By Hanny Morag
After graduating from high school at a very young age, Maria got admission to college to become an astronaut. Her knowledge and ability to understand things quickly made her a primary challenge to her lecturers and friend to professors in her department. She met with Annie and Josh, who became her friend in her first year at the university. They do almost everything together.
Annie has a funny personality. She doesn't let life take her for a ride. Annie loves to enjoy the moment, celebrate with winners, and always console those who feel down because they didn't perform up to expectation.
Laughing and smiling remains a part of her that can't be taking away. Annie always comes up with fantastic fun ideas and sometimes silly ones that get them into trouble. Often, the phrase "Can you be serious for once" is always used on her, but Annie doesn't care. She will do something funny again the next minute.
Several ladies love Josh, a handsome and passionate guy, but he pays little attention to them. He is always focused on being the best at what he does, even if he doesn't always win. He is ready and willing to try again.
First-year in school also brought an enemy who hates everything about Maria. Christabel. The hatred started when Christabel started seeing Maria as a hindrance to her happiness. Christabel was obsessed with Tyrese, who doesn't give her any attention but is trying to get Maria instead.
With age comes the awareness of several things. Maria's intellect was beginning to amaze her because she often says things without understanding where she got the knowledge. Books that take other students months to finish only take Maria a few days to complete with perfect understanding.
Things began taking a different shape when Maria started having visions and hearing a name in her head. It comes like a flash and disappears faster before the twinkle of an eye.
Maria kept it a secret and never told anyone about it despite it becoming very disturbing to her. It was like someone was trying to pass information to her. It felt like there was someone in the shadows trying to reach out to her.
Maria was beginning to worry about what was happening to her as the event kept repeating itself, especially when alone. She sometimes blanks out when the flashes intensify and stay longer than usual. Annie and Josh began to notice something was wrong with her even though she has not said anything about it.
"I hate her and want her dead," Christabel told some of her friends while staring at Maria from a distance. It was apparent she would do it if no one tries to talk her out of it. The sight of Tyrese around Maria irritates Christabel more than a public toilet. She doesn't want to know if they are just friends. Everything Christabel wants is for Tyrese to pay more attention to her, so she decided to do something about the situation.
"Maria, you know you can always trust us, right? We know something is wrong with you even though you are trying everything you could to hide it," said Annie while having lunch with Maria and Josh. She tried to get words out of her, but everything proves abortive as Maria kept telling her she is okay with an irresistible smile on her face. Annie decided not to push further, but she was determined to get to the root of the situation.
Christabel decided to eliminate Maria, so she planned with her friend to do it without anyone knowing.
Parent's love could be overwhelming. It sometimes pulls us back home with force higher than that of a large magnet, especially when they are incredible to us in diverse ways. We don't want to trade the time we could spend with them for anything. Maria is a lady with eternal love for her parent, so she always finds time to visit home before the end of the school session.
Like every other time when Maria wants to travel home to her parents, Maria was set to break the news to her friends that they would be spending the weekend without her because she is going home. After lectures on Thursday, she went with Annie and Josh to a Chinese Restaurant where she broke the news about her traveling. Coincidentally, one of Christabel's friends, was there with her boyfriend.
Her friends, especially Annie, weren't surprised about her decision to go home. Annie believes Maria would fall sick if she doesn't see her parents in a month. Annie being her usual self, brought an idea that they should go clubbing that evening since she would be leaving the next day after the lecture. Annie was persuasive, so they agreed to dance to her tune. Christabel's friend heard it too, so she decided to inform Christabel.
Annie and Maria went home together while Josh promised to join them later on their way to the club. Christabel and her friends were already waiting in her car a few distances from Maria's home, intending to kill her before leaving the premises so it would look like some assassins did the job.
Both friends came out ready for the party, but something unexpected happened that changed the whole plan. Maria suddenly fell and went unconscious.
"Anna," she heard the voice as an irrational echo. Her body trembled; her legs, waist, and chest were like leaves flailing in the wind. Her breath rattled with images of her passing lives and more glaring pictures of her previous existence. It was like a silvery film.
With vigorous fibrillation, she tried to savor the longing, the sorrow, the loss, the place where she was happy.
Her body convulsions strengthened, rubbing every cell, wiping every sweat from her body.
The texture of life she came to know well-changed shape into a whirl of glowing colors that cut through the darkness throwing precious light in the room.
"Anna" seemed the echo is her father's and mother's familiar voices, simple people's voices.
Adapting to the new age after a view of her previous life became severe trouble.
Although she has always felt strange about her existence wherever she finds herself, the reason has never been this clear.
The twitching stopped; she opened her eyes, a dazzling light that hurt them. Not being able to move, she felt the room was gradually closing on her.
Could she resist? Does she have the power?
She didn't know. She lay helplessly there on the sickbed.
"Anna," sounded the same voice again.
"She wakes up. She wakes up," The tapping of the monitor knocked on her ears like a thousand drums.
"Watch out for her" The sound of a voice blend with her heavy breaths.
Hot flashes flooded her body, paralyzed and unable to move, she began to feel the pinching needles in her body, the tremors started again as she felt her bed moving fast down the hall.
The hallway looked like a red carpet spread beneath her, clutching and gripping as her body tremors shake her tightly.
Suddenly, cold began flowing maliciously, crawling from her fingers to her feet, her hips, waist, and up till she lost her grip on reality.
The lantern lights rattled and hurt her eye. She closed them, allowing darkness to dim her senses; she felt an intense stab deep in her flesh, all this while she wished for death.
But the same death, which everyone evades, which eventually catches everyone, the same pleasing soft end stubbornly refused her pleas.
Then, her body cells intertwined with a curls motion, she collapsed into her loss of senses.
Her body remained numb, limp sack, still in the last vestiges of vibration; she looked at her non-existence and her smallness from above.
Is that how I have existed?
Her pain was gone, and her anguish was absorbed. The memory of the moment faded away.
Then she landed, with one strong compression, she returned.
The monitor device beeps in its monotonous and precarious ringing tone.
The forerunner of life
But her mind was Peaceful.
She became addicted to this Peaceful nature,
"Anna." She woke up screaming with a big voice as if she was recovering from a nightmare. Then she said, "I'm Anna." Then she fainted again
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