Dun dun
Dun dun
Dun dun
Dun dun
She wakes up from her dream with a gasp.
There was a sober feeling of darkness around her and a hard floor below her body. She had fallen asleep.
Looking around, she discovers the shopping mall but it felt so empty and… proper.
It was as if a couple of bombs didn’t ruin the building to bits and debris.
“What is happening…?” She looks around to see a few people walking aimlessly. They were in the same state as hers.
Suddenly, she was pulled into the astral world that she was familiar with two times already.
“What…?” She senses a presence behind herself.
“Zayn?” She calls for the silhouette.
“Zayn!” It was him, standing there, waiting for her.
“Zayn I-”
“It’s time for us to go, Cassie.” The man cuts her off, extending his hand up to caress her soft hair. He looked fine, not anything out of her memory. In her recent memory, Zayn was petrified with one side wholly burned by the bomb and he looked less alive.
He was almost fine now, until she realizes.
He was taller, almost as tall as Louis. He was wide as well, as if he’s grown a few muscles on him.
The girl gasps as she realises.
“Zayn!!” He was the one whom her eyes longed to see for two straight years. He was Zayn Johnson, but the one who was older and was a professor of literature.
He was cold, he doesn’t smile much.
The girl was in tears as she looks down on herself as well.
She was weighing half of what she was in her reincarnated body. She was back to being Cassandra Sympsons.
“We’re back…” she says softly. Her delicate emotions suggest that she hugs the male in front of her.
But…
“Huh?” Her hands pass through him as she lunges forward. She, in utter confusion looks at him.
He was smiling.
“What is happening…?” Hee voice sounded so broken and stranded without an explanation that Zayn himself couldn’t stop the tears rolling down his face.
“Remember me, love. Remember me, please.” He pleads her. Now that she notices, his hand was barely touching her. He knew he couldn’t touch her physically in this cursed realm of lost souls.
“O-of course I will remember you, but what is going on!?” She screams in frustration.
“I love you, Cassandra. I love you so much.”
“Don’t speak like we aren’t gonna go back together, Zayn! You’re scaring me!” She screams, she tried to hold him by his collar but it wouldn’t happen.
“I’m not scaring you, Cassie. It’s the truth. We’re not going back… together.” He says with tears rolling down his eyes like rivers of sadness.
“What do you mean?” Her legs were going limp. She was walking backwards to see him walk towards her as well. Out of the blue, his image was fading like light that was about to go out.
She looks at him illuminating the darkness around him, but the aura of gold and white around him was fading with him.
“No, no! Don’t leave me…!” She cries.
“It’s not our choice anymore, Cassie. It’s not…” his voice wasn’t reaching to her ears anymore.
He had so much, so much to say to her before bidding a bitter goodbye.
“No!” She yells against the laws of nature, the unbreakable laws of the astral world.
And before she knew it, her eyes were falling asleep with exhaustion and a mystic force as well. It was as if her eyes were being shut close by someone whom she cannot fathom.
“Zayn…”
‘Remember me, Cassie. Remember me… I love you…’
The words ring in her head.
She was left with no explanation.
But there was another voice in her head as she felt like she was floating in air. The darkness around her was infinite, swallowing her thoughts and ready to consume her as a whole.
“Remember your life, Cassandra Sympsons. You will meet them again.”
Them? Who were ‘them’?
She was terribly confused.
Her lips felt like they were sealed by some sort of an invisible hand. She also felt someone carrying her.
She didn’t know who it was.
Or who they were.
She has been carried around the plane for many, many days and months and years.
Until…
****
17th January 2024
The world talked about the mishap of the season. New York was always a centre for attraction for many terrorists and antisocials alike. They just wanted to watch the whole world burn.
They were caught, the dutiful police traced them out of their dens within the next few hours at midnight.
Punishing the offender wouldn’t serve anyone justice. Especially for the souls who were lost in the mishap of 16th January 2024.
The news reporters cover the same news on repeat, throughout the day.
“A series of bombings in the central citadel of New York city had went off at evening 6:17 yesterday. Police reports show 36 deaths and 143 injuries to the people who were in the mall. Considering the group efforts of more than 1209 people of the bombing site, this mishap will forever be remembered in the history of New York.
Fresh reports come as many bigshots were at the mall yesterday as well. It must be their ill fate; the Johnson Family…”
Louis was tired of listening to the same news on repeat since yesterday.
All he wanted was his family to unite back as seven members.
Framton was with his ex-wife as well, grieving for the mishap that happened to his family.
In the event of trauma, the paralysed man remembered about his six children and the life they have lived so far. Most of his memories surface back as a large single flashback in his head.
He couldn’t believe his little starlets were taken away from him.
They were at the hospital, still deeming it a useless institution because nothing was done to the ones who were wanted back.
They were gone, and the Johnson Family had to accept that.
They were Gone Forever.