//------------------------------// // Revelations // Story: Rebirth // by Pwn13s //------------------------------// The frisbee flies straight through the air, cutting through the wind as it spins and spins. You jog backwards as it continues gliding towards you, and as it makes its way closer to the floor you jump up, catching it neatly in one hand. Your son starts clapping excitedly, hopping up and down on the spot. “Daddy pass it here!” He reaches out with his arms, beckoning for you to throw him the disc. Brining your arm back, you slowly extend it, flicking your wrist gently and opening your fingers. It flies slowly but straight towards the child, and as it comes to his chest he snaps his arms down on top of it. His hands smack over the frisbee. “Good catch kiddo!” You flash the boy a thumbs up, and his grin widens even further. He half jogs half waddles towards you on his chubby little legs, the grass of the park coming up to his knees. When he reaches you, he hands you the frisbee. You take it from him with one hand, ruffling his hair with the other. He shakes his head away from your hand, smiling at you through his messy fringe and bouncing around. You pick him up and sling him over you shoulder, much to the delight of the young boy. He begins squealing and laughing, his legs moving frantically and his arms beating on your back. “Mommy! The monsters gonna get me!” Over at the picnic cloth, your wife sits with your daughter, fiddling with her hair and tying it into a braid. Her eyes slide to look at you, her head ever so still as her mother lifts her hair over and under. Tying a band over the end, your partner pats her on the back, and she jumps up to you. “Daddy look what Mama did!” She turns around and spreads her arms wide, revealing the intricate ponytail hanging to her lower back. “Isn’t it cool.” You smile, putting your son down on the floor and pushing him off to the picnic cloth. “That’s beautiful baby! But you know what looks even better?” You turn her around and poke her nose. “You.” She giggles gleefully and runs back to the mat. You sit down next to her and grab a drink from the basket, sipping on the carbonated beverage. Your son waddles around his mother next to you, while your daughter chews away at some carrot sticks. A cool breeze runs through the field. Your eyes jolt open suddenly. After a slight delay, you begin screaming as a deep and persistent fire sparks in your brain. The sharp pain writhes across your face and through your eyes, and you press your hands against your ears, squeezing your head. Your arms shake and suddenly cramp up, and you drop them down where they spaz uselessly. Blood dribbles down from your nose, and you kick out with your foot against the bed frame. The sensation finally leaves your body, and is replaced by a cool relief. You breathe heavily in bed, sweating slightly. Lyra pokes her head into your door, her face plastered with a look of worry and confusion. “Morning. You okay? I uh, heard you…. Heard you shouting.” You struggle to nod, still recovering from the ordeal. When you open your mouth the sound comes croaky and dull. “Yeah. I’m fine.” The mare doesn’t buy it. “No no no. We don’t do this. Let me guess, you had another memory flash? Yeah, thats why you’re sweating like that. Does it really hurt that bad?” She moves gracefully towards the bed, her tail flicking behind her as she sits down. Her hand rests briefly on your forehead, and then she takes it away. “Boy that’s some headache it gave you. Come on. Tell me.” You sigh and turn your head away. You can remember parts of it, but details are where the pain comes from. Turning your head back to the mare, you look into her eyes and see genuine care. Concern. “They. They come occasionally. And never for long. It’ll be, about, a minute long, all of it clear, and then I forget all the details. And if I try remember them, well, the pain comes back.” “How bad is it?” She places her hand on yours, locking her fingers between yours and squeezing gently. “At first, when I wake up, it’s a fucking nightmare. It feels like someone’s drilling into my skull, like there’s a million ants crawling around my brain and biting at my nerves. Spasms rack my body, and sometimes I worry that they’ll tear my limbs apart. Everything goes dull apart from my sense of pain, and that heightens to the point where if you poked me I’d probably die from a heart attack. I really can’t describe how bad it is. It’s miserable. And then, there’s just a sort of cool numbness. Nothing. If I try to recall the memory, in detail, I can feel the pain just lurking at the corners of my brain. Ready to come back and torment me. Usually they’re just scenes of me. My, my old family.” You hold back sobs, suddenly feeling very tired and emotional. A tear rolls down your cheek, and Lyra brushes it away. You nod weakly and continue. “I can remember the general, sorta, plot, of the whole memory. I can guess what my life was like through these fragments. But I can’t remember anything special, anything that made me happy or sad. Any emotion drains out of the fragment once it passes. It’s like I’m just watching someone from a far. I can see what happened, but not how they reacted to it. And then I convulse and wake up in bed. Like I said, the pain comes hard and fast. Lately it’s been getting way more violent.” "But you're okay? I mean, on the whole. You're coping with this? You're happy here?" "Lyra, I couldn't be happier, considering how much I’ve been through. I mean, yeah.” You let out a sigh and smile sadly at the woman. “I’m just, scared I guess.” “Of the pain?” “No. No not at all. I know that’ll be over soon after it comes. Ironically though, that is part of the reason I’m scared. Of it being over. The dreams, I worry about how they end. Because they’re my old life, and, well, I guess I’m just afraid of finding out how I got here. How it ended.”A tear rolls down your cheek and though you try to stop it, you begin to break down. “I had a family Lyra! A fucking family! A wife and I had kids and they depended on me to keep them safe, keep them fed, and now I’m gone! And they don’t even know what happened to me. And I don’t know what happened to them! I don’t even fucking know what happened to me!” You grit your teeth as tears stream down your face, your features pulled into a deep scowl. Lyra shifts further up the bed, and without warning pulls you into a long and warm embrace. You lean into her, your face buried in her neck as she rocks you back and forth. Tears stain her shirt and you breathe in short bursts of barely contained sobbing, reduced to nothing but a whimpering child who’s afraid of the dark. But in this case, should the dark come, it’ll stay forever. Lyra runs her hand along your hair, smoothing it down and cooing into your ear. “Hey hey it’s okay. It’s alright. I’m here. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere soon. I’m here for you. Hey.” She lifts your head up and stares into your eyes. “It’s okay. Honestly, I’m here for you whenever you need me okay? Come on.” She kisses you on the cheek and rests her hand on your shoulder. You rub your sore eyes, nodding slowly. “Yeah. I’m, I’m okay now. Thank you.” You cough a couple of times, clearing your throat of phlegm. Tears still trail along your cheeks, but they come less liberally. You nod again, wiping tears off your face with your hand and sniffing. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Lyra flashes you a subdued smile, pats you gently and heads outside. “See you in the kitchen. I’ll prepare us some fruit.” She closes the door of your room and you hear her feet pat gently across the carpeted floor. Your breathing is raspy and deep, your chest expanding and contracting and your nose sucking in air. Rolling over, you finally get out of bed and put on some clothes. Making your way into the kitchen, you pull out a chair and sit down. Lyra places a small bowl in front of you, filled with apple slices, orange, grapes, and strawberries. You chew into a grape, crunching through the skin and into the softer, sweet flesh within. Lyra sits down with her own bowl, and begins to chew into her strawberries, the juice dribbling down her chin. She fixes her gaze on you once more. You look up from your fruit and catch her staring at you. Swallowing your current mouth of orange, you flash her a small grin, and she smiles back. “Hey, promise me something quickly?” “Mmhm.” “Next time you have a flashback, you come straight to me. You see what happens if you don’t tell anyone about them? It’s like a, sort of, mental dam. Everything just builds up behind it and eventually it’s bound to burst.” She places her hand softly over yours. “And I’m more than happy to listen. I just don’t want this placing any stress on you. Okay?” You nod quickly. “I get it. Sure, next time I’ll come straight to you.” She rubs your hand gently, and simpers at you. “Good.” Turning back to your bowl, there’s a sudden knock on the door. Three quick raps against the hardwood. You raise your eyebrows at Lyra, but she simply shrugs. “Dunno. I’ll get it.” Sliding away from the table, she walks up to the door and opens it slowly. “Morning Doc. What’s up?”