Creepypastas

My Story

She kept talking about how tired she was. That she was 'ready'. Ready for what I didn't know. I couldn't help thinking she meant 'ready' for the great beyond. She wasn't religious in the slightest. I never heard her pray, she had no pictures of Christ and she didn't keep a bible. We didn't even talk about whether there was a God out there in the heavens above. When you have to face the stark realities of life I suppose God doesn't exist for you.

But something in the acceptance of her fate seemed to have opened a door inside and in through it had walked a belief. A belief that this wasn't the end.

I visited everyday, partly out of duty and partly out a selfish desire to not be alone. I would sit by her bedside whilst the morphine dripped into her system to help ease her pain. The world I was harshly born into was the same one that would gently take her out it would seem. Most of the time she would lie there semi-conscious, muttering to herself and I would sit in silence watching the life fade away from her like a sunset. Every once in a while I would turn up to the hospital and she would be sat upright in her bed, fresher than a daisy and ready to explode with conversation. She would talk about her life, how she had hoped she had done a good job of raising her son, how she would see him and her husband again. As the weeks passed these waking moments saw her become increasingly happy. She had convinced herself that her '2 boys' were waiting to take her 'home'.

That takes me to the week before her death. A dark and dank Thursday afternoon, the wind serving only to throw the heavy rain into my face. A cold hard slap from the hand of God. I didn't have any money that day, I didn't have money most days, so I walked to the hospital and every step felt forced, like I was walking towards death itself. That's what I assumed, that my Auntie had died during the morning and that only her memory would greet me when I arrived.

The ward she was in gave me an uneasy feel. Hospitals in general always have the feel of death hanging over them, a black umbrella blocking out the sun. People are fighting the inevitable in hospitals, their struggles give the feel of a constant war between the living and the cold touch of the grim reaper. That's why I believe cemeteries are more peaceful than they are frightening. The dead don't struggle anymore.

The lights in the hospital ward felt dimmer, their brightness turned down to a shade of despair. There was an unsettling quiet that choked the atmosphere, unseen but obvious in its blanketing presence. I arrived expecting to see an empty bed among the 5 others that filled the small room, but she was there. Sat up, alert, but different. Something so different that my heart lodged itself in my throat and fear took hold of me like a stranger grabbing the arm of a child before dragging them away from their mother.

She turned her head, slowly, so slowly. Her eyes locked forward the entire time, as if invisible hands held her head in its place and were forcing her to look at some horrific sight. Her eyes locked onto mine and I felt the acid in my stomach try to tear my soul apart. Their bloodshot appearance made me think she had been crying rivers of crimson. They peered through me, reaching my very core, shattering me with their solemnness. I wanted to turn away, to run away and never go back. The almost skeletal face of this woman had replaced the one that I had grown to love. The woman that once cared for me now seemed like she wanted rip my flesh from its bones.

A small recognition lit in her eyes, there but for a brief moment, but enough for me to take one step forward instead of the many steps back my animal nature told me to take. 'Hello' is all I could muster.

She mumbled something back. She started to cough, viciously, the air trying to escape the black abyss of her poisoned lungs. Instinctively I darted forward to help her. I poured a glass of water and this feeble old lady that had just scared me so was now quivering in my arms as she sipped from the glass like it was her first drink after days in the desert.