Chapter Three: Rebirth

I spent at least four weeks in the hospital before the doctors deemed that I was stable enough to go home. I would have to go back to get the staples in my head removed. That doctors wouldn’t tell me much so as to not freak me out, I guess, but the nurses said I was a living miracle. That was the key word. Living. I was living. I was alive. My mother was in tears every day she saw me, both when I was awake and not. Such an experience I could not describe or explain. It wasn’t necessarily an out of body phenomenon. It was something else. It’s like I was watching everything from my mother’s perspective. I didn’t want to tell her about it because I didn’t want to freak her out or think that her child has something else wrong with her now. I was going to keep everything to myself. I didn’t have an answer to it, and I knew I wasn’t going to get one. At least, nothing that sounded rational. 

Due to partial shaving of my head, I had a friend of my mother cut my hair. I wasn’t entirely fond of it, but it made my mother happy. I stared at the ceiling of my room long enough to where everything began to feel like it was shifting again, thinking about all of the things I saw. The lights. The figure. The floating. What did it mean? Was it all a dream? Most of my ceiling sessions ended with a decision that I was dying and having a hell of a hallucination. However, I always went back to it. Lying on my bed, I heard my mother calling me from downstairs. It was time for breakfast, and from the smell of the house, I could tell she cooked again. She’s made breakfast every morning since I got home instead of letting me fend for myself with a box of cereal. I carefully sat up and threw my legs over the edge of my bed, reaching for my hoodie to put on over my head. It was a struggle through some of the aches and pains. I blinded myself momentarily when my head got caught, stubbing my toe on the corner of my bedside table. The pain that shocked through my body made me prefer getting hit by that car again. I hunched over, forcing myself to muffle every curse word that sprang up in unison. I heard another thump in my room. Finally pulling the hoodie the rest of the way down, I looked around my room to see what had fallen. There was a small trophy on its side in front of my bed, which was slightly odd considering all of my kiddy soccer trophies were on a shelf mounted above my bed. I walked over and picked it up, puzzled for a minute before tossing it on my bed. I was hungry.

My mother called for me again. “Desley, what’s taking you?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Zombies don’t move fast.” I shouted back from the doorway of my bedroom, stumbling out into the hallway. I was part of the way to the staircase when I heard the bathroom door slam shut down the hall. The wind. That was the wind. It’s not breakfast. If it’s not breakfast, I’m not going to be bothered. I started making my way downstairs, readjusting my hoodie as I went. I briefly glanced up at the family portraits of my mother, her parents, baby Desley, and other faces I didn’t really recognize. When I thought about it, I never really looked at all of the pictures that lined the wall of the staircase. I didn’t really know my family. We lived far away from most of them. It was always just my mom and I. One picture on the wall caught my eye. It was of my mother holding me as a baby. Black and white. I stared at it for a while, examining every detail I may have disregarded before. Then I felt a tickle in my nose. I could feel it coming on, and it was going to be a big one. I sneezed so hard that I thought my brains were going to launch out of my nostrils. I stumbled back against the railing and steadied myself, hearing a scrape against the wall followed by a single thud. When I looked up again, I noticed that all of the picture frames were crooked, angled away from me. The one of my mother and I had dropped off the wall somehow, the back covering breaking loose from the fall. As a result, two smaller, hidden pictures had slipped out. 

“Desley, what was that noise?” My mother called from the kitchen. 

“Nothing!” I shouted back. I bent down to pick up the two pictures, my eyes scanning over each one. One picture was entirely black and looked like it may have been of an ultrasound. The other one was of a man. He was standing in our kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand, glasses fixed on his face and wearing a shirt with a tie. Another black and white photo. There was no question as to who the man was. I remembered the thick frames of his glasses. He was my father. Daniel Morgan. I only knew him when I was a child, but I never knew much about him. I was eight-years-old when he disappeared from my life. 

After setting the picture frame back on the wall, I made my way down the stairs to find my mother in the kitchen. Her hair was up, sleeves of her denim shirt rolled back as she scrubbed the frying pan of what was left behind by the eggs she made. I sat down at the table in the middle, eggs and bacon with a glass of juice sitting before me. 

She turned around. “Well, nice to see you’ve finally made it down for breakfast.”

“Yeah, I had some trouble getting down the stairs. One of your pictures fell.”

“Oh? How did that happen?”

“I’m not really sure.” I set the two hidden pictures down on the table. “I found these though.” 

My mother turned around before placing her hands on the pine surface. She leaned across the table to get a better look at the pictures. Then she smiled. 

“I haven’t seen these in forever! Where did you find them?”

“Behind one of the pictures.” I stuffed a piece of bacon in my mouth. I could see her getting lost looking at the photo of my dad. “What did dad do? Like, for a job.”

My mother moved away from the table and turned her attention to one of the cabinets. “Well, your father was a researcher. He liked to study things, I suppose.” 

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure, really. He was some big shot though. People always shaking his hand, congratulating him, inviting him to places.” She opened up one of the cabinets and pulled out a glasses case. “Your father was a very smart man, Desley.”

Before I stuffed a forkful of eggs in my mouth, I asked her, “What happened to him? Like, why did dad leave?”

Mom looked down at the case she held in her hands, taking a long pause before setting it down on the table for me to get a better look. “I’m not really sure of that either, babe. He just stopped coming home one night. No one knows where he went.” She shook her head and smiled at me. “But that was then. It doesn’t matter now as long as we have each other.” 

I smiled back at her and went about eating my breakfast. My mother placed both of the pictures inside the glasses case and put it back in the cabinet. That was one other question I needed to ask her. 

“Was that my ultrasound?” 

“Ultrasound?” My mother turned to me.

“Yeah, the other picture. Was that me before I was me?”

She casually shook her head. “No, dear. That was actually your baby brother.”

Now that was a surprise.

“My what?”

My glass of juice tipped over. I panicked for a slight moment as I jumped up to grab my glass, but it was already too late. The apple juice had spread across the table. My mother quickly fetched some paper towel. 

“You would have had a little brother once, but he never made it to birth,” she said as she began to soak up the juice. 

I opened my mouth to say something, but my train of thought was lost when the clock above the sink fell and the microwave started beeping excessively. My mother seemed surprised by all of it.

“Well, that’s not weird at all.” I started to say.

She bent down to pick the clock off the floor as the beeping continued from the microwave. “I’m beginning to think we have a ghost in the house.” The beeping refused to stop, so my mom unplugged it altogether. “You didn’t bring a ghost home from the hospital, did you?”

I wasn’t too positive on what to say to her little remark. Ever since I had been home, weird things happened around the house. In a way, I kind of wondered the same thing. Maybe I did bring someone home with me. I didn’t know how I felt about having a ghost attached to me. What if I had to shower? With the luck I have, my ghost was probably a pervert who enjoyed watching us pee. I’m sure someone placed a pillow over his face, too. With all of these thoughts coming to mind, I had a mind to amuse my mother with them. Before I had the chance to, however, there was a knock at the front door. 

“Desley, can you answer that?” My mom was busy climbing the sink to reach the hanging place for the clock. 

I stood up from the table and left to answer the door. I crossed the living room where the television images turned into a mess of static and fuzz as I passed by. How weird this day was shaping up to be already. There was more knocking at the door. I lunged for the knob and pulled it open to see a pleasant surprise on the other side.

“Thomas!” I gleefully shouted. 

Thomas gave me a goofy grin before throwing himself on me. I had never been so happy to smell his dingy, green hoodie. 

“Desley Morgan returned from the dead!” He threw me into a headlock. “What’s it like being a zombie? Craving brains yet?”

I struggled to slip my head out from under his arm. “Not that you’d have anything to worry about.”

“I’m about to take you to see a movie and here you are giving me lip already.” 

“Screw you, Tom!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Easy, Thomas. Don’t be so rough on her for the time being.” I heard my mother yelling from the kitchen. 

Thomas let go of my head and snickered. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Morgan. Just got excited to see my buddy for the first time in weeks.” 

Thomas struck up a conversation with my mom while I started putting my shoes on. He wanted to go see a movie, and regardless of how stupid it might be, I needed to get out of the house. I wasn’t fond of going out in nothing but a hoodie and basketball shorts, but I figured since I briefly became a hood ornament, I could be excused from looking like a decent human being. We yelled to my mom that we would be back in a little bit, and she expressed her concerns for my head. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Make sure I don’t bump into anything. No crazy stunts. No fighting. She might as well just put me in a bubble and call it a day. Sure enough, we were soon out the door and on our way to the bus stop. I wasn’t too use to walking a long distance yet like we had before. At some point, I would get lightheaded. Any amount of walking was worth seeing my best friend though. 

Heading down the sidewalk, not much was said between us, which was a little surprising. I thought Thomas would be talking my ear off and filling me in on what I had missed at school. Instead, he walked silently with an enormous grin on his face, hands behind his head, seemingly without a care in the world. I noticed he hadn’t buzzed his head since I was in the hospital. It almost unsettled me how much had changed already in the course of a few weeks. 

“I have something for you.” Thomas broke the silence. 

“Well, now that’s a first.”

“Shut up.” He began to take his backpack off his shoulders, unzipping it as we continued walking. “I managed to save it before the EMS disposed of it. Figured you might want it back when you got out.”

Thomas handed me the hat I was wearing the day I got hit by the car. 

“Thomas, how did you get this?” I was stunned. 

“Well, I managed to pull a few tricks while they were carrying you off. I’m surprised I didn’t get arrested. I knew you’d want it back.”

“Oh, most definitely. Thank you, bro.” I said. 

I started to put my hat over my head, but I stopped for a moment. My eyes scanned the inside of my hat, and I saw a dark stain in one section. 

Blood.

That must have been from when I hit my head. It disturbed me, all of the memories flashing back. The screaming. The chaos. The twitching. The floating. The light. I got lost in it. 

“Hey, you okay? You still with me, Des?” Thomas grabbed my shoulder. “I mean, I know it’s all kinda tattered.”

I shook my head and slid my hat on over my head backwards. “No, it’s fine. I was just thinking. Y’know? Everything feels kinda different.”

“You look different.” Thomas smacked the bill on my hat. “I mean, look at that hair! Where did it all go?”

I shoved Thomas knowing he wouldn’t do anything back to me. The city bus roared by us, and it made me jump. Thomas wasted no time running up to the door and holding the bus up until I got there. City buses always made me uneasy for the number of different characters you could encounter. We had taken a seat in the back to avoid any unnecessary conflicts. Public transportation must have been an idea conjured up from Hell. I noticed a lady twitching in one of her seats, looking up occasionally before maddeningly sketching something on the back of the plastic seats. A couple of teenage girls gossiped ahead of us, one of them stringing bubblegum around her finger as if she was in a 90’s chick flick. Only thing they were missing were the cheerleader outfits. I saw that Thomas had been looking at them. Lastly, I noticed a child near the middle. She was staring back at my best friend and I. Kids will be kids, I thought. I saw her turn to her mother and complain that it was loud on the bus. However, I didn’t see many mouths moving. I could hear her clearly. The twitchy lady turned and looked at me as well. She stared at me hard with a wicked grin on her face before turning her attention back to the seat, carving more nonsense into the plastic. Thank goodness we were close to our stop. 

“Let’s get going, Des.” Thomas pulled at my hoodie to follow him.

Thomas led the way off the bus, but I couldn’t help but sneak a peak at what the tweaker was sketching. 

End. 

End.

End.

She had been carving the word “End” into the back of the seat. I became in more of a hurry to get off the bus than Thomas at that point. I wanted to get off before the doomsday preaching started. I followed closely behind Thomas as we made our way to the movie theater downtown. He had failed to mention to me the kind of movie we were going to see, which scared me a tiny bit. However, he assured me it was nothing awkward given the nature of our friendship. That was a relief. The best thing about seeing a movie during the day was the fact that there was hardly anyone else in attendance. There were no lines to wait in. No popcorn to stand around for. No kids you had to trip over. My favorite was no fellow, obnoxious teenagers without the supervision of their parents. We got our tickets swiftly and without hassle, and we slipped inside one of the auditoriums to watch a superhero based movie. 

I could see the plot of the film before it even reached its first flare of rising action. A lone superhero with incredible power is outcasted by the normal Normans he’s secretly protecting. Rejected and misunderstood. This was a coat all superheroes in every comic book in existence seemed to wear. By the average hours of his life, he was an overlooked citizen just like everyone else with a love interest way out of his league. To my own surprise, as the movie progressed, the superhero of the story was slowly becoming the villain after his realization that he was a god among ants. I guess bullying works in the same sense, which was really the only initial thought I had during the plot twist. Thomas was soaking up every bit of it. Usually he’s a talker during a movie. For this one, he was engrossed in every scene as if he was part of it. 

“Man, this movie is lame.” I heard a voice directly behind me. I chose to ignore it though. 

“Tell me about it. I swear, it’s like they can’t come out with anything original anymore.” I heard another voice. 

“Hey, that one girl finally text me back. It’s on for tonight.”

“Yeeeaaaaaah, Brozilla. Get it!”

I was beginning to get irritated. I glanced over at Thomas to see he wasn’t bothered by any of the conversation going on in the row behind us. I never saw the two come in. 

“I heard about these male enhancement pills.”

“Dude, why do you buy into that stuff?”

“Well, y’know, I read they got good reviews.”

“Dude…”

“They’re organic!”

“Dude!” The man sounded louder. 

I spun around in my seat to do my best impression of an aggravated librarian, but there was no one behind us. I looked around in the darkness and saw no one else present in the theater with us. Thomas was giving me a confused look.

“What’s got into you?”

There was a long pause. I didn’t know how to explain myself without sounding odd. Oh, well. It was Thomas. 

“I thought I heard someone talking behind us. It freaked me out.” I said. 

“You freak me out.” 

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After the movie had ended, we hid out in the theater and snuck into the other movies that were playing. I weirded myself out more when we encountered two boys leaving the auditorium next to the one we were originally in. We saw three movies total for that day, and we decided to start heading back home when it was getting dark. I was feeling better than I was earlier, so we walked home instead of enduring another awkward bus ride. I hadn’t told him much about my experiences in the hospital or even the near-death episode. Some of it I figured he already knew, but I wanted to tell him what he didn’t know. I told him about the darkness and all of the floating around. I described the lights that I saw, and Thomas had a mind to call them stars. That’s what his opinion was. He was serious about listening to me at first, but the more I talked about it, the more I must have sounded ridiculous. 

“You had a near death experience. Stuff like that happens.” Thomas shrugged, chucking a wad of gum over the rail of a large bridge we were crossing. 

“Near death? Dude, I died. No pulse. I think whatever happened in that place is what gave me a second chance.” I looked around for a minute to see how vacant of traffic this part of town was. “And I’m not wasting it.”

“Hey, if it gives you a new outlook on your own life, deary, then take it as that. I’m just saying you probably just had a mess of images and sensations because you got dome-rocked by a motorized vehicle.” Thomas held back a snicker for that last bit. 

Thomas went through an explanation of what happens to the human brain during its dying stages. As he was talking, a car passed by us then stopped suddenly. I didn’t pay any attention to it. I let Thomas continue the tangent he was on. 

“Hey, that’s them!” A familiar voice stopped us both in our tracks. 

“Yeah, you’re right. I thought the other one died.” Another familiar voice. 

“You owe me ten, dick. I told you!”

Thomas and I nervously turned around to see Keith and Kyler climbing out of a car followed by a few others. This wasn’t going to be good. 

“Hey, I think you limp dicks owe me an apology for the hand.”

Thomas put his hands up as they moved closer to us. “Keith, man, can’t we just let this go already? I mean, it’s already been weeks.” 

“Not if he’s jerkin’ it with his left hand now.” I couldn’t help myself. 

Keith pulled his knife out of his pocket and pointed it at us, Kyler and the other boys cornering us into the rail. 

“Don’t get cocky, Morgan. I’ll put you back in the hospital along with your boyfriend.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend.” I muttered. “Why does everyone think that?”

Thomas began taking his backpack off and tossed it in front of Keith. “There, you can have whatever you want. Just let us walk, man. I’m not looking to have any beef with you.” 

Keith stood silently, his eyes looking over the pack that landed just ahead of his feet. He smirked, and I saw him pass a gesture to Kyler. The boys closed in more, and I became very leery of the bat Kyler carried in his hand. We were being backed into the rail, Thomas standing in front of me out of his own protective tendency. Keith kicked the bag to the side.

“I think you misunderstand, Tommy. It’s going to take a lot more than whatever junk you have in your bag to make up for this.” Keith held up his hand, scarred from the firecracker from weeks ago. 

Thomas began to speak, but he was cut off when one of the boys lunged for him. Thomas accidentally smashed me against the rail as he tried to fight him off, but the other boy jumped in and grabbed him by his hoodie. All of them were bigger, so it didn’t take much effort for the other boy to hurl Thomas across the ground, rolling to a stop in front of Keith. I was pushed down in all of the chaos. When I had finally gotten to my feet, I saw that Keith and the other two boys started wailing on my best friend all at once. Thomas was trying to keep his head covered, balling up into fetal position to protect his stomach and face. His efforts were lost though. I had to help him. I screamed at them to stop beating him, marching towards them and preparing to charge into the pile. I didn’t notice Kyler approaching behind me. All I felt next was an explosion of pain in the back of my head and the sound of tin binging off my skull. My hat landed near my feet. I gripped my head in my hands as the pain dropped me to my feet, Thomas’ cries of agony slowly being tuned out from the ringing that swamped my ears. I felt sick to my stomach, the fear of dying again overwhelming my senses. I couldn’t hear anything now. My body shook, and I staggered to get to my feet again. The pain in my head became unbearable, like dynamite going off in the soft tissues of my brain. My vision switched back and forth between being blurry to razor sharp focus. My chest felt it was on fire. 

What was going on with me? 

A pulse shot through my skull, and it almost brought me back to my knees. I could see my own agonizing cries got Keith’s attention, watching him wave his knife around and point at me. As I tried to keep on my feet, I could feel Kyler grab my arm in an attempt to drag me away. There was a sharp scream that overpowered the ringing in my ears, and I didn’t feel his grip on my arm anymore. In one cluster of images I was trying to make out, I could see streaks of red across my shoes. I saw Keith and the other boys staring at me now with frightened faces. One boy pulled a gun from his waist band and pointed it at Thomas. I could see he was shouting at me, but I had no idea why. I just didn’t want them to hurt my best friend more. I reached my hand out towards and pleaded for him to leave him alone. He cocked back the hammer.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!”

Suddenly, the boy was soaring through the air, denting the roof of the car behind him as he smacked into it. The other boy began backing away, clearly begging Keith to leave. Keith, out of his own mind, charged at me. The knife in his hand. The rabid expression on his face. I could feel the bridge shaking the closer he got to me. I wasn’t able to run away from him.

Then I was blinded by a flash of light.