Author's Note: Hey guys! Second story submitted so far. Really hope you enjoy it! And please review, even if it's a short one. I love any kind of feedback, whether it's complements or creative critisism.
Human memories fade, or so I've been told
Human memories fade, or so I've been told. And that is true, to an extent. Most memories of my human life have long since eluded me, only coming in flickers if I concentrate hard on summoning them. However, the weeks leading up to the night of my death still thrive in my mind the most unmarred clarity. An eighteen year old boy by the name of Cedric Palmer, I lived in Baltimore during the year of 1918, and, after a terrible bout of influenza, died there as well. I can still remember vividly the pain I felt as the virus overwhelmed my body, even though pain is a sensation now impossible for me to experience. I can also perfectly recall the emotional anguish I felt as I watched, helpless, my mother, father, and younger sister all die one by one before my eyes. I can even recollect the rough feeling of the crudely sewn, off-white cotton sheets under my fevered skin that covered my thin cot mattress, so much like the hundreds surrounding me. But, what I remember the very clearest of all, was the sensation of death.
Up until then, the thought of dieing absolutely horrified me. It haunted me, floated above my head every second of every day I spent in that makeshift hospital. I lost countless hours of sleep fretting over the unknown…the inevitable. Though when death actually came, I all but welcomed it. I could feel my pain ebbing away, my worries, my fears, the sickening sight of the afflicted and ill-fated, all edged farther and farther away as the minutes passed, ever so slowly. As though they were standing above the surface of water and I sinking beneath, I could faintly hear the nurses trying to summon me back to consciousness. I had the faintest knowledge that if I fought there was a chance, however slim, that I could survive. But my will wasn't anywhere close to strong enough, and my strength was spent. Bleakly, I realized I no longer had much to live for anyway.
Dieing was not how I had heard it perceived in books or tales of near-death experiences. There was no tunnel and no bright light. No figures in white robes and not one beckoning voice. It was just pure, absolute darkness accompanied with the sensations of weightlessness and soaring forward at an unbelievable speed. And onward I sped uncontrollably for minutes, not being able to even fabricate the slightest clue at what lay ahead of me…or if anything did.
I eventually had glided to a gentle stop, hanging suspended in the starless space, still without the smallest inkling as to what I should do, what I needed to do, or if I had to do anything at all. I remember being horrified by the thought that this was death. That I was destined to hang alone in this desolate black rip in space and time for the rest of eternity and beyond, without the slightest hope of a way out. Just when I thought I was going to give into hysterics, the voice came. A voice unlike anything I have ever heard. It was deep, booming, frightening yet comforting, carrying an overwhelming sense of authority, yet undoubtedly kind as well. Whether it belonged to a man or a woman, it was impossible to conclude.
The voice seemed to emanate from every black particle surrounding and pressing up against me, it even seemed to project from my very soul, as it explained that I was meant to return. Not to walk as one of the living, for I had died and what was done was done, but as what the voice referred to as a Guardian. As a protector to watch over the most deserving lives. The Being kept me there for hours, explaining what I was meant to do, and the rules that I must abide to, even in death. When it had finished its long protocol, the Being, seeming satisfied, had sent me back, and I was once more speeding through infinite blackness, but now knowing my destination, my purpose.
Abruptly, my journey through the void had ended, and I was watching the birth of a baby boy. Standing in a small bedroom of two soon-to-be parents and a few relatives, all cooing motivating words to the mother in French, and none of them having any knowledge of my sudden presence.
Although the Being had informed me of this new skill, it still surprised me when I found I could comprehend every foreign word the small family spoke, even though I had never known a speck of anything outside of English. It was almost instantly that I fully understood. This baby was mine to protect. This baby had a pure and admirable soul, a soul that the Being said deserved to be guarded. He would be my first out of what was sure to be hundreds.
I stayed with him through infancy, through adolescence, adulthood, right up to the moment where he lay on his deathbed seventy-two years later. As I watched the man slowly fade, I found that I could relate with him only too well. I knew what he was thinking; what he was feeling. What I did not know, is what he was seeing, and where he was going. Was he about to enter the afterlife that I had? Into the eclipsed void, to the Being, and then return as a Guardian? Or did he have something else waiting for him? I knew that my afterlife surely couldn't be the only one. As for that other way I could have gone, well, I'd spent many a sleepless year pondering just that. And I had come up with no better a conclusion than any other living person could have.
Standing there and watching the man, I felt as though I was losing a brother. I had become attached, and even though I now had the ability to shield him from death, I was forbidden to do anything about his passing. It was his time, and the most I could do was stand there with him until his end, still unaware of my presence, of the lifetime of service for him. I wondered if our paths would ever cross again someday.
Without a second to spare after his heart gave its final weak beat; I was yanked from his side and back into the pitch-dark void, speeding towards an unknown destination, just like so many years ago. Little did I know that my next child would change me forever. She is a girl, and her name is Loraine.
End Note: Thanks for reading! More to chapters to come! Review!