I phase into the spirit realm, bottled storm in hand. Ethereal mist presses in on me from every direction. Supposedly, ghosts can find their way through it by instinct. Some stay here for decades, unraveling, their fragmented thoughts contributing to the haze.
My Laura wouldn’t do the same. She’ll be at the station, waiting, ready to leave this realm as soon as the train arrives. I have little time to find her. I dash through the fog, ignoring the voices swirling around me. The ghosts mostly ignore me, although some hurl insults when I run through them. After several minutes of desperately scanning the horizon for landmarks, the ghost of a young boy approaches me, only recently dead. His mannerisms are confident, and hauntingly familiar. Where have I seen you before? Then I remember. He stood next to Laura when she died. He, too, faced the glare of the sun on that day, the crack of the firing squad’s rifles. My breath catches in my throat. I couldn’t see her face when she died. Would she have looked at me? Stop that. You’re going to get her back. I focus on another memory—Laura pulling me out of the gutters when I’d lost all hope. The boy folds his arms across his chest. “Are ya lookin’ for the train station?” “Yes—how did you know?” He shrugs. “The wizard sent me.” Grateful for the lead, I follow him to the station. The air here is clear, and the ghosts are mostly intact. They’re all smiling, and some are engaged in cheerful conversation. On the edge of the platform stands Laura, as angelic as the day I first saw her. Her soul shines brightly in a way no amount of damage to her body can dim. She stares into the distance, smiling serenely. I hesitate for a moment, then stride toward her, tightly clutching the storm I purchased from the wizard. She turns her head, her smile banishing the horror that’s haunted me ever since seeing her bloody, broken body. “Daniel!” she exclaims. “You’ve come to say goodbye?” A torrent of emotions swirls within me. I open my mouth and manage to express one of them. “I’m—I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” Laura laughs. “What’s there to be sorry for? I didn’t need you to save me.” I take a deep breath and step forward. “But I will. Laura, I have a plan to bring you back.” I hold out the bottle. Thunder rumbles within it. “This bottle contains a storm that will release enough energy to rip a hole through dimensions—a hole leading to the place where the executioners dump their victims. When I release the storm, you can jump through the hole, and your soul will use the energy to reunite with your body. I’ll follow. We can be together again, Laura.” A shadow crosses her face. Her shoulders slump; her radiant beauty dims. She seems less angelic and more human. “Daniel… I don’t want to go back.” A spike of fear runs through my veins. “What?” “I’m done. I fought the good fight, even to death. God has been faithful through it all, but…” she looks back to the horizon. “He’s finally calling me home, and I’m ready to go.” I reach out a hand, but it passes right through her. “Laura, you can’t go yet. I need you… and the schoolchildren, what will become of them?” “There are other teachers.” Laura rests her incorporeal hand on top of my own. “As for you, you’ve always been too dependent on me. It’s time for you to find your own faith. There is far more of God’s grace than I could ever show you.” A whistle sounds. The train pulls into the station, shaking the ground. The conductor, a rainbow-haired man with a cat perched on his shoulder, calls out the names of the souls. They board one by one. I jump up as Laura’s name is called. She steps on the train, but I rush after her. “Laura, please—” “This is what I want, Daniel.” Her smile is tender, but her eyes are firm. “My journey is over. Yours isn’t.” Panic rises in my chest. “Stop!” She steps deeper into the train, then glances back. “We will meet again, in a better world than this.” Another name is called, but no other soul boards. The boy who guided me to the station waves. “I’ll come next time, conductor.” The conductor gives a thumb’s up, and the train begins to move. I run along the platform, stretching out my hand to touch it, but it evades my grasp. The platform ends, but I’m still running. I trip and fall to the ground, crushing the bottle beneath my hand. Glass cuts into my palm, but the pain is distant, overpowered by the anguish in my heart. Wind howls around me, drowning out the noise of the departing train. Someone grabs onto my coat as a flash of light blinds me. When I open my eyes, I’m kneeling at the edge of a mass grave. The corpses slowly decay in the open air. Laura is on top, staring sightlessly. A scream rises in my chest. I suppress it by punching the ground. This isn’t Laura. I fix the image of the radiant lady in my mind, a sorrowful smile on her face vanishing into the distance. That’s the real Laura, the one who-- Left me. The truth hits me harder than all the energy in a bottled storm ever could. If God used her to save me, why would he take her from me? A hand reaches out and wraps around my wrist. I cry out as a living form crawls from the rotting pile, whole and vibrant. “It worked,” says the boy, grinning. “The wizard was right. My journey’s not over yet, either. Let’s do ours together, in memory of Laura, huh?” *** Resurrection in a Bottle originally appeared in November 2019 through Havok. I released it here as a tribute to my home as I leave for college on the other side of the country.
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Progress on Doombear, Rough draft:10%
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"In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing. A journey."
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