--XIII--

Come back. Come back to me.

The voice resounded inside my head like a lullaby for a long time. It was eventually replaced by high-pitched rhythmic beeping.

Hesitantly, I tried to move my little finger. It moved. Slowly, I opened my eyes and waited for them to adjust to the bright light from the ceiling.

At first, I thought it was a glowing door made of colorful lights like that one in my dream—the door to paradise. With a closer look, I realized that it was just a fluorescent lamp. More importantly, I found two sets of curious blue eyes looking back at me.

"Thank God!" Lindsay leaned to me and gave me a hug, her blond curls falling on my face.

She was in tears when we parted.

To my left, Carter fidgeted on his seat, looking uneasily at me. A relieved smile lit his face when I turned my head to him.

"You okay?" he asked.

I nodded smiling back as I tried to sit up.

Propping a pillow on my back, Lindsay gave me a hand and said, "I'll call your Dad," before disappearing behind the white door.

Carter shifted on his seat. "Aramis, I'm really sorry. I should've helped you first before I went looking for Lind—"

"What happened? Where are we?" I asked before he could finish.

His forehead crumpled. "You don't remember anything?"

I looked around. All I could see was plain white—white walls, white bed, white curtains and sparkly clean tiled floor. A painting of a crocus hung onto the wall right in front of my bed.

A long discomfited silence filled the room as I tried to gather my thoughts. The steady beep of the equipment connected to my chest was unnerving. An intravenous drip was fixed on the back of my left hand. It made me realize that we were in the hospital.

Finally, I cleared my throat and barely whispered, "I remember drowning."

Carter sighed deeply, his shoulders sagging. "When I found your body—I mean... when I found you in the pool, you weren't breathing. I tried CPR. I thought I—we lost you. You were..."

"Dead?" I croaked wearily.

Carter cringed at the mere word. All he could give me was a diffident nod.

Staring at the ceiling, I sagged back into my bed. "I remember that too."

His blue eyes widened then dropped to the floor. "It was a miracle, really. Vincent came ten minutes after I thought the CPR wasn't working anymore and—"

"Vincent?" I echoed, lost in deep thought.

Come back. Come to me.

His voice resounded in my head so many times I couldn't forget it even if I tried. It was him who called me back. It was because of him that I returned.

My thoughts raced, clouding my ability to think clearly. I wasn't sure what happened. How he did it. How I managed to come back.

Carter just nodded. "I don't know what he did but it was clearly more effective than my CPR."

Automatically, my eyes shifted to the door. I began to push myself up just to realize my arms felt like jelly. The strain made my chest hurt a bit. It was just then that I noticed the rawness of my throat, the dull throb inside my lungs.

"He's outside," Carter answered before I could voice out the question that had been stuck at the tip of my tongue. "Been there every day since you were confined here but never came in to see you even if I told him it's okay. Don't know what's up with that guy."

Just then, the door opened. Dad and a tiny middle-aged man came in. Judging by the white smock gown he was wearing, I assumed he was a doctor. After them, a female nurse followed, frantically skimming the pages attached to a clipboard.

"It was a miracle you were saved," the doctor said, fixing his glasses to ogle at me from head to toe. "It took more than twenty minutes to revive you but you still made it! I would bet you just made a world record."

He made it sound like I planned the whole dying thing to get into Guinness' World Book of Records. It was irritating.

"I'll be giving you more pain medications so you won't feel anything... and—" he mumbled as he wrote on the chart in his hands. He wore a name tag that read Phil Moore, M.D. which sounded a bit ironic as compared to what he was planning to do to me.

"I feel fine," I assured them. "When can I go home?"

The doctor met my eyes and blinked.

"Are you sure?" Dad asked, his eyes suddenly filled with worry. Now that was something you don't get to see every day. In fact, I had never seen it in ten years.

Doctor Moore nodded absently and continued scribbling on the patient's chart. "Okay, we'll observe you for twenty-four more hours and if your condition is stable, we'll discharge you. Is that alright?"

Not like I had a choice. I nodded and waited until the doctor has left before I talked to my Dad.

"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked again, looking uneasy.

I knew it was hard for him to show concern, like doing so would put him in a lot of pain. But to show this much, he must've been really worried.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I dropped my gaze.

"It's not your fault."

The door was left slightly ajar. From the narrow break, I could see Vincent looking straight at me. Our gazes locked for a second or two and for some reason, that made me terrified. My heart was racing. My whole body felt like it had been turned into stone, much less blink.

I was about to open my mouth and call him but I couldn't seem to find my voice. Without a word, he turned around and disappeared into the busy hallway.

Lindsay came in looking at the direction where Vincent had gone. "That's odd. I thought he was going to see you," she said, placing a basket of fruits on the table. It had a card that said Get Well Soon. "From our classmates."

Now that I've died, they care about me?

"Can we talk?" I said to Lindsay. "Alone?"

Dad understood and headed to the door, dragging Carter along. "We'll just, get some snacks."

"Wait, Mr. Rayne," Carter objected. "I have snacks in my backpack. There's Cheetos and Lays and Reese's."

"Come along," Dad ignored Carter, pushing him out of the door. "If the nurse sees those junk, we'll both get told off."

As soon as Lindsay and I were left alone in the room, she pulled a chair next to my bed and cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled meeting her electric blue eyes. "For being a jerk."

With a smile, she shook her head and placed a hand over mine. "No. I'm sorry. I should not have let Mom scare you like that. She could be mistaken. After all, it was just a prediction. A guess."

I shook my head. "Doesn't matter. I just want to let you know that I am sorry. But... I wanted to talk to you about something else."

Wearily, I studied her reaction. She must know where this talk would go because her eyes shifted restlessly.

I went straight to the point. "I want you to tell me about that night before Hazel Hemlock died. I want to know everything. Every detail."

Lindsay's eyes widened in fear. She took a deep breath and nodded.

I gestured for her to go on.

"That night... I came from Carter's house. We had a fight and I refused his offer to drive me home. I was being stupid. So I walked alone." She gulped, closing her eyes tightly as though the mere recall of events frightened her. "When I reached the block where the Hemlock's live—that's about two blocks away from my house—I felt like someone was following me but when I looked, no one was there. Still, it felt like there were several eyes looking at me. It suddenly became very cold. Then I saw them."

"Vincent?" I asked holding my breath as I clutched a pillow tightly.

Lindsay's eyes looked distant when she shook her head. "There were five people. I couldn't see their faces. I'm not even sure if they were people."

"What do you mean?"

With a slight shiver of her shoulders, Lindsay closed her eyes. "It was so dark. S-so... I can't really be sure if my mind was just playing tricks on me."

I could tell it was hard for her to recall such a traumatic event. "Please, Lindsay. Please try to remember."

"They... don't look human," she whispered in a shaky voice, finally opening her eyes. "Like... Like... Like ghosts..."

"Ghosts?" I tried not to let skepticism in my voice. "Like dead people."

Unable to look directly at me, Lindsay wrung her hands. She began to ramble. "Like dead people. B-but scarier. You would think ghosts would look like transparent versions of their living selves, but they're not. They're... They're black monstrous freaks. They were just standing—no, hovering—in front of Hazel Hemlock's house then they disappeared one by one.

"I saw the light flicker in one of the windows at the second floor. Hazel was screaming. The next thing I knew, Vincent was there with two other men. One doesn't look too old but he had gray hair—"

"His Dad," I said softer than a whisper, my heart skipping a beat.

If Lindsay heard me, she didn't let on.

The beeping from the cardiac monitor continued its steady pace although my pulse should have been racing at this time. It was a bit strange but I didn't mind it. For all I knew, it was broken.

She continued. "The other one was tall. He has brown skin and round eyes. I think he looks like an Arab."

My breathing became ragged. I remembered the tall middle-eastern man accompanying the silver-eyed boy in front of the Thomases' house.

Is it the same person?

"They all wore black coats and ties like... like—"

"Like the ones people wear in funerals?" I said, suddenly remembering the strange man in black suit standing beside Mom's bed the night she died.

Lindsay nodded, fear evident in her eyes. "L-like the Men in Black," she blurted.

We both laughed nervously before drifting into an uncomfortable silence.

"And then?" I prompted.

"And then I heard weird noises," she answered, the smile on her lips slowly pulling down. "There were people screaming all over the house but the neighbors didn't seem to mind. It didn't look like Hazel's family was aware of it either. All the lights were off except the one in Hazel's room. And the screaming... it doesn't sound human at all.

"I was crying by the time the screaming stopped but I couldn't move from my spot. After that, I saw Hazel being towed by the... g-ghosts outside the house. I don't know what they did to her but she seemed dazed."

"Vincent yelled something to them in some language I've never heard before. Then, he and the two other men chased the ghosts away. And then, the ghosts; they just... disappeared. Like smoke." Her voice quieted into a whisper, her eyes trailing to the open window.

It was getting dark outside.

"And once they had done that, the gray-haired man took Hazel and said something to her ear. Then, she keeled over. Before I knew what was happening, they had all disappeared. Even Hazel."

"Then Hazel died the next morning?" I asked, watching the white curtain flit with the wind that gently rapped on the pane.

"No. Hazel went to school, talked to Vincent after her last class and went home. When her Mom tried to wake her up for dinner, she was already dead." Lindsay choked back the sobs as she fixed her eyes on me.

For several moments, we looked at each other in silence measuring each other's expression.

"And you think Vincent did it?" I asked reluctantly.

She nodded.

"I was thinking that maybe he was part of an evil cult that kills people, you know? But now... I don't know. I'm not sure what to think anymore. I mean, he saved you. Maybe it was just a coincidence or maybe I was just... imagining things," she rambled feverishly, shoulders sagging. "I'm losing my mind."

I squeezed her hand, unable to think of the right words to say. Soon, all the puzzle pieces would come together.

But first, I had to squeeze the missing pieces out of Vincent.