Kevin Died

2. Blood Doesn't Make a Family

2. Blood Doesn't Make a Family

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I woke up hours later dazed and confused. It still was early morning, maybe three a.m. My mind was foggy and I couldn't think straight. I was no longer buzzed, but even so, it took me a while to come to my senses and I realized that I had seen Kevin. Alive.

No, I tried to convince myself, that was just a dream. Had to be. Just a dream.

I shot upright in bed and looked around me for my phone. When I spotted it, I grabbed it and pressed the home button, but to my disappointment the phone was dead.

I let out a frustrated growl and went to my backpack to grab my charger. After I had finished with plugging it in, I stood in the middle of my room and tried to regain my composure and think straight.

Had that really been Kevin? How on earth could he possibly be alive? Could it had been him that I heard in the grave yard? Had he been watching me? This made absolutely zero fucking sense. It had to be an imposter. A clone? I thought. Maybe aliens... I shook my head. No. Why was I even thinking about this? Kevin was dead. What I saw was a hallucination. That's it. I had just drank more than I thought, I was emotional and it was screwing with my head. Yeah, that was logical.

I grew impatient waiting for the damn phone to charge and I was gonna pull my hair out from anxiety if I had to wait a second longer. Fortunately, the Apple symbol popped on the screen. The phone was sufficiently charged. It took a few seconds to load, but once the lock screen popped up, I wasted no time putting in my password and going to my messages.

Sure enough, the video was still there.

I watched it again. And again. And again. I studied anything, everything about the video. With a clearer mind I was able to make out his facial features better. There was no denying it. That was Kevin. There were subtle differences. Like his cheeks were a bit more caved in and his voice a little deeper, but being gone for two years and having no contact with him of course there would be different things about him.

I couldn't tell where he was. Wherever it was, it was dark and the only source of light came from his phone shining on his face.

After watching the video for about the ninth time, I really needed to take a moment. Deep breaths. Calm down. Control yourself.

There was another text message sent right after he'd sent the video that I had not been awake to see and had been too preoccupied with the video to notice until now:

Don't tell anyone. Not safe and would only confuse people.

Confuse people? What about me?! What about the affect this was having on my brain?! Kevin was alive. Fuck, he was alive, and suddenly the initial shock began to ware off. My brother was alive! And a small, subtle smile crossed my lips.

I wanted to text Kevin again but decided against it. If I was gonna deal with this I needed to have a good night's sleep, which I was sure would benefit him as well.

Sleep didn't come easy. My mind was an absolute maze of questions and theories. Kevin being alive was a miracle. However, it was too good to be true. Something was wrong. When Kevin disappeared he sent me one final text message afterward the following day, but it was never completed. We all knew it was probably because his murderer, or supposed murderer at this point I guess, had gotten to him.

But obviously Kevin wasn't murdered, and now he's reached out to me and told me it isn't safe to tell other people he's back. Whatever was going on, it wasn't good. And I had a gut-wrenching feeling that I was about to be thrown into something that I would probably regret getting into.