April's POV (Flashback) 8 years ago
On the night that I could not close my eyes for rest, I stumbled down the carpeted stairs with white-colored wooden handles to grab a glass of milk to calm my nerves.
That night, I found my dad lying in his farmhouse canopy bed covered in his cotton grayish-blue queen-size duvet. His eyes closed shut but still with motion, and his body quivered slowly and rhythmically, sweat dripping down his forehead, filling his pillow.
I only went into his room because the shadows of light coming from the room alarmed me, and I felt the cold breeze of the open door coming from the inside of the room.
The breeze felt as cold as the outside, making the hair follicles on my body active and aware, even though the seasons were transitioning to warmth and growth.
Before my adventure to the kitchen, I had dreamed of a small black shadow figure attaching itself to my father's body.
I feared that after the shadow figure entered my father's body in my dream; it stood up from the bed, turned its neck 90 degrees to face me, and was staring at me with blood coming out of its mouth and its eyes rolling.
I was so shaken up because the dream felt so real and so vivid; it felt like it was my body the figure was invading, and when it turned to face me, it felt like a confrontation, its eyes felt like my eyes, and my eyes felt like it was going in and out of my socket rolling like bowling balls heading to escape and make an impact with my brain causing my mouth to bleed.
It all came to a climax when the shadow inside my father's body came closer down to my face, tilting its head to its right side, scanning my eyes, then my nose.
Then, finally, my lips with the whites of its eyes showing as if it was memorizing my face and my being, then it hit its head against my head, causing me to wake in a frantic state.
I was lying in bed trying to catch my breath and trying not to cry out loud cause I knew that if I did, my parents would come into my room to comfort me.
After I could finally catch my breath, I got out of my bed, walked to my door, and headed downstairs where I saw something that an 8-year-old should never have to see.
When I was about to enter the room through the cream-colored door, I saw it was already open, which I found odd considering that the clock on the kitchen oven said that it had just hit three o'clock on the dot.
My parents, who hate having the bathroom stench, get into their room and immediately close their door when they are asleep.
And as I was looking around the hallway, I saw the bathroom lights were on, and I heard the water running from what I presumed to be the sink.
So I thought maybe my mom went to use the bathroom again, explaining why the bedroom lights would be open because it has become routine for my mom to use the bathroom at this time of day.
I caught her one night when I couldn't fall asleep because of the dream. I saw her awkwardly walking in a squashed position, trying to reach the bathroom as if she was running out of time to save herself.
When she was finally in the bathroom, I waited until she finished to tell her, "Mommy, I'm tired," while scratching the left side of my face with my hand, trying to wipe my tears.
My mom was on the other side of the hallway and quickly ran to me and immediately gave me the biggest hug, and as she was hugging me, she was patting my back, brushing through my hair, and telling me that everything was going to be ok.
She got up, held my hand, and walked me up the stairs and into my room. We lay on my bed and looked up at the ceiling with lit-up stars my dad had put in my room when I could get a big girls' room. My mom, still trying to comfort me, asked me.
"Did you see the little dance I did before going into the bathroom?"
"Yeah, you looked like Mr. Krabs; it was funny," I responded while chuckling and facing her.
She then turned to face me, putting her hand up to touch my face, and with a fading laugh, she said, "Well, do you wanna know why I was doing the crab dance? Hmm"
"I don't know, maybe because you had to use the bathroom?" I said with a witty and playful smirk on my face.
"Yes, it's because I had to use the bathroom," she said back and then added that she's been drinking a lot of water lately, and it always makes her want to pee every 10 minutes.
But thinking back about it now feels weird, even though I know it might be nothing. I felt like tonight there was something wrong.
I finally took my first steps into the room while holding onto the edges of the door and saw my dad laying on his bed.
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As I continued walking to the left side of the bed, which was his side of the bed, and got a little closer to him, I could see the whites of his hair.
I could see bruises on the side of his neck and the splashes of blood all over his long-sleeved carrot-printed pajamas and some on his face, but the blood-soaked his duvet.
As I was looking at the room, I saw random splashes of blood as if someone came in with buckets of blood and threw them on the walls and just let the blood run down the whole walls letting just splashes and lines of blood decorate the walls.
The windows were open and I could feel the cool, chilling breeze hitting me directly. As I was looking at my father, now motionless, laying there, I didn't know if he was still alive or not.
After moments of me panicking, I could build enough courage to stretch out my hands and I felt my father's body and was immediately shocked at how cold and lifeless his body felt.
His eyes were now shut closed with no way of reopening and his body was stiff and cold and drained. I reached for his face and tried brushing my hands all over his face, but all I felt was an empty shell.
I panicked again and started shaking his body, trying to wake him up because I wasn't processing what I saw. I lost all my senses and became desperate to wake my dad up. I ignored the signs and convinced myself my dad was just in a deep sleep and he needed to wake up.
Tears just fell on my face as I was pushing and tried to force him to wake up, but he didn't move. I then started to continually slap him across the face, trying as hard as I could to wake him up because I didn't want to realize what was happening.
Soon after, my childlike arms grew tired, and I took an observe his body and saw that his chest wasn't even moving up and down as if he was still breathing.
At that moment, my 8-year-old self, who didn't even understand the meaning of death, concluded that my father was dead. I realized that if something doesn't change or happen now that I can never talk to my father ever again. Shortly after that realization, I cried uncontrollably.
Tears and snot that were coming out of me started to increasingly fall onto the carpeted floor and with everything fiber I had in my body I cried out loud, "PLEASE COME BACK! PLEASE COME BACK! DADDY, PLEASE DON'T DIE!"
I reached out to grab his cold, frozen hands and continued to cry manically at whoever was hearing me. Then, out of sight, I realized that everything around me was darkening.
It seemed like a shadow was being cast around the bed and my tears seemed to have taken a pause and I panicked. I cried out for help, thinking that my mom might come and everything would go back to normal, but the shadow just continued to grow.
Then, out of nowhere, a bright blue light started shining between my hands and my father's hands. The light seemed to have distracted me from the darkness and moments later, the light also grew.
It grew so much that it was almost blinding to look straight ahead so I lifted my left hand to cover my eyes but felt on my right hand that something was moving it.
I then looked down at my right hand to see what was moving it and saw that my father's fingers were kind of twitching they were just tiny movements but they moved and I was brought back into the reality of my situation and the tears that had almost dried out fell again.
Both of my hands hugged his and were squeezing harder than before. My cries of desperation continued, "COME BACK! PLEASE! LET MY DAD LIVE!"
Then, just like that, everything around me just went back to reality. There was no more darkness and no more blinding light.
All there was left was my dad's frozen dead body that was becoming warm and with no warning, my dad's eyes opened and the words "April? What are you doing? You're supposed to be asleep?" came out of him so clearly and with no hesitation or rest that it's unbelievable how just moments before there was no breath in him.
But just like a snap of a finger, the lights and air in my father disappeared once more. What was just spoken to me just moments ago faded into my memories and became more of a dream, making me question whether or not it truly happened.
For a split moment, I saw my dad come back to life; but I would have no time to process my thoughts cause at the same moment my mom entered the room seeming to have heard my cries and immediately ran to the left side of the bed where I was and with an unsurprised expression on her face after passing my now-dead father reached out her hands to the grab the home phone and dialed 911.
Standing next to me now facing my father's body, she put her two fingers to my dad's neck to check his pulse and was shocked to feel the slow and tiny motion of blood flow. She let out a sigh of relief before pulling me away from the bed and squatting down facing me and telling me that everything was going to be ok.
She spent a few moments hugging me and letting my tears run down soaking her nightgown, then made eye contact with me as she was wiping my tears off my face.
She looked back at the bed, then looked at me, and, with a demanding but also motherly voice, she told me, "April! It's ok to cry but right now I need you to go to your room and put on some shoes and a jacket because we need to go to the hospital right this second to save your dad, do you understand?"
"I understand Mommy," I said back to her with no seconds of hesitation, sprinting as fast as my tiny body could past the kitchen, up the stairs, and into my room.
A few minutes passed by of me and my mom cuddling together on the sofa that's in the living room waiting for the police to arrive.
Like clockwork after 5 minutes of waiting the police came knocking at our door and yelling outside our door "This is the police open up!" my mom then got off the sofa leaving me still seated and went to open the door that was right in front of us and invited the police officers into our home.
With the police came the paramedics and after my mom told them that my dad was in the master bedroom severely injured but still breathing the paramedics immediately with no pause ran straight into the room with all of their equipment and analyzed the situation and took pictures and moved my father's body into the ambulance.
The police pulled my mom aside behind the kitchen counter and started asking her questions. Even though the police officers and my mom were in the kitchen and I was still in the living room sitting on the sofa, I could still almost clearly hear the conversation and the questions that were being asked.
My mom, with a controlled and calm face, answered all the questions that the police officers had to ask and then said, "he's still alive? I can't believe that he is still alive I was sure that I saw him die" then turned her head to look at my direction and continued saying "I'm sure something happened to him in between the time I went to the bathroom and got out of it, something indeed."
After the paramedics finished putting my dad into the ambulance and stabilizing him, the police told us to get in the ambulance too.
As I was getting in with the help of my mom, holding my hand I saw my dad lying in the middle with tubes and needles connecting him to machines and the nurse monitoring the machines with dark tired eyes and I just thought to myself sitting there while holding onto my mother's hand "I'm so glad that you're not dead anymore".