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I'm Not Here Anymore...

[Madison's POV]

In which the paranormal is considered normal

I didn't comprehend what happened between when Thomas fell asleep and now, the bright, sumptuous morning. It was as if my body clock was in sync with his, our breathing linked in a repetitive, almost monotonous process of rising and falling. His eyes were squeezed shut, not lax, as if to protect himself from insecurity. Fear. What might come. His hair was neat, but somehow tangled into many individual knots. His muscles were tensed, too. There was only one standout reason for all of this. Darkness was inevitable. It was travelling through his ears like a thin trail of black glitter, only to settle and swirl around his brain. He tossed and turned now. The infection had begun.

"No!" He yelped, flinging this way and that. He attempted to shake it off as if it was a rider on a bucking bull. I couldn't do anything to help.

That was one of the first things I gathered while approaching the gateway to heaven. There was evil and there was good. Death had been haggling with my soul throughout my entire lifetime, waiting for the moment where I'd finally fall out. He thought it was going to happen at birth, but it was a heavy reliance on luck that drew my existence out long enough for me to even have a crack at my teen years. No point dwelling on things that can't be changed. I took my attention back to Thomas. He had settled down now, but the trigger on his senses was more than radioactive. Just one slight falter and...

"Gah!" He shook himself awake, trembling, hugging his knees. "Oh, my God..." he muttered, immediately placing a hand at his forehead and feeling for any abnormalities. In his case, it was just cold sweats. Cold, frightful sweats.

"I'm here..." I whisper, placing an otherworldly hand at his shoulder and he bounces around even more.

"What?" he mutters under his breath, still dazed at the fact I'm with him, watching his every move. "What are you doing James?!" he screeches. He can't hear me, but the senses of sight and the human heart are much more worthwhile. Much more valuable. Cherished, by both me and him equally.

"I have to start the day, k?" He talks to his surroundings. I touch his shoulder again as a signal of understanding. I can understand that his mind is fluttering with overwhelming feelings, a mixture of elation and disbelief. My fingertips are lingering there because the harshness of letting go is too much, but he doesn't want to release me either, it seems. He holds a hand in that spot, grasping on to the angelic aura I now possess, both the aspects of tender warmth and ghostly chills.

"I'm still around. Keep me posted." I release my grip and say, and he chuckles. So can he hear me, or is he laughing pitifully at his own jokes? I'll find out soon enough.

He proceeds to dress, as I follow him shortly after to his first class. It appears he skipped breakfast, for the obvious reason. It is the most important meal, but I suppose meals can be denied in times of intense mood swings, heartache and loss. He's engaging in small talk, which turns out to be mostly condolences. They strike him right at his heart.

"Thank you." he mutters to each of them, nodding his head in respect.

"You're welcome." They say back.

I watch him attempting to work throughout the morning, but he seems distracted over one thing in particular. Me. That's terribly sad. It's going to consume him, and once again, I can't help. I'm useless up here, but I didn't have much of a use down there either. Now that I think about it, my gift was actually just being there with all my qualities of selflessness, quiet humour and guidance. That's all I could offer.

"Now this is probably the most important lesson you'll ever partake in..." The teacher announces. "You must pay attention."

Thomas groans, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"I can't do this." His mind says, the thought boiling over in his head. It continues to churn, occupying many spare crevices not dedicated to things. His life is turning sour, because everything snobby, aristocratic and selfish about him seems to be falling down the drain. But something inside him is holding on. I for one, have no idea what it is, but he's clinging on like his life depends on it because he thinks it does all the more. I move away from him and he frowns, any closer and he smiles. It's me, goddammit! He's relying on the dead.

"Are you feeling alright, Thomas?" Angelica asks after class. "I know it's hard, but you'll pull through. You're tough." She kisses him, but he's still moody. Her heart isn't helping at all. I seriously wish it was. I wish I wasn't a drug. I wish I could be free and independent, without having to be depended on every minute of every hour of every day. I wish I wasn't dead. Then again, if I was alive I'd be suffering. Picking your poison is far too lethal.

"I'm doing fine." He says as I drift away, for experimental purposes of course. "Not anymore..." he adds, and she strokes his hair.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"I'll get back to you. I'm all too preoccupied at the moment." Back to the solitude of the dorm.

He flopped onto his bed and plugged his head into the music. I had no idea what type it was, but someone had explained to me that music could fix anything. Guess who? None other than Thomas Jefferson. Now he was taking a page of his own book and falling back on those creature comforts we all lend our heart to at some stage or another. I was still fiddling with the whole, 'feeling sad, feeling happy' dependence thing, and being brutally honest, I'm feeling worse than I ever have before. It's not just being dead, it's not being in the luxury that is called life, and not being there to assist. Maybe I'm too selfless? Maybe it's me? Then again, we can't put blame on situations like this.

"Oh, I don't know how to deal with this!" He screams his heart out, ferociously tugging at his hair. "If there was some way to resurrect you, Jimmy James, I would. But it will pass." He meditates, letting the blood flow through his body just as much as the air. "I have to go back to the real world now..." He took out his headphones from his ears, which the type of music became definite, being heavy metal, and rubbed his eyes. It is better for him to let go than cling on to the past. That'll only make things worse, as proven by the snowball of events throughout the day.

He finally makes his way outside, and I can't help but be proud of him. He's been sitting by the dazzling college gardens for over half an hour now, Angelica by his side. He's beginning to sink back into normality again, talking small talk to ease the constant troubling anxieties, but then again, reaching out to his girlfriend at the same time. He spoke like a child to her, as she spoke back like, and I'm not kidding, a motherly figure to him.

"Remind me, why did you grow out your hair?"

"Angie, it's been like this since birth!" He chortles, "But I grew it out of my own choice. Everyone else in the fam despised it, but as soon as I came back running, they were playing with it like children and whatnot..."

"What's been getting you down?"

I feel the air around him bubbling, boiling, steaming on the verge of eruption. He's clenching his fists so hard that it looks like they could break, and his face is fighting back tears.

"Can't you tell?!" He spits, "It's consuming me! He's consuming me! And I'm tryin' so damn much to move on, but it's just pointless. I made it a goal this morning, but any mere mention will push me past breaking point! Like this!" He huffs and puffs ferociously, and the clouds fizz more than ever. "I was 'bout to explode then, as you could probably tell..." And now I know that the guilt has been drained. Their chatter fades out, a tempered mist surrounding me. I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I spin around. It feels possessive almost, like what I did to Thomas, but a thousand times worse. My muscle seems to give in, as I'm being weakened and withered down to a pile of mush. It isn't anything on his end. It's coming from mine.

"You're being transported now. Hold tight."

"Onto what?" I'm just able to gasp, air being tainted with, or sucked out of my body. Anything was possible here, so there was no point assuming.

The voice floats in a circle, muttering every now and then. I can't feel my face. My body. Myself. The mist travels closer to my dishevelled being, clapping me in what seems to be my stomach. All the air is knocked out. I'm no longer weakened.

"You're here." The ethereal voice speaks again, "You're in heaven."

I tremble on the spot, barely able to stand. My limbs are functional along with everything else, but the shock has rooted me to the core.

"You can wish for anything, apart from eternal love, or the living..."

"Then where was I before?"

"The waiting room. It's like purgatory, before you have been judged, before truly passing on. You cannot see the living anymore."

"But why?" I rise on my own two feet, looking down to find that I'm standing on nothing. It feels solid, this nothingness. Perhaps it's an invisible glass wall keeping me afloat. A barrier.

"Isn't this what you've been waiting for, James? Escaping death, time and time again until it finally halts its pestering? You could've been down there, living with this ongoing dread, ongoing conscience, saying, "Remember your illness. It won't ever go. It'll prevent you from enjoying yourself, prospering..."

"But--"

"But what, child?"

"It appeared to fade away. Why did I die now?"

"Death has been aside you ever since you were born. It exists like this with every soul on the planet. It was picking the right moment to make up its mind, going up to your soul and pleading, "You've had enough here. Time to move on." Look at me, James!" The voice screams, now appearing as an angelic figure, begging for relief. I look at him directly in the eye, and he breathes a slow and long sigh.

"Now what?" I ask, fear seeping through my skull.

"I must go. You will not be forgotten..." He salutes. I salute back, out of respect, kindness and thanks for his extending wisdom. A hammock summoned at my feet, which I had just come to think about. It stretches from my current position to about a metre away, another invisible barrier. A minute or so later, I'm listening to Bon Jovi with a pina colada in my hand. The definition of utopia was in my grasp, and I seized it with all I had. What could possibly go wrong? I've lived a fairly normal life, now it was time to step back, look at it in all its former glory, and move on to the now. The eternal paradise.