Hearts Erased

The coffin lid flew open and the would be corpse himself sat up, gasping for air.

“My Peter!! You’re alive!” Screamed Mother, seconds before fainting.

Gasps and shrieks were heard collectively surrounding grave 191. Henry and Dawson helped their younger brother out of his casket. When they let go of him, his body gave way and he collapsed on the soft, damp grass.

Mother, groggy from her fainting spell, ran over to him and began comforting him by holding his hand. He looked at her. “Am I your son?” He asked. “I can’t feel my arms or legs.”

She stared at him in disbelief then opened her mouth. “Yes, Peter, it’s me, Mother! Where have you been? We all thought you were dead!”

At this point, everyone at the funeral was standing nearby, anxious to hear the answers.

“I don’t remember anything of this life. Only pieces of the next.”

The priest blacked out. Old Uncle Anthony clutched his heart, as though having another heart attack.

Mother yelled, “Someone call 911!! We need an ambulance for my son!”

Back at home, hours later….
Friends and family came and went the rest of that day, checking in on the living corpse. Person after person that spoke to him, poking and prodding, was unrecognizable to him. His mother brought family pictures to him, and he didn’t even recognize what he looked like.

He wanted away from these people. They weren’t family. He didn’t want to be there, and he didn’t want to go back to the lonely catacomb he just came from. He yearned to be found; to go home; to have an identity.

In a rare moment of silence, with the sun long ago set, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He thought of the voices in the other realm and the mystery surrounding all that was happening.

He focused hard, seeing past the shapes in his room. And in that moment, as his mother opened the door and turned on the light, all color left his eyes.

His body, still and covered, lay motionless; fully unalive. Eyes open and flesh quite warm to the touch, but no heartbeat could be found by his screaming Mother. Family members flooded in, to all eventually discover that he had died yet again.

The Other Realm….
Awakened and dead. A sense of terror slithered through him. And then the voices that once spoke yet were muffled, became clear as day.

And as he opened his eyes, he recoiled in realization that he was surrounded by many apparitions, all circling ’round….