Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 76

Chapter Eleven

            Elle's life is stretched before me, a series of highs and lows like the fragile line on a heart monitor. I feel the vice-like grip of her fingers around my wrist but can't turn my head to see her. There is only the stark white landscape of her mind, and the flashing journey of her memories.

            There are hospital beds and blank white rooms. Seas of crying relatives and a fierce sense of loneliness that grips my chest like the start of a cardiac arrest.

            With an explosion of colour, the line comes to an end. The image of an enormous, vaulted room with a dinosaur skeleton in the centre rushes to greet us. She's taken us to the Natural History Museum.

            I rocket forward, Elle loses grip of me and I collapse to the ground, feeling the sharp contact on my hands and knees.

            'Why is he following us?' I say, now used to the feeling of the Edge. 'That was so cool, Elle,' I say, getting up. 'Superheroes have nothing on you.'

            Elle is looking to her side though, biting one of her nails. 'I think I might have killed him,' she says, looking down at the floor.

            Graham lies, spread eagled on the floor, beside a case with a large skeleton of a prehistoric mammal. Its body is encased in a huge, domelike shell like an armadillo, only it stands as tall as us. Luckily, there's no one over at this exhibit at the moment. With a cough that sounds like a first breath after almost drowning, Graham starts to life and sits up sharply.

            'Holy crap,' he says.

            'Oh thank God,' Elle gasps, clutching her chest. 'He's cool. And thank you, for future reference, when referring to me, you must precede my name with either 'The Amazing', or 'The Incredible.'

            'Fine by me,' I say clapping her softly on the back. She smiles.

            'I travelled!' she says like she's just driven without her L plates for the first time.

            As Graham splutters on the floor, I grin and we hug, relieved to have escaped.

            'Can he see us?' Elle asks, waving a hand in front of his face. 'I'm taking that as a no,' she says, disappointed as he continues to stare around the room. A few people are starting to look at him considering he's still sitting on the floor next to the large black case I dropped.

            'Your Edge looks so different to mine,' I say. 'I feel so scared I'll get trapped in mine.'

            'Maybe that says something about your fears,' she says, 'they overrule your waking mind.' She sighs, smiling at the same time. 'Everyone always says life comes to an end with a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe that only happens to people whose lives were filled with happiness. When I died, it felt like a birth. The light at the end of the tunnel ruled my life, it surrounded me with every waking second. It feels so good to be free of it, Easton. I see the colour of life, now. I don't have a reason to be scared of it.'