I try to call out for Danny but I’m completely drained and my conscience reality is pulled away sending me into a black hole. My eyes are being forced shut and I swear I can hear Paul’s voice in my ear. His voice makes me smile. Everything goes black and the last thing I see is Paul. He’s playing the guitar to a song we would listen to growing up. Rayando El Sol by Mana. When we were kids, it was a common song that we both loved to listen to. It reminded us of our trips to Mexico when we would visit our Tia’s house. He looks up from his guitar, his brown eyes meeting mine and he looks like he’s glowing. He looks happy. He smiles and says,
‘Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep.’
I muster all the energy I can to open my eyes, but I can’t. I’m weak. I’m completely drained.
Oh no, my baby.
‘Ari, baby, don’t fall asleep,’ Paul says to me but it doesn’t make sense.
He’s repeating the same words over and over again but instead, it’s Danny’s voice coming out of Paul’s mouth.
Then I’m starting to get some feeling back. I can feel harsh pressure on my chest. It’s tight and it hurts so much. Somehow, I regain just a blip of strength and the image of Paul disappears and I manage to open my eyes. To my surprise, it’s Danny.
Everything around him is so blurry and I can’t make anything out. His face fades in and out as I’m trying to move but nothing does. I’m looking at Danny and I want to beg him to help me, to save me but nothing comes out. I need to warn him about Shane and Nora before they try and attack him or Kane. That’s when I realize his hands are on my chest. He’s the reason why I feel intense pain and pressure.
I can’t breathe, I’m trying to suck in a breath but nothing happens. I feel like I’m drowning but there’s no water swallowing me whole.
Come on lungs, don’t fail me. Expand.
Why can’t I breathe?
Danny looks completely distraught, and worried, while his hands are on my chest. I can feel the darkness pulling at me again but before it pulls me back entirely, I see something. Something in Danny shocks me and if I weren’t so damn weak, I would be crying. I’d be thrashing against him.
Danny blinks and the white that surrounds his blue eyes flash to obsidian black. I’m trying to gasp for air when I see how his eyes transform.
This has to be a nightmare, I’m in a nightmare.
His eyes turn black leaving only his light blue iris. He doesn’t look human. Humans can’t do this. Am I hallucinating? As I stare at Danny, his face is slowly replaced by a familiar figure. Everything’s lonely again, I’m losing consciousness when all I can see is his tattoo. His back tattoo that always frightens me. Danny’s tattoo.
The familiar Grim Reaper engulfed in flames, comes alive, whispering hauntingly into my ears, and I feel a freezing, cold breath on my neck. It’s a dark, monstrous whisper, and it doesn’t sound normal, nor human. It’s deep and demonic.
‘Time waits for no one. Death is a shadow stalking the living. It is a painful inexorable promise while Life is a lovely lie.’
