A cold stillness seeped into my very being as I stared at my own form, lifeless on the grassy corner. My breath felt stolen, my body a heavy weight anchoring me to the earth. Panic surged in my chest, a desperate cry clawing at my throat. My hand cradled my head, fingertips brushing away tears that seemed foreign to my numb touch. A searing agony bloomed where I knew my heart should be, a crimson bloom staining the green. Every beat echoed like a distant drum, fading with each ragged gasp.

The world around me was a muted film, voices blending into a dull hum. Faces swam before my eyes, their lips moving in silent conversations. I yearned for their touch, their gaze to meet mine, a lifeline to pull me from this abyss. My voice, raw and broken, shattered the air, each plea a silent scream lost in the indifferent void. I reached out, fingers grasping at smoke, desperate to snag at the fabric of their reality, yet my touch passed through them like phantoms. Invisible, unheard, alone in the storm raging within.

A wail tore through the air, sirens splitting the night. Red and blue strobes painted the asphalt crimson, flashing in rhythm with my hammering heart. My body lay on a gurney, a vessel I yearned to reclaim, but an invisible tether held me back. Panic surged, a primal urge to follow. I bolted. Legs pumping, lungs screaming, I became a wraith amidst the speeding metal beasts. Cars, trucks, blurs of headlights. Each honk a whiplash, each rumble a tremor in my spectral form. A ten-wheeler loomed, a leviathan bearing down. I swerved, a desperate bid for escape, but the air grew thick with the stench of diesel and steel.

My eyelids cracked open like shutters revealing a blurry world. Then, through the haze, I saw it - the hulking truck, a metallic beast, slicing through the very air where I should have been. It moved with the speed of a startled deer, yet somehow, I felt not a pang, not a scratch. My heart hammered against my ribs, confusion coiling within me like a startled snake. Had I blinked? Dreamed it all? Just then, a wave of giddy relief washed over me. I was, impossibly, unharmed. But the echo of screeching tires and distant shouts drew me back to reality. I scrambled to my feet, legs still jelly, and ran towards the commotion. A swarm of yellow tape cordoned off the scene, policemen barking orders amidst the flash of cameras and clamor of reporters. What had just happened?

The darkness swallowed the scene whole, its icy fingers creeping into my bones. The crowd, once a buzzing hive, had dissolved into the shadows, leaving only the whispers of the wind and the stark outlines of caution tape. My gaze snagged on a pair of abandoned slippers, a sickening splash of crimson staining the grass. Fear coiled in my gut, a cold serpent twisting with each unanswered question: where to go, where to hide, where to find the slightest spark of warmth in this desolate wasteland.

The sky was a bruised canvas, heavy with rain that hadn't yet fallen. The damp, metallic tang of ozone hung thick in the air. Every flicker of the streetlamp threw grotesque shadows dancing on the grimy brick walls. I thought of Mother, her brow furrowed as she recited the rosary, beads clicking a steady rhythm against her trembling knuckles. It was time. Our ritual. Fear, bitter and acrid, rose in my throat. I closed my eyes, seeking solace in the memorized prayer, her voice echoing in the hollowness within. But when I opened them, catching a glint of something unseen in the wavering light, the illusion shattered. Mother was miles away, and I was adrift in a storm of my own making.

The sacred rhythm of my prayer was shattered by an ethereal intrusion. Angels, their faces etched with celestial sorrow, knelt in supplication. A tremor of trepidation ran through me. My lips, poised to proclaim the tenets of faith, trembled like a leaf caught in a whirlwind. "I believe in the Holy Spirit,the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, and life ever... " I rasped, each syllable a battle against the tide of doubt that threatened to drown my conviction. But the vision, too vivid to ignore, stole the breath from my lungs. With a sigh that echoed the unspoken fear within, I opened my eyes, the words of my prayer, like abandoned birds, silent in their nest.

My eyelids flickered open, only to meet a chasm ripped in the night sky. Eerie hues churned in the gaping aperture, swirling in a hypnotic dance. Before I could grasp the spectacle, the abyss yawned further, revealing a colossal gate of burnished gold. It creaked open with the groan of thunder, and a blazing dove plunged inward, pirouetting like a celestial spark. In its wake, the very air dissolved into rings of incandescent mist, swallowing the dove whole in a burst of luminescence. The brilliance lanced down, its spotlight pinning me in its grip. Fear clawed at my throat as I surged forward, fueled by primal instinct. Walls and windows blurred past, mere phantoms in my desperate sprint. Sleeping children nestled beside their parents floated beneath me, their slumber impervious to my frantic pleas for help, their groans swallowed by the wind that whipped through my hair. I was adrift in a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, a lone leaf tossed upon a cosmic gale.

I plunged myself into a small hut. It was a haven of grief, its air thick with sorrow. An old woman sat crouched at the threshold, her sobs tearing through the stillness. Drawn by an invisible thread, I settled beside her, a silent witness to her heartache. Her words, a lament for a son lost, carried the weight of the world. Inside, the flickering candle on a black casket danced defiantly against the encroaching darkness. As I stepped past the threshold, the flame sputtered and died, plunging the room into an icy embrace. "He's here!" the woman cried, her voice raw with anguish. "My son is here!"

With trembling hands, she rekindled the candle, banishing the shadows one by one. Then, in a gesture of unimaginable grief, she enveloped the casket, her tears tracing glistening paths on the cold glass. A wave of empathy washed over me, and I hesitantly reached out, offering a gentle touch to her back. In that moment, a flicker of recognition lit in her eyes, and her lips formed my name, a whisper swallowed by the sobs racking her body.

Mother. The word echoed in my heart, a long-lost song suddenly remembered. Tears of my own welled up as I pulled her close, our shared sorrow bridging the chasm between silence and understanding. Her wails filled the air, raw and primal, a cry for a son, a mother, a life cut short. I longed to reach her, to offer words of solace, to drown out the echo of loss with whispers of love, but my voice remained trapped within, unheard.

And yet, in the silent symphony of our tears, a connection thrummed. In the shared breath of grief, a bridge was built. Though unspoken, my love whispered its promises: of remembrance, of acceptance, of a bond that death could not sever. In the small hut, bathed in the flickering candlelight, we mourned together, mother and child, united in the language of the heart.

After few moments of deafening silence, motes of celestial light danced through the thatched roof, igniting the small space with an unearthly radiance. My mother, startled, rushed outside, but I clung to her hands, a white-knuckled grip fueled by primal fear. The light bathed us, warm and impossibly gentle, and a tear-streaked smile bloomed on her face. Her voice, soft as a lullaby, whispered, "Rest now, my child." The words snagged in my throat, choked by the encroaching light. It surged, a tidal wave of luminescence, and with a wrench that tore at my soul, swept me away. The final threads of my pleas, "Hold me, Mama!" dissolved into the ether, leaving only a heart-rending silence.


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