The beeping of the heart monitor counts down what's left of my life, steady as a metronome but nowhere near as musical. I'm trying to focus on Kayla's face instead of the pain, but it's getting harder by the minute.
"I can't lose you, Sam. I can't lose you," Kayla moans, her golden eyes swimming with tears that catch the harsh fluorescent light. Her fingers clutch mine so tightly I can feel my wedding ring digging into bone. It's the only real sensation left that doesn't hurt.
The pancreatic cancer has eaten away at everything else. My body feels like a hollow shell, paper-thin and ready to tear at any moment. The doctors gave me the "any day now" talk this morning, all sympathetic nods and practiced compassion. Kayla hasn't stopped crying since.
"Kayla," I whisper, my voice barely audible over the mechanical symphony of medical equipment. "Let me see you."
She lifts her face, and my heart aches at the sight. Her makeup is streaked down her cheeks in dark rivers, her golden eyes rimmed with red, her white hair sticking to the wet tracks on her face.
"There you are," I manage, trying to smile. "I can still see that beautiful smile under there somewhere."
She attempts to comply, her lips quivering upward for just a moment before collapsing into a fresh wave of sobs. Her body folds over mine as she clutches me to her chest, careful of the IV lines but desperate in her embrace.
"I can't do this," she chokes out against my neck, her tears hot on my cooling skin. "I can't live without you. I can't, I can't, I can't..."
Her words dissolve into a mantra of denial, each repetition more broken than the last. I stroke her hair with fingers that feel like they belong to someone else, wishing I had the strength to hold her properly one last time.
"Sam," she says suddenly, her voice breaking through her sobs with unexpected clarity. "You have to wait for me."
I try to focus on her face, the room dimming around the edges of my vision. "Baby, I wish I could, but I'm hanging on by a thread here." The pain medication is making everything fuzzy, but the abyss pulling me away feels stronger than any drug.
She clutches me tighter, her body trembling against mine. "No," she insists, her golden eyes burning with an intensity that cuts through my haze. "Wherever you end up, you wait for me, you hear me?"
"What?" The word comes out slurred, confusion mixing with the morphine.
"Just wait for me," she whispers fiercely against my ear. "I'll find you, okay? I promise I'll find you."
The monitor beeps faster as my heart struggles. I stare at her face, memorizing every line, every shadow. It's strange to think we've known each other for twenty-two of our twenty-five years of life. Grade school playmates to high school sweethearts to husband and wife. I can't remember a time without Kayla in it.
My eyelids grow impossibly heavy. As consciousness slips away, I realize something that feels important, I don't remember meeting Kayla. In every memory, in every moment of awareness, she was already there. White hair and golden eyes, constant as the stars.
"I love you," I manage to whisper, the words barely audible even to my own ears.
Her fingers tighten around mine. "That's not enough," she says, and there's something in her voice I've never heard before, a determination that borders on madness. "This isn't the end. I won't let it be."
The darkness closes in, but I feel her lips against my mine, hear her whisper something that sounds like an incantation more than a goodbye.
"I love you Sam." She says after ending her chant.
The last thing I register is the taste of her tears falling onto my lips, and then...
Nothing.
*****
My lungs burn as air rushes in like I've been underwater for hours. The blazing sun blinds me, so different from the dim fluorescent lights that had become my world. I blink rapidly, my mind struggling to process what's happening.
I'm alive. That can't be right.
Grass tickles my bare legs as I push myself up to sitting. My hands, my hands don't shake anymore. I stare at them, turning them over in disbelief. The skin is full and healthy, not the paper-thin wrapping over bone I'd grown used to. No IV port. No hospital bracelet.
"What the hell?" I whisper, my voice strong and clear instead of the raspy whisper it had become.
I pat down my torso, feeling solid muscle where there had been only hollowed-out spaces. The hospital gown hangs loosely around me, but my body feels whole again.
A gentle breeze carries the scent of wildflowers and something else, something not quite familiar. I look around, taking in rolling hills that stretch to the horizon, painted.
The last thing I remember is Kayla's face, her tears falling onto my lips, her desperate promise to find me. And then... nothing.
"Kayla?" I call out, struggling to my feet. My legs hold me without effort, another impossibility. "Kayla!"
My voice echoes across the empty landscape with no response. A prickle of unease crawls up my spine. I'm alone here, wherever "here" is.
I scan the horizon, squinting against the sun. Something dark catches my eye in the distance, a small group of trees. Maybe there's shelter there, or better yet, people who can explain what's happening.
Moving cautiously toward the trees, I notice my bare feet don't hurt against the rough terrain. Another impossibility to add to the growing list.
As I approach the grove, a sense of being watched washes over me. I duck behind the largest tree, my heart hammering in my chest. That's when I see it, a crumpled form at the base of a nearby oak.
Not a person. Not anymore.
Just bones wrapped in tattered cloth, slumped against the trunk like they sat down for a rest decades ago and never got up. Beside the remains lies a long wooden staff, its surface etched with swirling patterns that seem to shift when I'm not looking directly at them.
Something compels me to reach for it. My fingers wrap around the smooth wood, and a warmth spreads up my arm. It feels... right.
"Hello?" I call out again, quieter this time, gripping the staff tighter.
The wood pulses beneath my palm, not physically, but with something I can only describe as intention. It's asking something of me, pulling at something deep inside my chest, not forcing, but inviting.
I close my eyes, focusing on that strange internal tug. There's energy there, formless but potent, and somehow I know I can channel it through the staff. I push it outward, through my arm and into the wood.
A crackling sound fills the air, and my eyes snap open just in time to see a bolt of fire shoot from the staff's tip. It streaks across the clearing and ignites a small bush twenty feet away.
"Oh shit!" I jump back, nearly dropping the staff.
The bush crackles merrily, flames licking up its branches. I stare at it, then at the staff in my hands, then back at the fire.
"Where the fuck am I?"