Chapter 6

A week later, at the Bean Coffee shop where Diana and her best friend Tommy Reynolds work, she looked around; the shop was once cloistered and closed with so many tables and so little room. Now the shop was open-air, a sort of covered patio with tables a respectful distance apart. Wrapped up in the wintertime, dressed for the occasion, the patron's hands warmed and their breath rose in serendipitous puffs as they enjoyed their warm coffee, the sweetness of chocolate cups, freshly baked goods, and soothing music. The coffee shop patio was Diana's happy place. Here she noticed everyone, the corner shops, and the university a few yards away.

There were so many memories—her happy times here with her best friend, their never-ending arguments about his many theories about everything on the planet.

With a cup of coffee in her hand, Diana noticed how busy the food vendors were, giving the middle of the community a sort of market atmosphere and the university student area zone.

Tommy, her best friend, a handsome twenty-two-year-old giant of a man and an orphan who has been an unsuitable parcel shunted between overcrowded foster homes, smirked at her, “So, Di, what the hell happened to you? You looked dead, by the way.”

“I'm not dead!”

“Yeah right.”

“I am not dead; you can see me, right? I'm doing okay,” she said, rolling her eyes at him as she remembered how crazy Tommy was. Freshmen days, and they met in the library, and ever since they became best friends. They have worked part-time at Bean Coffee for two years now. He was the one and only person on the planet who seemed rather fascinated with everything about time travel and such. She mentally shook her head. How could she not acknowledge the fact that he becomes crazy about it, watching every damn movie about time travel and every bloody book that has time travel in it? He even makes her read the one he loves the most—his favourite. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, in which she ended up reading the chapters twice because, for the love of God, her human brain couldn’t even fathom the idea of the writer, but she finished anyway just for the sake of Tommy, who asked her every bloody time about what happened and what her feedback was per chapter.

Though they were different in so many ways, Tommy was a genius, talking up a scholarship, and on top of the dean's list. The top of his class, a giant nerd, taking up Engineering Physics, an interdisciplinary study of physics, mathematics, and engineering with a particular emphasis on developing advanced techniques to solve complex, real-world problems. Which was really nonsense if he asked her about it; Diana was the kind of girl who happened to love romantic books rather than reading those nerdy things.

"Whatever, but tell me... why on earth do you look like you've eaten a sour candy with maggots? What the fuck happened?”

“Nothing…”

“Nightmare again?" Tommy asked, giving her another donut. He sat in the available chair in front of her. They were both done on their midnight shift and now enjoying their late breakfast together on the patio table.

"No, I mean, I feel exhausted, and I'm still having a bizarre nightmare, but it's different now. Really odd, if you ask me."

"How so?" 

"It's not about that eerie Dark Mountain anymore. Now it's all about my grandpappy. Really weird, Tom."

"Why weird?” he asked, eating half of her donut in a flash. “Tell me then." He sipped his cappuccino and took his chocolate bagel, bacon, and toast. He spread the guacamole over the toast, followed by tomatoes on top, as if they were cupcake ornaments. “Fuck, this is yummy!”

She rolled her eyes. There was a pleasure in how he did it, as if for a minute he were heartily consumed by a passion of affection that was teased in his subtle smile and gentle regard. "Eww, how can you eat all that at once?”

“What? It’s fucking delicious! ”

"Seriously? When will you stop eating like a dog? Chocolate bagel and bacon again? And toast with guacamole? Aren't you even tired of that combo? That's fuel for diabetes and high cholesterol. Eww!”

"Hey, for your information, I've never been sick in my entire life, and you bloody know that, mate."

"Yeah, yeah, not that I don't know that jerk!" She offered a silly smile and massaged her nape. These past few days have been a nightmare; she had a severe headache, and her vision's blurry. What the hell happens to her anyway? Why does it feel like she was on a conveyor belt, being crushed like a piece of meat?

"So, how is your soul searching in your grandfather's woods?" Tommy asked.

"Well, I feel good; actually, it was amazing."

"Just amazing?"

"I don't know Tom; I don't remember my trip there; it was odd, you know, but what I remember is driving my car back, and that's it." She massaged her head and took a deep breath. “I—I don't even remember anything. And I have this severe headache."

"Really? Are you on drugs?”

“What? Of course not. How can you even ask me that!”

"Okay, so maybe you were bitten by a spider? Or poisoned plants? Fact, there is a poi—"

"I don't know, and I don't think that happens," Diana interrupted, her hands on her chest. "Oh God, it hurts."

Tommy’s eyes widened.

"Hurt what?” he stood. “Are you okay?" Tommy began to panic, losing the colour from his face. It was as if his heart had abruptly stopped beating. "Hey, Di? You, um, okay?"

“I don’t think—” When Diana had imagined passing out, it was with elegant womanliness; however, the truth was a little different. Disappointed, she felt sick and groggy at the same time and then went down like a sack of sweet potatoes in front of the entire shop, slamming her face on their breakfast table.

"Di, shit. Somebody calls 911. Please." Tommy shouted, panicking; all the blood had run down his feet. He crouched for just a moment before he reached her head and lowered her to the pavement. "Oh my God! Help!" He screamed. "Please. Help!"

The transportation to the public hospital was more frightening than the emergency itself. “Jesus, Di, what the heck happened to you?” he murmured, and with every slow impact that the ambulance made, Tommy's anxiety increased. Observing her strapped into the stretcher worried him. She had been complaining of headaches since her trip from her grandfather's cabin. The paramedics said that if he hadn't called when he did, she could've died from a seizure. He knew they were making an effort to help, but their words just worried him all the more. Tommy doesn't mind how they saved Diana; all he cared about was if she was going to be okay.

The screeching tyres and the wailing of the emergency siren were remarkably barreling throughout the highways in the confidence of saving one more life as the screeching echoes throughout the neighbourhood.

A few minutes later, in the emergency room, the physician on duty had the posture of a warrior. Every procedure he seized on was detailed and assessed.

"Doctor, will she be okay?" Tommy asked.

"Don't worry, I'll inform you as soon as possible when the initial findings are finished."

"Are you a family member of the patient?"

"I'm her best friend; I already contacted her grandmother, though. She'll be here by tomorrow."

"Okay, good," the doctor offered a fake smile as worry creeped on her face upon checking Diana's chart. Tommy can never loosen up around such expressions. He needed a realistic response, preferably a genuine smile, but if not, he'd prefer they didn't fake it.

The doctor's eyes were nonexistent. Through the assessment, he gave instructions and requests. The nurse had wandered two feet behind her, with a compassionate attitude that had earlier been replaced with a tough slash for a mouth and braided brows. When the preliminary checkup was over, Tommy dropped his eyes to the doors in the hope of the doctor speaking to him, but when he opened the room, it was quite deserted; they weren't even in the corridor. As a few moments passed, Tommy could almost sense a pair of eyes watching his every move. Odd, he thought to himself. Surveying the corridor, he saw none. "Weird, I can almost feel someone else's presence around here."

After an hour of waiting, another doctor walked in with a face like a brick. His actions were all intended, and with a goal in mind, he analysed the chart for a few seconds and looked up with a perfunctory smile that flashed for just a minute as he told the nurse about giving Diana another pain reliever. Behind his metal spectacles, his eyes were as murky as his mouth. His speech was peppered with less humour, though never improper, yet Tommy never doubted for a moment that he was taking Diana seriously. He heeded, asked questions that were targeted to find the input he required, and gave well-balanced feedback.

When the doctor was back a few hours later, Diana was awake. He replied to her inquiry, and in his response, however, there was the truth to what she thought was transpiring. Every time Diana went inside another room, she "knew" it was something crucial this time, and she went out with her sanity put at ease, or at least knowing the right tests had been authorised with her one and only friend.

"There are some complications, and she might not survive," the doctor announced. Tommy was speechless. “What? Why? I didn't know she was that sick!” Fear crossed his face, and tears shimmered in his eyes. He turned around to look at the only person who understood him. His best friend

After two hours of waiting, Diana's pain that once scored like a fire on her entire body had disappeared to an icy numbness. Black filled the edges of her eyesight, and the only thing she could pay attention to was her heartbeat. Her breath came in irregular, minor gasps. Another hour passed as she lay there; she heard voices. Tommy screamed from outside the emergency room as he tried to fight with the nurses. The doctor and nurses crowded all over her, attempting to save her life.

Yet Diana could sense someone else. A pair of blue eyes gaze at her as if telling her not to worry. Was he the grim reaper? If so, he looks rather familiar.

Unexpectedly, after a minute or so, she felt the anguish burning her inside out, hurrying through her vein. She never felt this misery and pain before; this was beyond madness. It was totally painful, like her soul was lifted away from her. It felt like there was a stake being banged into her rib cage, through her precious human heart, the invasions burning pain in a way that wrecked her brain from inside out.

Dying was depressing, she thought.

Meanwhile, the people around her wanted to save her; she knew that, but if she could have, she would have chuckled. Honestly, Diana knew they could tell that it was far too late for her to be saved; nonetheless, they were trying their best, and that earned them a medal of gratitude, but they were like little kids, so naive to the reality of death.

Diana closed her eyes and watched them do, God knows what, saving her life; obviously, she could wither any time now. The clock pulsed! Her time left was limited. The air was slowly being pulled and yanked from her set of lungs. Every rising second was grieving. Every action of the people saving her life sent a howling misery out of Tommy. She looked at him at the glass door, saying goodbye, while the pain paraded across her helpless and burning flesh. Her surroundings darkened into a new, nauseous certainty only she could see.

She was dying. This was death. This was goodbye!

One last beat of her heart. Then she succumbed to oblivion.

Void nothingness.