Chapter Thirty Seven :

Reality Tearing At The Seams /

We ran back to my house, worry swimming in my mind like a shark. The "what ifs" were endless. 

I stood for a couple minutes on the porch, summing up the courage to go inside. I stepped into the house, Dolion and Orpheus behind me. "Mom? Dad?" I called out. 

"Sweetheart?" My mother's voice. I ran into the living room. She sat on the couch with a magazine. I glanced across the room - the TV was on, to some live music channel. No humming. 

"Is everything all right?" She asked me, her beautiful brown eyes full of life. "Yeah, mom, everything's great." 

"How was school, dear?" My dad asked me, walking into the living room to sit next to my mother on the couch. "It was okay." I answered. Just like my mom's, his hazel eyes had never looked more alive. "I love you... So much." I told them, relief flooding my body. My mother moved to the side a little so I could sit between them. 

"We love you too, honey." They said, hugging me. 

To my understanding, they were oblivious to the presence of Orpheus and Dolion. 

After sitting with my parents for a few minutes, I went back outside and perched on the stairs of the deck. Dolion and Orpheus sat on either side of me. "Are you going to leave, and go back to your realm?" I asked them. 

"No," Replied Dolion, and Orpheus shook his head. "Our realm is destroyed, and... I'd rather stay here, with you." He said softly. Dolion nodded in agreement.

"I don't think my life would feel 'normal' without you both, anyways." I told them. 

Normal... I had forgotten. How could I forget? I ran into the house and upstairs, to the bathroom. I looked at my face in the mirror...

Against my pale skin, my eyes still shone deep purple, swimming with stars and flecks of white light. My eyelashes were white and long; the only familiar feature was my countless freckles. I hadn't returned to "normal." And my parents hadn't noticed, which was strange. Maybe my appearance was the same to them as Dolion and Orpheus; nonexistent. 

That pain in my chest again, much sharper this time than the last. It brought me to my knees on the cold bathroom floor, and I tried to scream but couldn't. My vision swam with infinite hues, blurry at the edges. I heard my voice being called, by someone I had no knowledge of. 

Then the pain stopped, and I became tired instead. So tired I couldn't move, and my face hit the linoleum... It should have hurt, but I never felt anything, because I fell through the floor. All I could see was pitch black, although my eyes were open. 

I kept falling and falling, until I hit the ground. Hard. 

I struggled for air as my ears rang, with sirens and whoever was yelling my name. I wished they'd stop, my head was hurting. 

I blinked a couple times, and the blackness went away. Everything still looked and sounded a little fuzzy, like I was underwater. 

"LAVENDER!" My name still being shouted. And the awful pain in my chest, again. Someone stood over me, a medic? Others were on the ground beside me, and ambulance sirens filled the night air. "All right, stop, she's coming to." Distinct conversations I was unable to make out. 

I was laid on the ground, in a ditch, near some forest... It was like the one by my home, but it couldn't be... This forest was so different. My head hurt terribly. I didn't know where Orpheus and Dolion were, or what happened...

The medics picked me up and laid me on a stretcher, and I was put in the ambulance. The doors slammed shut. The heavy smell of disinfectant filled my nose, churning in my stomach. My eyelids grew heavy, but before they closed I caught a glimpse of the engel from earlier, her blue hair illuminated in the moonlight as she peered out from the trees.