My Condolences

[Aura]

Prelude

I didn't feel anything. I didn't even notice it happen. It wasn't hot, it didn't hurt, my life didn't flash before my eyes, I didn't even have a moment to try and breathe in order to realize whether or not I could. I wasn't sad, I wasn't scared, I wasn't angry. For one moment, one fleeting moment, I heard silence. In a way, I suppose you could call it a happy feeling. It's not at all the way I thought I would've felt if it happened.

My name is Julia Whithro, and I'm dead.

I was 25 years old, North on I-10 on Christmas Eve, 2021. It was raining and I was going 90 when the speed limit was 75. It was 9:30 at night and I needed to get home to finish wrapping gifts for my parents and 9 year old sister. There were no cops around so I knew I wasn't going to get pulled over. I guess that's what I'd be testifying in court if I got to go. But if I went to my funeral, I'd be saying so many more things. I'd tell my sister it's not her fault I never came home. I'd tell my mother that I didn't hate her, that I understood why she was always so persistent with me. I'd tell my father that I'm okay with this, and to think of it like a really exciting business trip or something.

But I didn't get to go to my funeral. Not even in death. It was a closed casket service. My body was too disgusting to be seen even by my family. That was the excuse they were given.

But don't get me wrong, I don't hold any grudges. I'm not some ghost loitering around between this world and the next because of some lingering regret. The only regret I ever had was whatever point I crossed where I could no longer look at my schedule and tell myself, honestly, that I wanted to do anything on it. I didn't want to go to school anymore. I didn't want to study anymore. I didn't want to go to church anymore. I didn't want to play music anymore. I didn't want to talk anymore. I didn't even want to eat anymore. I woke up every morning wishing I could sleep all day. I fell asleep every night wishing it could last forever. This time, I fell asleep and I really, truly, thought it would last forever.

It felt like a dream. I was in heaven. It wasn't clouds and pearly gates. It was empty. Dark. Not a scary darkness, but a peaceful one. Like when you're meditating and emptying your mind. I had no fear of the unknown because there was no unknown. It was me directly in the arms of God. He was hushing all of the fears and anxieties that had been screaming in my head for as long as I could remember and lulling me to sleep like a baby. Until that point, I had never heard silence. I finally understood that everything would sort itself out with time. Other people would take my place and I no longer felt inadequate because of that. I was able to look back at all the positions I was filling and be glad that other people were taking the opportunities I had. I would've thought I'd be jealous that they're living the life I used to, or angry that they're not doing things the way I would, but I didn't feel anything like that. I was proud of them. Happy for them. I wished them the best. I could see my family go through the mourning process. They hurt, but they got better each day. It's funny how quick it happens from this perspective.

And all this time, I just rested. I rested and waited, listening to the symphony of silence. There was no time, there were no deadlines. There was nothing I forgot, there were no promises I had to uphold. I felt like I was drifting on air and had no fear that I'd ever fall.

And then... the silence was broken. Before I knew it, sound was creeping into my ears again. Well, my right one, anyway. A quiet hum that I'd never have noticed had it not been for that silence that blessed my ears moments before. Suddenly I was aware of the passage of time. I was aware of the pull of gravity locking me down to a sunken mattress. I was aware of the chains of wires that were keeping me in place. I was aware of the fact that I couldn't move and that I could only see in my right eye and even then my vision was too blurred to make anything out at all. I was aware of the fact that I hurt. I hurt like hell. There were holes in my body and they were burning against their bandages with every breath. I tried to move my arms. My muscles were shredded. Tears formed from the pain and even those burned my skin. I wanted to scream in pain but I wanted to keep silent.

What happened? Where was I? Who brought me here? Why was I here? How long had I been here?

No, no, no, none of that! None of that was important, I didn't need to know the answers to those questions, the more I thought about them the more my heart was gripped and locked tighter into my chest! My heart! I could feel every beat, I could feel the blood pumping through my body! I could feel adrenaline but nowhere for it to go! I screamed a louder scream than I'd ever screamed before! It hurt! It tore through my neck, it stretched the barely functioning muscles around my mouth and I didn't care! I screamed like an animal that had stepped into a trap. It couldn't have sounded human.

No! Not here!! Kill me! Somebody kill me! Don't take me back here!!

I couldn't say it, my brain couldn't focus enough to form the words, all I could manage was the unintelligible, hideous, feral sound of a child throwing a tantrum. Even with all the energy my body had, moving my body I found to be impossible. My muscles didn't just hurt, they weren't strong enough to lift my bones. Or they weren't attached. I could tense my upper right arm and my left may as well have been nonexistent.

Please, God, don't send me back! Why would you send me back here!? Why would you let me go!?

God was the only one who would hear, I prayed harder than I'd ever prayed before.

Please take me back! God! Please!

I suddenly heard a loud crash as the doorknob to the room twisted and the door was pushed open. I could tell the person walking in was trying to be quiet, but I could hear their breath, I could hear their heartbeat, too. I could hear them gulp before they prepared to speak, and I could hear their stuttered breath as they tried to compose themself.

"Julia?"

I was silent, I closed my eyes and screamed to myself in my head.

No, God, tell me this isn't real, tell me that wasn't all a lie.

"Julia, can you hear me?" I heard him shuffling around, he was checking the tools all around me. I heard the furious scribbling on a clipboard, I could hear the drainage of the ink as his pen slid over the surface of the paper.

"Julia, can you hear me? Julia?"

The voice repeated. It was the voice of a man.

No, stop it! Stop trying to think about these things! I don't care who he is! I don't care where I am! I don't want to be here! There's too much sound! Too much noise! I want to go back!!

"Julia! I don't know if you can understand me, but I can see your brain is responding. It's me, Walter!"

More silence. Walter, my lab partner... why? Why is he here?! Not him, God, please, let it be anybody but him!

"Hah! You can! You can understand me!" His voice was sickeningly cheerful. "I can't believe I finally got it to work! Everyone said the drug would be impossible, but I made it happen!"

What? Drug? Was this guy experimenting on me?!

"Don't worry, you're probably in a lot of pain, but I'm going to make you feel good as new! It's just going to take some time! I don't want to make you panic, ah, I practiced this so many times but I never expected to actually do this... How do I put it?" The man exhaled, he was trying his best to contain his excitement and be empathetic, but everything he said and did drilled into my ears.

"I don't know what the last thing you can remember is, Julia, but... you had so many beautiful dreams and ambitions that I couldn't bear the thought of our world losing. I hope through extensive medical procedures and rehabilitation, I can get you on your feet so that I can make those dreams into reality and make the world a better place for everyone! Julia, I still don't know if you even recognize me, but... I thought I'd never get a chance to say these things. Maybe you won't even remember what I'm telling you right now, but I want to take this opportunity to tell you that these last twenty years I have dedicated exclusively to you. Julia, I love you and I can't bear to think of a life without you or with any other woman by my side! I know you were highly stressed and I don't know what the situation behind the wreck was, but your death was determined to be accidental but I've always feared it was suicide! I refused to believe it, but I could blame nobody but myself. I never should've pushed you so hard, I should've been more involved! I shouldn't have let you keep going back to your unhappy household. I should've been more firm with you. I've refused to accept there was no hope for you. So I beg you, please, if not for your own sake, than for mine, please allow yourself to live so that I can rectify my mistakes and give you the beautiful life you always should've had!"

None of it was making any goddamn sense!! I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to punch him in the goddamn face! What the hell gives him the right to say any of that bullshit!? And 20 years!? It'd been, like, two minutes! Did I really miss that much?

As I stared ahead at the blurry figure in front of me, my eye was slowly able to focus. He was still blurry, but I could vaguely make out the shape of an older white man with black, silvering hair and wearing a white, what I could only presume was a labcoat.

It turns out, there was one more person I would've wanted to talk to at my funeral. Walter Laurence. And if I had one thing I'd want to say to him it would be "Don't you dare touch my body."

I was 25 years old when I died in a car wreck on I-10 on Christmas Eve of 2021 at 9:30 at night. I am now 45 years old and alone with the creep who's already decided how I'm going to live for the rest of my life while I have no choice but to rely on him to merely exist. I don't know how he did it, but he brought me back from the dead. He will not let me die. I can't move, I can't escape. I am scared.

My name is Julia Whithero, and I was robbed of my death.