Difference Ch 1

:ifference:: Awake?.1

I jerked up in my bed, clinging to my pastel sheets for dear life. My lungs throbbed as did my heart, and a shrill cry rang out from somewhere around me. I looked around to find the source of it, then realized it was me. I grasped my chest and sure enough my heart was beating rapidly. It was a feeling I hadn't felt in a long while. Was I alive, was I dead? Was I awake, was I dreaming? My fists finally unclenched as I struggled to catch my breath.

Tear ran like a river down my face as the wails finally ceased, muffled by my hands and the air around me. I looked around. This wasn't a room I recognized…at first. It was the room I'd been in so many years before. So that must mean… A man stumbled into my room, with a cigarette in his mouth and care in his eyes. How I had missed those eyes. "What spooked you buddy?" he asked.

I scrambled out of the clutches of my dreams and clumsily ran toward the man I missed so dearly, almost falling once or twice in the process. "Alexander!" I accidentally yelled out, "I mean, father…" I corrected myself in a softer tone as I wrapped my arms as tightly as possible around him. "I've missed you so much! I've so much to tell you, so many…people…" I sighed and let go of his neck. "It was a dream…"

I ran my hands through my hair, out of breath from the surprise. My father asked in a lowered voice, "Alexander? Since when does she call me Alexander?" and sighed. As I ran my hands through my hair it was normal length again, once again hiding my eye from the world. I looked at my hands and they were indeed free of all scars. My jaw dropped.

"Father…" I touched his face and hair, so much shorter than I remembered being I had to stand on my tiptoes. There was no blood on this man, he did not stare straight at the ceiling, and he felt so warm. It was truly all over… Alexander was not Alexander, he was my beloved father. And I loved and missed my father. I kissed his cheek allowing my tears to flow freely. I found it strange he didn't question this, but I didn't question it either. I was home. He held me close to him, not daring to let go for at least a few moments.

"You're alive!" I rejoiced, wrapping my father, how I loved calling him that, in another tight hug. I smiled for the first time in so long.

He laughed, almost hesitatingly. "You have some mighty strange dreams, Ailee. But, don't worry. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere." He kissed my hair and held me again for a few moments. The warmth I'd felt at first was fading, but I still held on.

I was reluctant, but I had other things to take care of now that I was home again. "I need to go see mother." I released him and began walking to the door, but he trailed me with his eyes, "May I daddy?" It seemed like years since I was able to call him that.

He sighed, "Of course sweetie."

I was out the door in seconds and running as fast as I could to the hospital. It felt amazing to not feel the bones in my leg grind together when I ran. I felt like I could run forever, but all too soon I landed at the hospital doors. Strange. It seemed like it usually took me longer to get here.

I opened the wide doors to the hospital as quickly as possible. I passed up the waiting room, but no one was there anyway. The entire hospital seemed empty, I didn't see a single person. I rushed to the room I knew was hers, afraid I was too late. The halls were dark in the hospital. It was because of this that I stopped a foot short of my mother's room. This and that I heard crying within it.

It wasn't only crying though. I can remember it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. She was sobbing unlike anything I had ever heard, crying out, screaming for help. Why weren't the nurses running to her rescue? I momentarily questioned this, then decided if they wouldn't, I would. She must've though I was a nurse at first because she simply quieted when I entered, without even looking up to see.

"Mother..?" I said, unknowingly choked up by my tears.

"Ailee?!" she squealed and turned to face me. "Is something…" she sniffled a little and turned back around. "Wrong?" she tried to fight a squeak in her voice as she said this, but she knew she couldn't hide anything from me.

I walked to her bedside and collapsed in sobs in front of her. She caught me by my wrists and pulled me up into an embrace. She too, was warm, but the warmth quickly faded. I shut my eye and cried as she stroked my hair as I should've let her do so many years before. She brushed my hair out of my face revealing my eye, or lack thereof. She quickly quieted. "I'm…so sorry…"

"It's okay momma," I hadn't called her that since I was five years old, "I understand."

I looked up at her and the room seemed to fade. I stood up and looked around, and the room was indeed disappearing. I held onto my mother for a few moments and she choked out the words, "I don't want you to go." Along with her voice was another, echoing it perfectly. It was Ithic's. Both voices pleaded with me, "Don't go Ailee…please don't leave me alone…"

A shock traveled through me and shook the entire hospital. An overwhelming force made me release her, and she disappeared into darkness in front of my eyes. She reached out her arm, it being the only thing I could see, but when I tried to reach for it the world shook again, sending electricity through me. And then all was quiet.

I opened my eyes to face Ithic's as I was rushed down the hospital's hallway.