Chapter 2

For the next several days, I tried thinking up names for the girl in my dreams, but none seemed to fit. Actually, it was like my mind wouldn’t accept and recognize what I picked to be her name. I would think up a name, and when I’d try to say it while imagining the girl and associating her with it, the name would suddenly become inaudible to me. I would hear that sound from my dreams, the muffling sound that always blocked out her name, even when I spoke it. I could feel my lips shaping the word and my vocal cords shaking to create the sound, but I could never hear it when I spoke it.

As always, my meetings with the girl were much more calm and platonic than that magical night. I would wake up, we would talk a little, and sometimes I would be able to wrap my arm around her and hold her for a few minutes, but it never advanced past that.

I was with my parents in Dr. Turner’s office, who was looking over the results from my blood tests. I was here for a checkup and a brain scan, but the subject of my cancer was pushed aside when the urine sample I gave them was full of blood. With a sigh, she closed the folder.

“It appears that your kidneys are failing. The good news is that the damage isn’t permanent, at least at this stage. The bad news is that the kidney failure was caused by highly excessive pill usage. We originally had you set at the maximum possible level; did you think you could go even further without consequences? Just the number of pain killers alone you’re taking are enough to kill you, add in the anti-convulsion meds, the blood thickeners, and everything else, and it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

“Right, so I should just get on my knees and thank God that I’m not dead yet, I should just be grateful that I get to keep living each day with never-ending agony and mind-tearing seizures,” I muttered, keeping my face downcast with my hood over my eyes.

My parents looked at each other in both nervousness and fear, wishing that there was something they could do.

“I’m afraid that you’re going to have to start cutting down on your medication before your kidneys shut down completely. You may even have to give up cold turkey until your immunity wears off so that when you resume taking them, they’ll be affective once again. If you keep going at those pills the way you have been, your kidneys will become completely unusable and you’ll need a transplant, and considering your disease and your drug habits beyond pills, no transplant committee will let you so much as look at a healthy donor.”

“Beyond pills? Marcus, what is she talking about?” my mom asked desperately.

“Last week ... I tried heroine. It was just once and it didn’t work as well as I had hoped. I certainly don’t feel any cravings for it.”

“Marcus, are you crazy?! After everything you’ve been told about drugs and after all the times we’ve warned you about their dangers, you would resort to using heroine?” my dad exclaimed, more upset and desperate than angry at me.

“Well it’s not like my life can get any worse!” I yelled before getting up and storming out of the office.

In the weeks that passed, my parents tried to limit the number of pills I took, but it was just as difficult for them as it was for me, because just by looking at me, they could tell how badly I needed them. As expected, my pain increased, as well as the intensity and frequency of my seizures. I stopped sleeping, unable to ever calm myself down enough to relax. As January moved onto February, I finally gave in and quit taking my meds, allowing my body to work the chemicals out of my system and lose its developed immunity.

I spent that hellish week at home in bed, howling at the top of my lungs while the seconds ticked by with sadistic slowness. Without anything to even muffle the full stimulation of all my pain receptors, my body was ripping itself apart from the inside out. I couldn’t even tell when I was having a seizure or not, it just all felt the same. Every second, I felt like my flesh was being shredded away by flaming chainsaws while twin lobotomies were performed on my brain with jagged icicles.

My parents had to stay home from work to take care of me, as I could not go to the bathroom or feed myself. They could do nothing but sit by my bed and listen to me scream, always trying to think of a way to help me. They tried to endure it, unable to ask my little brother or older sister to look after me without feeling any more guilt than they already were. For days, my sense of time blurred. I was unable to tell night from day, hot from cold, or dream from reality. When I was awake, I often hallucinated, and the only times I ever slept were when I finally managed to pass out from pain or exhaustion, and even then, it never lasted longer than an hour.

Lying in bed, in the throes of a seizure, I felt a deep thud in my chest, as if my heart had just slammed against my ribcage. My sweat became clammy and I began to lose my control over my limbs. Barely able to breathe from the pain already surging through me, I felt a second powerful thud in my chest. I could sense my pulse, hear it pounding in my ears, and feel the loss of rhythm. My heart was struggling to continue beating, unable to bear the strain any longer. Neither of my parents was in the room and I couldn’t call them, my lungs refusing to work.

‘Is this it? Will I finally die?’

My heart at last stopped, but instead of closing my eyes, I continued to stare upwards, watching as the ceiling of my bedroom vanished to reveal the eye of God, spinning overhead. My bed disappeared beneath me, my room following suit to reveal the vastness of space. I was so close to the celestial nexus that I could almost see the individual tongues of flame in the typhoon surrounding the black hole pupil. The star occupied the entire horizon, as if slicing reality in half so that one side was the dark cosmos and the other side was the sea of nuclear fire. I was about a kilometer from the surface of the black hole, which had shrunk down to the size of a ten-story building.

I desperately reached out to be accepted into desired oblivion. ‘So close ... I’m so close... ‘

The clothes I had been wearing were vaporized from my body, signaling my last ties to the real world being severed. But answering my silent call, the girl from my hallucinations appeared, flying out of the black hole towards me, arms outstretched, tears in her eyes. She slowed as she reached me, coming to a stop before gently embracing me and holding me close with our unclothed bodies pressed together.

“Marcus, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I know how much you’re suffering, I know how much pain you are in,” she whimpered, crying with her face buried in the side of my neck. She then looked up at me, her blue eyes trembling. “But it is not your time to die yet, just a little longer, darling. Please, hold on just a little longer.”

I tried to say her name, but once again, only the indecipherable noise was heard. In reply, the girl smiled and wiped away her tears.

Wrapping her arms around my neck, she leaned forward and kissed me. “I love you, Marcus. With all my heart, I love you. This is the most selfish thing I will ever ask of you, but please, live on! Please, you must wait just a little longer! Go home, Marcus, it is time for you to go home. You still have to name me, remember?”

She then separated from me, pushing me away. The moment her hands touched my chest, a single powerful heartbeat rocked me to my core, causing cracks of light to flash across my vision as if reality itself was fracturing. I reached out to her, trying to call her name while a second beat of my heart sent more cracks through the fabric of space.

The girl floated back towards the eye of God, tears rolling down her cheeks but a smile on her face. “I love you,” she murmured.

A third beat of my heart broke the cosmic vision and I woke up, back in my bed with my arm raised, still trying to make contact with the angel. My heart had resumed beating, albeit slowly. While it surely would not last, my pain had all but disappeared. Just as she had, I too began to cry, letting my arm drop and cover my face.

“I love you too.”

Eventually, I was able to resume taking my medication, and it was hard for me not to swallow every pill I could get my hands on. I’ll admit, they certainly took the edge off, but I had already made up my mind. I was done. I didn’t know why the girl wanted me to wait, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t handle living any longer.

It was February vacation and a winter storm was howling outside. The blizzard had been going for almost three days and power had quickly been lost. The house was dark, the only light coming from the eerie gray aura passing through the windows. My family had gone to a friend’s house to enjoy their electricity and running water, while I had chosen to stay home. I wanted to be alone for this. I sat at my desk in my room with a glass of water and a pile of pills next to me. They were sleeping pills, painkillers, and everything else I had. I was slowly writing a suicide note, trying to use my best penmanship. I included the instructions for my funeral and how I wanted to be buried. I finally put down the pen. My hands were almost always trembling, but now they were finally steady.

“Goodbye pain,” I said before I took a handful of pills and swallowed them, followed by the remainders.

I then moved over to my bed and lied down, staring at the ceiling and contemplated my life while I waited for death to come. It really had been a worthless existence. Maybe I would finally learn what relief was in dying, but considering my fortune as of late, I would probably just end up vomiting the pills and surviving. In time, I could feel my body becoming heavier, my pain dulling, and my mind slowing down. I was almost there, so close. Closing my eyes, I whispered one final goodbye and an apology.

I was hovering in front of the black hole, still eating the star from the inside out. The black hole itself was now only about the size of an SUV. The whole mass looked less like an eye now and more like gargantuan maelstrom, the black hole similar to the darkness of the drain in an emptying bathtub. I was a hundred feet away from the surface of the black hole and the girl from my dreams was hovering in front of me. The two of us were naked, and while she was smiling, her smile was sad and there were tears running down her face.

“So, you couldn’t wait. I hold nothing against you for it; it’s unimaginable that anyone could even last half as long as you did. I’m so proud of you, Marcus. Your will is unparalleled.”

“What’s going on?” I asked as she and I were pulled closer and closer to the star-eating black hole.

“We are moving onwards into eternity. It’s a shame, it was my dream for us to live our lives happily and together, but as long as we have each other in this eternal realm, I have no complaints.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

I reached out and tried to grab her hand, even though she was well out of reach.

“I wanted to live my life with you, to exist solely for you, and to die with you. I wanted to see the world before coming here, to see everything before returning to nothing. It’s pointless now, you made your choice, one that I fully understand and love you for. Come to me, Marcus, and let us return to the Source together. Let us become one within the end of all reason.”

I began shouting her name, but as always, I heard nothing but that indescribable noise. I had not been able to find out her true name, so this moniker was all I could use. I cursed as the girl made contact with the surface of the black hole, resting upon it like she was sunbathing on a boulder. After only a second, I was forced to watch in horror as she slowly began to be absorbed into it, sinking beneath its surface like it was made of tar. I followed soon after, desperately trying to bring myself to a stop but unable to fight the gravitational pull. I collided with the black screen, feeling no pain in the impact even with it being quite solid. I tried to push myself off, to fight gravity, but with the slightest exertion, the surface beneath my hands gave way and I began to be sucked in. Simply acting on instinct, I took a deep breath before my head was pulled in. I found myself submerged in a storm of violet energy, the girl in front of me, just out of reach, hovering in the vast spinning torrent, a vortex leading onwards into infinity.

As my lower body was slowly absorbed into black hole with me, the girl looked me and smiled. “Your dream was to live happily with the one you loved, so that too became my dream. Your wish was to find your soul mate and be happy for the rest of your life, so I sought to grant you that wish. Do not be afraid, we can still be together forever.”

My eyes widened and I fearfully gasped as her body slowly began to dematerialize, breaking up cell by cell. Looking down, I realized that I too was falling apart, my flesh and blood literally being shed from my physical form, but without any pain or sensation.

“If I had waited, what would you have been?” I shouted desperately as I finally entered the vortex fully.

With her legs and much of her torso gone, she opened her eyes and smiled at me. “Whatever you wanted me to be.”

From her words, a blinding epiphany flashed in my mind, I now understood, and I had regained something I thought I had lost. I reached out to her while the flesh painlessly melted off my fingers. “Tell me, what was your wish?!”

“To live and be happy with you,” she murmured, as the top of her head and her left arm began to disappear.

“That was my wish too, so I’m going to grant it! I want to live my life and be happy, and I refuse to do either of them without you! I change my mind, I want to live, and I want to live my life with you!”

I then called out her name, her true name, finally able to hear it. At the sound, the girl’s one remaining eye bolted open, and the twisting vortex of violet light began to churn violently. I shouted her name again and reached out with everything I had and grasped what was left of her hand with what was left of my own. As soon as she and I touched, our bodies were fully reformed.

“Marcus,” she gasped.

I said her name in return, making her smile warmly and blush.

Holding onto her tightly, I looked back at the surface of the black hole. It was so close and yet so far, like fresh air to a drowning man. Pulling the girl with me, I reached up with all the strength in my body and soul, not caring if my muscles tore and my bones snapped in the process. Just as I thought I was about to fail, my fingers broke through the surface and I grabbed on, feeling the exterior become hard beneath my grip. Roaring in desperation, I pulled the two of us back up and the dark hole released us with a geyser of violet energy shooting out like a volcanic eruption. The girl and I were thrown out into the cosmos, clutching each other for dear life.

“Is this it? Can we finally live our lives together and be happy?” she murmured with her face buried in the side of my neck.

I smiled and tightened my embrace. “Yes, we can finally live. We’ll be together always, Angel, my Angel.”

My eyes opened and I immediately turned my head and vomited, emptying the contents of my stomach onto my bedroom floor. The majority of the pills were still intact, letting me survive by the skin of my teeth, but enough had been absorbed and dissolved into my bloodstream to leave me feeling sick and dizzy. Gasping for air and shaking more than ever in my life, I spat out the last of the vomit and wiped my face. I had tried to kill myself and lived, but that dream, had I really chosen to live or did I just throw up as a natural reflex?

As I lied back and stared up at the ceiling, I realized that I was not the only one in that bed. Looking over, my eyes widened as they fell upon the unconscious Angel. She was right beside me, covered in blood and some sort of other liquid, but ... she was there. I knew that this was different than all of the other times I had woken up next to her. The way she was weighing down on the mattress, the way the blood on her skin was staining my sheets, just the way she looked ... she was real, she was completely real. This wasn’t a hallucination.

My initial shock was replaced by fear, realizing as if for the first time that she was covered in blood. I reached out and pressed my fingers against Angel’s neck, checking her pulse and finding a strong and steady heartbeat. Moving as quickly as my chemically-shocked body would allow, I dashed out of my room and over to the bathroom, grabbing all the towels I could and coming back. Climbing back onto the bed, I rubbed her down with the towels and wiped away the blood and the other mysterious fluid that covered her. I looked desperately for any cuts or signs of injury, but I found nothing. She was completely unharmed.

After again checking her pulse, I stopped and just stared at her, completely memorized. Angel, the light of my life and the girl of my dreams was literally right here in front of me. How had this happened? How could a human being just suddenly materialize out of thin air? My questions were interrupted by the noticing of a foul odor in the room. Oh yeah ... I had vomited on the floor.

I smiled and looked down at Angel, gently pulling the blanket over her naked form. Real or not, I couldn’t let her wake up to such a mess. While I waited for her to gain consciousness, I cleaned up the vomit and sprayed the stained carpet with every chemical I could get my hands on to remove the smell. The rustling of blankets could be heard as I was returning from dumping the towels in the laundry room. She was starting to awaken. More nervous than ever in my life, I sat down on the bed and wrapped my hands around hers. Her eyelids slowly rose, showing her two beautiful blues.

“Hey,” I said softly with a small smile.

She gave a small hum and a look of peace, as if waking up from a much-needed sleep. “Hi.”

A flutter ran through me at the sound of her voice.

“Do you remember anything?”

She closed her eyes and was silent for several moments and a look of worry crossed her face. “I don’t know.”

After everything I had seen, this did surprise me a little. Ok, so the situation was 99% perfect...

“Are you sure?”

She was silent for a few more moments. “Wait, I remember ... my name. My name is Angel, I think.”

I smiled at her realization. She was real.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“My name is Marcus, and don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re in my home. I found you outside, crying for help.”

What was I supposed to tell her, that she had somehow materialized out of thin air because I dreamt her up?

“Now, how do you feel? You don’t look hurt.”

“I feel fine, just tired. Thank you for saving me. I can tell that you are truly kind just by touching you.”

With a sugary sweet smile on her lips, she clutched my hands tightly. I could feel my face becoming red in embarrassment. Holy shit, she really was an angel.

“Are you hungry?” She nodded. “All right, I’ll get you something to eat.”

As I stood and turned away from her, I could hear her try to get up.

“Did you undress me?”

I turned around and saw her holding the blanket over her chest.

“No, I found you that way. Don’t worry, I didn’t touch you or anything. Your safety was the only thought on my mind.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes,” I said with my voice raspy.

Several seconds passed where the girl stared into my eyes, and I stared into hers. Finally, she smiled. “I believe you.”

She stood up and I quickly stopped her. “You need to rest.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

I gave a small but warm smile. “Very well, whatever makes you happy.” ‘She’s in completely new surroundings, so she is trying to find something familiar, or at least something that makes her feel safe and happy. I was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes, and she wants to stay close to whatever seems even remotely familiar, even if we only met a minute ago. She needs something to cling to.’

With the blanket and my arm wrapped around her, we made our way to the kitchen with me holding her up. After her experience, I didn’t want to risk her not being able to support her own weight.

“Is soup ok?”

“Yes please.”

She was starting to feel better; I could see her relaxing with the situation. I filled a pot with one of the large jugs of water my family had saved for the loss of power and put it on the stove. While it did require a match to compensate for the loss of the electric start, I was able to get it going without trouble. With the water heating up, I turned to Angel, sitting on one of the stools at the island table. She had a small smile and it was reflected on me.

“You don’t remember anything ... but you know what soup is?”

A look of confusion crossed her face. “I didn’t even notice.”

“Its obvious you have some form of amnesia, but I’m not surprised you remember non-personal stuff. It means that there are some things that your mind still remembers.” ‘Maybe she isn’t retaining those memories, maybe those memories have been put in her mind.’

I looked around the kitchen. “Try to name as many things as you can. The mental stimulation might bring some memories back.”

She began looking around the kitchen and naming everything she saw, but still no memories appeared in her head. With the water in the pot soon bubbling, I poured in the flavor packet and brick of noodles, and stirred, waiting until it could be served. Ah ramen, the perfect comfort food.

“When the power returns, we should probably call an ambulance for you. Plus, maybe they can help you regain your memory,” I said as I passed her the steaming bowl.

“Marcus, maybe I shouldn’t remember.”

Having turned off the stove, I looked back, seeing that her smile was replaced with a look of sadness.

“You found me stumbling through the snow and coated in blood. Maybe it would be best if I don’t remember.”

Pained by the loss of her smile, I placed my hand on her cheek. Her skin was so soft and smooth that I wanted to kiss her right then and there.

“Don’t worry. If you feel that you don’t want to remember, we won’t talk about it.”

She held onto my hand, brushing it against her cheek like a cat seeking affection.

‘No two strangers can get along this well in less than ten minutes. She really is Angel.’

The lights came on and a beep rang out from the smoke detectors and ruined the moment. I checked the phone but there was no dial tone. We had power, but the phone lines must have been more heavily damaged than the power lines.

I turned my attention back to Angel. “Ok, eat your soup and I’ll start a bath for you. I wasn’t able to completely clean you off.”

I sat next to the bathtub, watching as it was filled with hot water while holding my hand beneath the downpour to make sure it was the right temperature. While I waited, Angel walked around the house, exploring her surroundings and simply trying to stimulate her mind. With the two of us separated, I now had a moment to truly think. This girl, she had somehow come out of nowhere, this figment of my imagination becoming a real person. Either some sort of unexplainable miracle had just taken place or my hallucinations had now reached a whole new level of depth ... or maybe I really had died and this was Heaven.

Either way, it would be hard explaining her to my parents, and no matter what I said or did, the police would probably end up getting involved. Either I would stick to my lie and keep saying that she just appeared naked at the door asking for help, or compromise and say I just woke up with her next to me and had no idea how she got into my house. For all I knew, she could have been a burglar or high on PCP. Whichever path I took, it would be difficult, but as long as I had Angel, it would be worth it.

“Angel, the bath is ready!”

When no reply came, I stood up and strained my ears. Had she fallen back to sleep, had she even passed out? Shaken by that fear, I scoured the house and found in her my room. She was standing over my desk, still wrapped in her blanket with her shoulders trembling and my suicide note in her hand, now dotted with her tears.

“Angel...”

She turned to me with liquid pearls rolling down her cheeks. “Marcus, you were going to kill yourself?”

I slowly reached out and took the suicide note from her, proceeding then to crumple it up and stuff it in my pocket. “I was. Listen, the bath is ready, we’ll talk after you get cleaned up,” I replied, unable to meet her teary gaze.

I put my arm around her and guided her to the bathroom, where the tub was waiting with clouds of steam wafting up.

“All right, I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Just holler if you want me to get you anything.”

“Marcus, wait. Don’t leave me.”

“Well I shouldn’t be here while you—”

She let go of the blanket, letting it fall to the floor around her ankles. I had lost track of how many times I had seen her naked body, but now with her standing before me in the flesh, she had never looked more beautiful.

“You’ve already seen me like this, it’s ok for you to be here. Besides, I want to keep talking to you.”

She stepped into the tub and settled down, letting the last of the dry blood and other liquids wash off her body and grant her unclothed form a beautiful shine. She purred in happiness as she submerged herself in the hot water, letting her whole body soak before she brought her head back up and laid back, with her long crimson hair listing and twirling around her body like seaweed around a mermaid. Seeing her breasts floating on the surface with wave after wave gently lapping at her delicate flesh was firing up hormones inside of me that I never even knew I had.

“Marcus, please tell me ... why did you try to kill yourself?”

“I thought you read the note.”

“I want to hear it from you,” she whispered desperately.

I sat down on the edge of the tub and was silent for several moments. “There are people all over the world who suffer worse than I do: infants dying of starvation, kids used as sex slaves, adults forced to watch as their families suffer with nothing over their heads but the roof of their hut. I admit, even my life could be far worse than it is now, but there is a key difference between those people and me: they are capable of being happy. They have the will to live and the ability to smile. Me ... there is nothing in this world that can bring me joy, I am physically incapable of being happy.

For most of my life, I have not known what happiness feels like. Even as a child, I could never bond with others and I always felt out of place in the world, like I was incompatible with this reality. My real depression began eight years ago, when I was constantly teased and ridiculed by those around me for no reason. I was simply picked at random to be used as a punching bag. I was tormented for years on end, but the ones who brought me so much pain never got the punishment they deserved. In order to “give me a reprieve from my torture”, I was transferred to a school for troubled kids. That place was Hell, with the screams of the mentally disturbed echoing down the hall. It was like being in an insane asylum but with homework. I lost a year there while my tormenters still faced no punishment. For a year, my mind rotted, up to the point where I even began to hallucinate.

I was desperate for a cure to my anguish, something that would make this frustration and constant torment worth it. I decided that the only thing that could possibly bring me peace is love ... or death. So I searched for love, for my soul mate, trying to find the one girl who could take away my pain, for even when I was just a kid, my heart ached. My loneliness, depression, and anger poisoned me. Toss in hundreds of hours of forced psychiatrist sessions and prescription anti-depressants that didn’t do jack-shit, and my life lost its light.

What I’m about to tell you is something that I have not told anyone. I was so desperate for relief that I even took a blade to my own flesh. It was not a suicide attempt, but I was hoping that I could cancel out my inner pain with outer pain.”

I showed her the scars on my arm and Angel placed her hand on the faded lines and gave me a look of deep sympathy.

“No matter what, I could not find a human that could be my salvation, so in my sorrow, I developed a deep hatred for humanity. I’m disgusted by my species and I wish that humans would just all die out. I’ve even given up on finding a soul mate because every girl I met was just too heavily tainted by the world to do anything other than disgust me and trigger my loathing. But with my loneliness still plaguing me, I knew that my suffering would continue. With my mind filled with chaos and the world always stuffing my mouth with the taste of ash, I decided that death’s sweet embrace was the only thing that could bring me peace. The only reason why I didn’t kill myself then was because I did not want to put my family through the pain and grief,

Then ... a couple months ago ... I collapsed into a seizure. I was in more pain than I thought possible, all of it coming out of the blue. I found out that my brain is riddled with tumors, focused mostly on my brainstem and limbic system. All these years, my limbic system was being smothered by useless tissue, leaving it incapable of producing chemicals like serotonin and other compounds needed in order for the brain to feel the emotion happiness. No wonder I had always been miserable; I was basically a car running without oil.