Recalled to Life
By Lia H.R.
Samantha’s dark wavy hair flew around her as ice began to close in around her. The freezing wind bit at her bare legs beneath her dress, and it flew into her emerald eyes causing her to squint. It felt like a winter snowstorm had suddenly erupted out of nowhere. The ice began to wrap itself around her .She hadn’t expected to experience this when she had been murdered; yet again, she hadn’t expected to feel the sharp pain of the knife embedding in her heart.

Samantha.

At first she couldn’t hear the dark voice that had befriended her long ago, but its echo came to her. She blinked in surprise and looked around, thinking she must’ve been hearing some kind of memory.

Samantha, take my hand. His voice resonated through her, and the instant image of his black wings formalized in her mind.

“Jesse?”

Samantha, take my hand. His voice sounded pained and suddenly his hand broke through her ice cocoon and lay outstretched before her.

She blindly grasped for it, and his hand twisted and locked around her wrist in an unbreakable hold, and she fell, fell, fell…

And she breathed.

A real breath,

It hurt.

The first thing she thought was: This can’t be happening! I’m dead! The second was blotted out by a wave of pain so intense she wanted to throw up. She screamed in agony.

I’m breathing, she thought. How can I be breathing? I can feel my heart beating…I can feel.

Samantha, I’m sorry if that hurt. Jesse said inside her head. Inside her head?!

Samy, I brought you back, but now you must choose. Choose what? Samantha turned and tried to find him. Was this a trick of death?

“What am I supposed to choose?” She cried. She was scared, confused, and hurting.

If you want to go back to your normal life, the way you used to live, you must fight, or you can choose the endless possibilities I have to offer. I brought you back, but now you must choose.

Samantha groaned. Having Jesse in her head was like being Alice down the rabbit hole. He sounded sane enough, but in the background rushed a jittering mad landscape of too much color, too much pain, too much hunger, and too much love; this was what Jesse was, and he scared her , charmed her, and made her want to cry.

The ice in her veins had something wonderful about it, because it felt like peace, like an eerie stillness, yet not death, but something of death in it, and something of life. It had a fierce, sharp clarity of eternity. Was this what a death angel felt like?

Her heart struggled to beat against it, and the struggle hurt. Life hurt. Everything about it brought pain, even the best things.

Then let go. Jesse whispered. I’ll catch you. I’ll take you under my wing.
The thought was so powerful, so intense, she was about to say yes. Jesse at her side forever, loving her. Love- it’s such a beautiful word yet so hard to maintain. Isn’t that what everybody wanted? Love? Even the coldest of people yearned for a person to hold them- cherish them… but for eternity? If there are no problems in life then is it really life?

“Jesse, I don’t know. I can’t think.” Samantha whimpered, cradling her head in her hands. “Maybe I want to go with you.”

If you come with me, you must leave everything behind, even the quest.

The quest? The quest! The quest to save Hunter! The single thought of him made her heart flutter inside her chest. Many things flashed in her mind in that moment: the way he would grin crookedly at her, the way he cared with passion, and the way he fought and dared her to live. She had to save him from King Gabriel’s noose, before it was too late.

Yet at the same time there was a cold, rational survival in the ice pumping through her body and end to pain, but Jesse had reminded her of something else: Pain was life, and life could be beautiful with all its scars and flaws.

Do you not understand, Samantha, that I could make you happy? You wouldn’t have to deal with the cruelties of life. I can hide you from the world’s sorrow into our shadow of eternal exhilaration.

Then Jesse appeared before her. His onyx, black eyes stared at her with a glimmer of love reflecting off of them. His lips curled up into a soft smile. He had let his raven-black hair grow longer, just as she had suggested, to make it look windswept. What entranced her most though was the pair of velvet-like ebony wings folded behind his back. They coaxed her to touch them, feel them through her undeserving fingers.

He closed the gap in between them and drew her into his embrace with his lean yet muscular arms. She melted against him quickly inhaling the soft scent of wind and midnight that clung to him. In the real world, he was cold, but here he was warm and she dug deeper for that heat.

He took her chin with his forefinger and thumb, tilting her head up so he could force eye contact. His thumbs wiped away the tears that had escaped from her unknowingly.

“I love you, Samantha.”

Jesse quickly captured her lips in his, placing a hand on her cheek to cup her face and the other slid down to the small of her back and pushed her to him, deepening the kiss. He closed his eyes in bliss until he felt her tears slide down her face and onto his.

This made her cry even harder as she placed two hands on his chest. Guilt coursed through her. Her heart belonged to Hunter. The truth was the greatest tragedy of all.


“I-I love Hunter, Jesse. I’m sorry.” She wept; he held her nonetheless, and pressed his cheek to the crown of her head. He cleared his voice after her sniffles and in a hoarse yet strong voice sighed, “Then I shall see you again, my love, in the cruel world of life.”
Then as she lost consciousness, falling forward into Jesse’s arms she heard him whisper in her ear, “I’ll wait for you, Samantha. Forever.”