"Stop it, this instant!" She bellows out in a throaty fit of rage.

"Stop...what?" I question trying to figure out what the strange woman wants from me. She is dressed in a long black dress, her hair is straggly and looks like it hadn't been washed in decades. Her eyes shine a deep yellow, a type of yellow I have never seen in eyes before. She doesn't look human at all. The more silence I give between us, the more angry she seems become.

"You know exactly what you are doing, and I demand you stop!" She screams again, shaking the floor beneath us and the rattling the windows. Death appears just as she screamed, he holds out his gloved hand. Silencing her from her screams, Travis and I glance at each other bewildered at his actions and just wonder what on earth is happening before us.

"Leave this young girl alone, I thought I banished you to the cellar. How have you escaped?" He demands to know. The woman just scowls and bared a set of sharp teeth in her mouth, something I thought I would never see ever. Death turns to me and tries to calm me from the strange woman who is now attempting to walk towards us.

"She is the first witch, she was the only one who was able to contact the other side. Now that you've been here, and practicing your own powers she has been unable to. I locked her in the cellar but she seems to have escaped, don't worry I won't let her harm you." He reassures, lifting a hand towards her once again and with that she disappeared.

"The first witch?" I question him, not sure if I truly heard him correctly. "I thought you said I was the only one ever able to contact the other side."

"I may have told a small fib, you are the only one able to contact the other side since I locked her up. We didn't know she was a witch at first, her powers got out of control that's why we locked her away. With you being here, and being able to contact the other side...the barrier within good and evil has been broken, but don't fear your power's won't get out of control like that."

I still have a hard time making sense of the whole situation and just nod, pretending to know exactly what was going on.

***

A few hours later after the incident with the strange inhuman women, I take a short walk around the hospital by myself. Travis is off doing whatever it is that Travis does in his spare time around here. I got lost in thought and become suddenly fearful, wondering what was going on in the real world. While my broken body still lay asleep and my soul is traveling wherever this is, in the brink of life and death. The center of dreaming and reality, which ever one it is I couldn't figure it out. All I know is that, I need to wake up soon to get back to my life in reality. I was accepted to University, I have so much to do to prepare for that, I have multiple art projects on the go that need completion. I can't stay here in this strange world, I just have to wake up soon. I have to heal, none of this is even real. It's not even happening, I am just dreaming, there's no way that my father is actually here, trying to make things right with me. There's no way that I am one of the only ones being able to communicate with 'the other side' there is no other side. It's all a vivid dream, just like all the other dreams I have ever had, its not real. It's just a fictional story, made up, make belief.

After sometime I finally convince myself that I am dreaming and to just go along with whatever is to happen next and I turn around to go find Travis to tell him the conclusion I had come up with. He'll probably just disagree with me, but its the truth. I know that it is.

I hear a beep coming from the elevator behind me and watch it as it opened, Sierra and Stephan stand there clutching coffee cups in their hands and whispering quietly as they make their way down the hallway towards my room.

"Don't ever repeat what just happened." I hear Stephan whisper quietly to Sierra. He has a slight grin on his face and she just nods.

"I feel terrible about it, but we both knew it was bound to happen eventually." She replies holding the door open to my room and they both walk inside, leaving me outside of the room to guess on my own what they were talking about.

When I found him moments later he is in his room, listening to the doctors talk to his Uncle about his current state.

"We fear he won't wake up from it this time, and if he does he will basically be a vegetable. It's time soon that your family starts making decisions about what to do next."

Travis shows no fear in his eyes as he listens to the Doctor dictate his fate, he only accepts whatever was to come next was the way things are supposed to be. Travis see's me standing there at the door and walks towards me, a look of dismay trapped in his eyes.

"I now know why your father looks so familiar, he killed both of my parents."