Awake
William lay in the coma ward of the general hospital. Tubes and wires snaked from his body to machines that monitored his vital signs, as his mother sat by his bedside holding his warm but lifeless hand, crying softly to herself. He felt nothing; saw nothing; heard, smelt and tasted nothing. He was totally unaware of the warm sunshine as it filtered through the blinds at the window, and described a latticework of spring across the ward floor. His mind floated, as if in a freezing, pure white fog. Not thinking, no imagination; just waiting.
“Will-i-am.” The girl’s voices were the merest whisper as they focused William’s inert mind.
“Will-i-am!” They were more insistent; demanding his full attention, although at some level he wished they’d go away. As his mind fully awoke the images of the girls gradually condensed before him from the fog; one to the front, and one to either side; their deathly pale features making the fog seem almost dirty by contrast.
Who are you? William’s disembodied mind asked, What do you want with me?
“We are your half sister, Emily.” Their voices phased and swirled around his mind.
Half sister? William thought, Why are there three of you?
“I am death.” said the girl to his left.
“I am life.” said the one to his right, with the yellow bows in her plaits.
“And I live in the nether world between the two.” said the girl with red bows, as she stood before him.
“We need you to wake up, William.” she continued; her dead, black eyes boring into him as if, in reality they faced each other, “We need you to play a game with us.”
“Yes, a game, William.” said the girl to his left.
“A game.” droned the other.
What game? William’s mind shrieked, leave me alone!
“We can’t.” said the girl before him.
“No, we can’t.” said the second.
“Can’t.” said the third.
The girl with the red bows moved closer so that William felt she was almost inside his mind; he felt the depths of cruelty and evil emanating from the chasms that were her dead, lifeless eyes, as if a conduit to her twisted, corrupt mind.
“We need your soul, William. I need it; Emily needs it.” Her words were pure ice as the other two moved in front of William and the three of them began to fuse together as one, a green baleful light detailing the points of their joining until they became one, seething entity. Their combined voices echoed and flitted in and out of phase as their words took on a demented passion and scaled higher in pitch at each word, “We need your soul, your life force; we need your very essence itself, William so that we, Emily, may live again and avenge the wrong that has been done to us! Wake up William!” Their tormented, unearthly scream shocked William’s mind back to reality; back to his body lying in the hospital bed. He let out a shuddering sigh, which shocked Laura back from the reverie she had lapsed into. William’s eyes snapped open and he shouted, “Emily, leave me alone!”
“William!” his mother shouted as if in a panic, as she stood up, sending the chair she had been sitting on skidding across the ward floor; “William, are you alright, darling?”
“Where am I?” asked William, completely disorientated.
“Wait, darling.” His mother replied in a rush, rapidly walking to the end of the ward shouting, “Nurse; nurse, my son has woken up!”
William sat up in his bed, somewhat bemused at the gaggle of nurses and doctors that descended upon him; reading his vital signs and shining lights into his eyes. Once they seemed satisfied that he was awake and stable, and the senior doctor had had a whispered conversation with his mother, they were left alone.
His mum grasped him in a huge bear hug of a cuddle, squeezing him so hard he could hardly breathe as she sobbed, “Oh, Will; Will. I thought we’d lost you for good; tell me that you’re Ok, baby.” Tears coursed down her cheeks as William eased his mother back slightly, “I’m fine Mum; just a bit groggy, that’s all. What happened?”
His mother told him that after she had fallen from the ceiling and called an ambulance, William and Susie had been brought to the hospital where William had been in a coma for the last two days.
“How’s Auntie Susie?” William asked.
“Not good,” replied his mother fighting back tears, “Her mind seems to have been totally wiped; about the only thing she can do for herself at the moment is breathe. The doctors are baffled.”
William bit his knuckle and sobbed, remembering his auntie’s madness during the horror in the bedroom. “Who’s Emily?” he asked in a small quavering voice. “She visited me when I was in the coma and said she was my half sister. What did she mean, Mum?”
His mother didn’t meet his gaze at first, but turned to look out the window at the sun bathed hospital grounds. Then, as if coming to a decision she turned back to William. “It’s true, Will. I had Emily when I was nineteen. I was living in Norwich with my Uncle Tobias and Aunt Agnes. They brought her up for me because she was such a difficult child.”
“Mum!” exclaimed William, wide eyed in disbelief, “You never told me about Emily.”
“I’ve never told anybody.” whispered his mother, biting her lower lip. “Not even your father. As I say, she was very difficult. Right from the start she had…” she paused, as if searching for the right word, “…she had emotional problems.”
“How do you mean, Mum?”
“Oh, it’s so difficult, Will.” His mother took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, “To put it simply she was pure evil.”
“Evil? How do you mean, evil?” asked William, almost unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Oh, there were lots of things, Will. She killed Tobias’ cat. She would threaten us with knives and say she was going to kill us. She was very frightening to be around, Will. You had to be there to really appreciate how strange she was.”
“What happened to her, Mum?”
His mother wouldn’t look him in the eyes as she said, “She caught pneumonia and died when she was nine.”
“How horrible!” gasped William.
William’s voice took on an edge of hysteria as he said, “Well, she wants to come back, Mum. She told me that she needed my soul so that she could live again.”
William watched the blood drain from his mother’s face, “What do you mean, Will; what are you saying?” her breath was coming in pants as she was almost beginning to hyperventilate with panic.
“She’s coming for me, Mum.” whined William, “She wants to take my life force from me so that she can have it and be alive again herself, while I’ll be dead. What are we going to do; what are we going to do?!”
His mum buried her head in her hands and cried, “I don’t know, Will; I just don’t know.” William could see the effort she made gathering herself as, after a moment she continued, ”I’m going to ring your dad to tell him that you’ve woken up; then we’ll have a long talk and try to work out what to do. There must be some way of stopping this.”
His mother stood up, and picking up her handbag, said, “Will, I’m just going outside to call your dad; I shan’t be long, but if you get worried push that red button by the bed and a nurse will come straight away. See you soon.” She leant down and gave him a peck on the forehead, and with that she was gone.

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