The Realms [Watty 2017 Shortlist]

Aftermath - Part 15

I crawl back over to where he is lying and place his head back in my lap. My chest aches, sobs shake my body. Each breath is a struggle, as though what happened to Ryan is contagious. I don't know how to survive in any realm without him. The minutes are like hours. I close my eyes, picturing his chest rising and falling again, picturing his eyes snapping open. I pray - I pray to every version of god I remember in this life and any other. I bargain, I beg.

"Please, anyone, if you're out there. If you're listening. Let him wake up. Bring him back to me." I brush the dark hair back from his forehead and lean down, whispering in his ear. "I'll find you. Where ever you go, no matter what, I'll find you." Deep racking sobs shake my body and I gently put Ryan's head down to go throw up again in the fireplace. I'm on my knees, dry heaving, wishing there was a just and fair god somewhere, anywhere who could intervene. I have my back to him when I hear something. I go still, listening with everything in my body, willing it to be true, not just a figment of my grief-deranged brain. I glance over my shoulder, wiping tears from my cheeks.

When his chest rises with a deep, shuddering breath, I stop breathing for a moment. 

"Ryan?" My voice is tentative, strained like I haven't spoken for years. 

I wipe more tears off my face and push my hair back behind my ears. I scramble over to him on all fours, checking for a pulse, the sound of his heartbeat. I put my ear to his chest and almost collapse on top of him in relief.

"Hannah?" His voice is thick and rusty, a stalled vehicle chugging back to life. His eyes are closed.

The tears stream down my face, but waves of relief crash into me over and over again. "I thought you were dead. Oh God, I thought you were dead." A tremendous weight comes off my chest, and I can finally breathe again.

His blue eyes open and look bewildered, but not afraid. "Why are we lying on my parent's floor?" He turns his head slowly, taking in the room. "Why does everything look so run down? Was there an explosion? Is someone...? Are we in trouble?" There is so much trust in his voice and my heart bursts into a million pieces.

I collapse on his chest in relief. I start laughing and crying at the same time.

"Seriously, Hannah. What's going on?" He struggles to raise himself up off the floor. He looks down at his clothes. "Why am I wearing this?"

Wiping my face and scrubbing it with my palms, I finally meet his deeply familiar gaze. My chest swells and for the first time in forever, I'm not worried or afraid. 

"We're in trouble. We're in big trouble," I say.

                                                                                      ###

"So, we're stuck here?" Ryan asks once I'm done explaining what I know. 

"That's what I'm saying. I think there has to be a way back, but Maizie and I don't know it. I think Mason must have some idea, but he would never agree to give up that information."

I watch Ryan, I can't stop watching him, this all feels surreal. For a guy who was dead only an hour ago, he is handling it all pretty well. I'm still in shock. 

He presses his lips together and looks at me sideways. "We've really been here for a year?"

"Yes," I say.

Ryan frowns and runs his hands through his hair. "Unbelievable. The timeline all feels a little fuzzy. It's like memories have been laid on top of other memories." He gives me a disbelieving look. "You jumped off the water tower."

I nod, afraid to say more. Everything in me feels liquid with relief that he's here, that he remembers, that he's alive. 

His brow furrows deeper. "You were betting that the fall and the time would mirror what happened to you on the Third Realm?" he asks, giving me a skeptical look.