Trip Down Memory Lane 9 Escape To Reality

Phillip is still sitting on his chair beside Valera, looking at her stale body with his tired eyes. On those remaining days, he talks to her about many things he can think of on the hopes of helping her recover.

But as soon as the third day began, he can only stare at her with dead eyes due to days without sleep, gradually losing hope. Even so, he still looks out for her, for she might be awake in his absence.

All he can do is to have faith for her recovery while he hears the slow, inducing sounds emitting from the machineries beside the hospital bed.

Marie enters the room with a baggage in her hand. Inside that baggage are some snacks and foods to help him nourished, considering that he didn't move almost an inch in that chair.

As she sees her niece still lying in that bed for those remaining days, she can't help but to feel anxious of her unconscious state.

She approaches to him and hands him a grub while she talks to him on his back.

"It's already three days..." Marie said as a reminder.

"..."

"Do you think that three days is too short for her? If we lengthen the days, Valera might-"

"Forget it." Phillip said with a sad tone.

"Why would you say that? You wanted her to wake up, right? She could wake in any moment." Marie feels distressed, for she doesn't want to feel the same feeling years ago.

"I know. I want her to wake up but... I don't want her to suffer either..."

"Phillip..."

"I picked three days because I wanted to know if Valera can withstand her pain and got up. But if she didn't...

That means that she's suffered too much."

He smiles with sincerity while he says those hurtful words.

"And when that happens, all I have to do is..."

However, he gulps the word "Accept" as his smile slowly fades to infuriation. In those three days, he only talks to her and nothing else. He still has hopes for her but he doesn't want her to suffer either.

"You've done enough, Phillip..." Marie said with empathy.

Phillip sits whilst hiding his tears with Marie as they wait the nurses enter the room.

...

"Spirit!!"

Valera shouts while she runs at the opposite side of the cyclone. Time pa.s.ses, and the sky above her shatters like gla.s.s, as if this world – no – this reality is breaking apart.

"Spirit!! Where are you?!!!"

In this single hour of running, she call Spirit's name, for he might know how to rea.s.sure her safety. Even so, he didn't respond.

Valera runs to the forest Spirit showed her before and tries to find the well.

As she finally reached the forest, everything is on fire.

Every trunk residing in that forest burns endlessly while the leaves detached on the branches, floating across her as the leaves makes a moving, burning amber.

Everywhere around her is hot. There was no pathway to safely traverse through the burning forest. If she stayed there for too long, there's no doubt that her skin will scorch.

"I will never leave by your side, Valera."

While the forest fire burns hotter than the surface of the sun, Valera's eyes burned even hotter. Her determination pa.s.ses higher, so high that even death can't faze her.

Her pain and her past aren't even equal to the consequences she will regret later on. Had her stay in this world, she will never reunite with Phillip ever again.

Without a thought, she ran straight into the bursting flames.

She can feel the burns in every inch in her body. It hurts so much that she wanted to stop, but she didn't. She can only endure the pain around her and moving forward.

'Wait for me, Phillip...'

In the distance, she can see a broken well in front of her. Without a chance to rest, she immediately jumped down.

And without a delay, she arrived at the forest of fall.

Valera flew high across the sky, much higher than she was earlier. She looked up and notices a giant scarlet leaf floating across the sky. It is bigger than the size of a blanket while it flew to the direction towards the next portal.

She instantaneously grabs the ends of the leaf, making her descent even slower and because of the wind; she swiftly flew towards the next portal.

When she looked down, she saw a ma.s.sive crack in the earth made by an earthquake. The intensity of the earthquake is so strong that she even feels the shock even if she's midair. After a moment has pa.s.sed, the quake made the earth split in half, making a huge crevice towards the portal.

She's finally on top of the portal. However, she's still airborne and the height is higher than the plateau behind her. The crevice is also below her. It is so deep that she can't even see the bottom.

But still, as her determination still resides in her, she lets her grip loose and dives down.

The timing for her to fall down was perfect and she will go exactly to the portal. All she can only do is to stretch her arms to the portal before she flew to the endless crevice.

Just as she planned, she holds the snowman's hand and proceeds to the next world. But because of her speedy descent, her body bounces to the ground and slides through the body of ice.

Her body didn't stopped moving until a tree stops her, hitting her in the back of her body.

She laid into the ground with her body filled with burns and broken bones. Even so, she stands up and continues to run.

She continued sprinting through the cold forests of winter and unto the field of snow until a strong hail approaching in her direction. The bleak, hard ices that are falling from the clouds. .h.i.t her as she runs forward.

Valera crosses her arms above her head, blocking the falling ice from her head. The falling hails. .h.i.ts her everywhere, making cuts and bruises all over her body. But this pain won't let her fall easily.

Just as she blinks, the hails has stopped and the area around her transitions to the beach.

She looks at the sh.o.r.eline to go forward...

But where? Where would she go next? If the next portal only lets her go back, is there an another portal where she can finally wakes up in her hospitalized body?

Valera gazes to the sky to think about how she would go back.

But as she stares to the dark–blue sky, the "sky" in front of her was a gigantic tsunami, almost as high as the cyclone she saw.

She needs to run, but where? Would she run away, or straight to the calamity ahead of her? After all of that thinking, she had come up to one conclusion...

"Go Forward!"

Valera runs onward. She could either run or swim. As long as she goes straight through the adversity before her, she will definitely reach the path she seeks.

Just as she touches the salt.w.a.ter, a long, light-emitting path showed her the way as it extends long and high towards the skies. Valera's foot touched the path it gives to her, thinking to herself that this is a chance to finally escape to this so-called reality.

She ran... and ran... and ran. She doesn't stop. Slowly, she can feel the pain around her body. Burns; cuts; bruises. But those agonies of hers can only slow her down and she can only ignore the pain and keep on moving.

Later on, she's finally at the top. The tsunami from the ocean hits the island just after she gone up the highest peak of the path. Valera looks at the opened gate presented to her.

The doors of the gate are entirely made of white clouds and the light from the inside s.h.i.+nes bright than the sun itself. The gate that beholds to her will be the last portal she will enter in her short, but exciting adventure.

Without a halt, she runs through the gate to finally end her journey.

...

"Looks like everyone's here..."

It is now 8 in the evening. Everyone who is a friend of hers gathered in her bed, witnessing their friend to finally pa.s.s on whilst Valera's suffering lets itself off while Valera dies in peace in the afterlife.

Her best friend, Maple, is also there in the scene, crying in woe as she has no choice but to make her friend rest.

The people in this room had talked about this since two days ago and agreed that they should need to pull the cord...

Phillip, who volunteered, approaches her to finally end her torment in her long, hurtful sleep.

But as before he pulls the plug, he talks to Valera one last time...

"Valera... Are you there...?"

Valera, who is running through the road of luminosity, heard his voice of anguish.

"Phillip?!"

"... Not gonna wake up huh...?

Don't worry... I know that you're hurting in there, so... I want you to get some rest..."

As Valera hears his words, she already knew that the time she has in this world will come to an end soon enough.

"Wait!! Phillip, wait!!!" She said this because she's already near the gate and runs for the gate as her life depends on it.

"Gah!!" And as she's almost a meter from the gate, she tripped to the ground.

'M-My legs... They won't respond...' Because of her injuries she dealt and her exhaustion from running, her body won't function properly, leaving her helpless.

'And I was even near the gate...'

While her legs stopped working, she can move her arms. But due to the injury she got from the hailstorm earlier, the part that has the most damages was her arms.

But even so, she uses those battered arms to crawl to the gate.

"Ever since we were kids, you're always on my side."

She hears his voice again as she struggles to move to the gate, moving at a snail's pace.

"I know that you didn't notice, but because of you, my world went upside down. You are the only person I can think of to help me develop into a better person. If I didn't saw you in the woods back then, I would've been living in the life of loneliness."

Valera tries to fasten her pace, but to no avail. Her wounds are so severe that a normal person would not have moved for a week.

She wanted to live.

She wanted to live only because she wants to reunite with the ones she loved the most. She would've met with him once again.

"I know that this is sudden, but...

As I was with you throughout my entire life, I starting to think of you as more than just friends..."

As she hears her proposal to her, she let out her tears. This makes her ambition to meet him even stronger, crawling through the road with all of her strength.

"And after I die...

We can finally meet once again..."

"No...Phillip..."

"And we can talk to each other, and..."

"Phillip..."

"Be with you forever..."

"We can... We can Phillip... So please... wait for me..."

Valera is finally at the entrance. Just a few more and she can finally leave.

"So..." Phillip holds his hand on her cheek.

"I'm coming... Phillip..." She reaches to the gate.

He puts his forehead unto hers; rea.s.suring her as his tears flow across his face, and eventually hers

"Sleep well... Valera..."

As Valera extends her arm to the gate...

The road vanishes.

Valera falls into the ground as the world around her slowly demolis.h.i.+ng itself.

She can feel the resemblance of the time she falls from the balcony. All of her sensations are intertwined with each other whilst she falls to her demise. But this time, she ignored all of those sensations, leaving with regret that she didn't make it in time.

She didn't want to accept her death.

She wants to live.

But she has no choice.

She wants to let out her emotions and screams his name.

Valera exhales her breath and opens her mouth...

"VALERA!!!" She notices a familiar voice from down below.

"Spirit?! How did you-"

Spirit's flame goes inside her body while Valera is overwhelming with power.

"You want to be with him, right?!!" He struggles as he loses her power and his very life force gradually.

"But-"

"Go!!" Just as she finishes her sentence, Spirit uses his every bit of his energy and exerted it to her body as projectiles into the sky.

In exchange, he fell down before her while his body slowly developed into his human form.

She looks at the personified spirit and had a glimpse of his appearance.

An outfit that is used on his work with gla.s.ses wearing in his eyes. She sees a tag on his t-s.h.i.+rt pocket, reading...

"Dr. Dennis P. Miller"

'Ah... I remember now...' Dennis had a thought while he freefalls to the sky.

'She's...my daughter... and I didn't realize it until now...'

Even if his demise is right on his back, he smiles with comfort as he sees his daughter to finally be awake on her long slumber.

'This... is fine by me...

As long as I see my daughter finally reunites with the one she loved...

My death...definitely pays off...'

He closes his eyes to finally give himself a rest on their journey...

"DADDY!!!"

Dennis opens his eyes as he finally hears the words he forgot and missed.

"THANK YOU!!! FOR EVERYTHING!!!!"

That single sentence reminisces the times he was alive; especially when his daughter was born. He remembers the time that he spent with Valera from her birth, to childhood.

Just after his death a few years ago, he soon realized that he really wanted to look after her until she grew up. Yet he didn't have a chance...

And now, he actually has a chance to finally be reunited with her again, reincarnated as her guardian who will protect her from any harm.

He thought of this as a dedication, at first. And soon after, he now understood...

...That the dedication he felt before was actually a wish – a wish to finally look after her one last time.

Tears finally broke out from his eyes as he sees his child grow up.

He didn't regret that he dies... but he is satisfied that he has done everything for her.

And with a smile on his face, he fell unto the destroyed world with his heart filled with content...