Dora The Traveller ✔

15: Rise and Shine

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○●○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○
◇° CHAPTER 15: Arise and Shine °◇
○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○●○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○

And I will send my spirit upon you,
Said the Lord.
He will be among you.
He said.
~mirthykayla

A phone call from a client woke Mike up from his beautiful nap, even with a strained neck, he was content for the first time in a very long while.

Matthew was woken up by hospital staff but he felt Hazel's tug on his hair strand.

"Jesus! I'm awake!" He snapped, frowning.

"Sir?" The security guy asked to clarify what he just said.

Matthew realised his mistake, "No, nothing. Sorry. Thank you." He rambled out of sleepiness.

After making sure no one was around, he started. "Hazel was that necessary?" He was now fully awake and ready to leave.

"No. But it was fun to watch." Hazel answered with a smug look on her face.

He just shook his head, "I need to go to work." He turned to leave but Hazel didn't want him to go like this. He sounded a bit annoyed.

She turned him around and kissed him. "Promise me to smile. I'll see you later, right?"

He smiled, how could he not? He realised whatever is happening is because of their love. So he promised to smile when he gets to work and to come back later.

▪︎
▪︎
▪︎
▪

︎

"Sounds like you had a great day." It was Tony.

Hazel didn't know who else to talk to besides Tony. He came with his laptop to continue his research on his sister's confusing condition.

Together they discovered a few things of interest that relate to her. They gathered that Hazel was a witch descendant and both parents knew nothing of such in the family.

Then they found out that generational effects led Matthew to her or her to Matthew. These two families must have known each other eons ago and they're trying to spend an eternity together through descendants.

It was Tony's idea to ask his father's mother to visit, maybe she had answers.

"I don't think so, they were oblivious to this coincidence. " Hazel thought out loud.

"Maybe that's what she wanted people to think. Maybe she's waiting for one of us to ask. What if it doesn't go that far back? Maybe her mother was a witch and she bound these two families with a love spell." Tony broke out laughing at how ridiculous it all sounded. But his sister was a ghost, and he once thought ghosts are just people's fears of the dead. It was once ridiculous.

Hazel sighed, something in her was against this whole information digging. "I don't know Tony." She said warily.

"Is everything okay?" He asked, not really concerned.

"What is everything?" Hazel scoffed and rolled her eyes.

Her brother closed his laptop and looked at her, concern now on his face. "Okay, no involving grandma. So what now?"

"Now, I make everyone feel better about my death." She sighed again.

"How? We can't get over someone we see every day."

"Hear." Hazel corrected.

"What?"

"Someone you hear every day. Not see."

Tony rolled his eyes, "Okay. So how?"

He was frustrating Hazel, "I don't know! Please! I just...I'll figure it out. I mean, I had promised to come back right? So here I am to say goodbye. That way I don't leave you guys so abruptly."

There was a pause, "Okay, I'm sorry for probing. We'll figure this out together. Like a puzzle. A board game...One last board game together. Deal?" He held out his hand for her to shake.

But she had other ideas, she pulled at his cheeks and kissed his nose.

This got him irritated, "Jesus!" And he pulled away.

Her parents didn't come by, she missed her mother but both she and Tony thought it was best to let her process the whole ghost daughter situation.

When Matthew did come by, Tony excused himself and went home. Hazel helped Matthew with a presentation that he had been postponing for too long. Clients wanted feedback and he thought he should do it while he can.

After a few disagreements over appropriate words and designs on the PowerPoint, they called it a night and Matthew was rather not happy to go home without her.

Hazel was reluctant to leave the hospital, but that's not all. She was also scared that what happened earlier would happen again, and God she knew she wouldn't be able to say no to his touch.

Hazel watched as nurses took rounds on checking and making sure she was alright, a week had passed and each day she hoped to see her mother. But to no avail.

Tony tried to talk to her but she didn't want to talk about it, Caroline that is.

After some convincing, Hazel was allowed to leave with Matthew. Michael was against it all, his reaction to the plead was unexpected. It seemed the man was more protective than he had liked to make known.

His few visits to the hospital had woken in him a realisation. A realisation that his daughter was to be no more and he had held himself together all this while, not dealing with the pain, supporting Caroline and Tony. He accepted it when Hazel told him that as soon as the machine goes off, she too will be gone. And that she cannot wake herself up. She told him that she's lucky to even have a chance to say goodbye.

To say Michael was broken would be calling the devil conniving. It was more than that. Hearing it all from the horse's mouth was more than he could take. So yes, Matthew's request was not an easy one to grant. Michael wanted to see his daughter every day after work. But even he knew it wouldn't be that easy with his workload, so he allowed it. He allowed Hazel to go with Matthew, who promised to hire a personal nurse for her. Caroline had a condition, Matthew is to return Hazel to the hospital once her family is ready to take her off life support.

This took Matthew by surprise, he had hoped they would discard that option since Hazel was...somehow back. But Caroline explained that according to her, Hazel will soon get bored and depressed, if ghosts can feel, because she was used to being around and about. Hazel agreed, the longing was getting stronger each day and the sooner she bid farewell to all of them, the better.

_____________________________________
Do you believe in celestial beings?
_____________________________________