SERAPHS: THE AWAKENING

PROLOGUE

“The rain isn’t letting up,” Marisa Bennett said to her husband, Thomas as the thick dark cloud made another rumble. Marisa watched through the car window as the trees by the roadside danced to the wind, their leaves dripping rapidly from the heavy downpour.

Tom curved his head beneath the windshield, to the gloomy sky while steering the wheel with both hands. “Hopefully, it will stop soon.”

Marisa thought about why she and Tom were driving on a lonely slippery road surrounded by night, it was Lucy, her cousin. She had given birth to an adorable baby boy five days ago and Marisa had to make a trip with her husband to celebrate with Lucy. Marisa subconsciously patted her protruded tummy, the reason for their delayed visit to Lucy. She remembered how the last few days of her pregnancy had been difficult. Her tensed lips loosened into a smile when she imagined holding her baby in the next two weeks, give or take a few days as her doctor had said.

Marisa’s smile dissolved into a long and loud yawn. “You should get some rest,” Tom said, looking straight at the road. “The doctor said, no stress till further notice but you had so much fun with Lucy, I was worried you would have the baby at her place,” he teased.

Marisa giggled. Tom was always quick to make jokes and diffuse the tensest moments with his witty remarks. “I will rest when we get home,” Marisa said, “though it is your fault we are still on the road. We should have gotten home by now if you had taken the right turning,” Marisa teased back.

Tom smiled. “I already apologized for that and in my defence,” he held the steering wheel with his left hand and gesticulated with his right hand, “the roads look alike to me.”

“No, they don’t. You have a terrible sense of direction. I keep telling you that but you never agree.”

“It’s a good thing I have you then,” Tom grinned.

“A map is only useful if you follow it.” Marisa adjusted in her seat snugly, shutting her eyes to rest as she faced the window.

Tom laughed and continued the drive back home. The journey was quiet for another two minutes except for the pitter-patter of raindrops against the car roof and bonnet and the sound of their tires rolling on the wet road. Suddenly, a persistent honk jolted Marisa from her nap. Light bore into her eyes as soon as she opened them. She shielded her eyes with her hands, squinting to see beyond the light. A tanker was headed directly at them, on the undivided highway!

A wave of fear went through Marisa as Tom honked over and over to alert the tanker driver. He must be asleep, Tom said to himself. Marisa whimpered as Tom veered to the roadside to avoid a collision with the tanker when the repeated honking proved futile. As the tanker drove passed them, the driver woke up abruptly and fumbled with the wheel to gain control of the tanker.

“Sorry!” the driver shouted from his window and waved without stopping.

“Are you okay?” Tom anxiously asked his wife.

“Yes, I think so.” She tried to catch her breath. “Think I peed on myself a little but— I’m fine.” They laughed softly.

“Let’s go home.”

Tom started the engine and they continued towards home while the downpour got heavier and windier. Marisa still had an uneasy feeling but chucked it up to the near-miss accident.

Less than ten minutes away from their home, a huge tree suddenly fell on their bonnet making a loud bang. The impact and the tree branches shattered their windshield. Tom hit the brakes hard and sought to shake off the tree by switching lanes, but a beam of light from an oncoming vehicle made him swerve back to his lane, sharply on the slippery road. Their car went off the road and dived straight into a roadside ditch. The car’s impact with the cemented ditch shoved the tree further inside the car, impaling Tom’s mid-section and Marisa’s left shoulder.

Trembling, Marisa glanced down at her big tummy. When she didn’t see any physical damage, she turned to her husband. Tom was haemorrhaging severely from his chest. Marisa attempted to move but an excruciating pain tore through her shoulder. “Tom, Tom,” she called her husband, weakly as she laboured to reach out her hand to him. “Tom, can you hear me?”

Marisa’s voice pulled Tom back to reality. “H…ey, Swee…the-art…,” he said wheezily.

“Tom!” Marisa made another attempt to move but was held down by the agonizing pain in her shoulder.

“H…ey, I’m okay. I’m okay,” Tom said, forcing a smile as much as he could with a tree pressing down on his liver.

“You are not okay. A tree is lodged in your chest,” Marisa said.

Tom didn’t want his eight months and two weeks, pregnant wife, to panic any more than she probably was already. “I… know, pretty awe...some, right.”

“Good to know you can still make jokes.” Marisa was worried about her baby and her husband. The arm-sized tree branch stuck in Tom’s chest made her feel tightness in her chest. They needed to find a way out of the car but neither one of them could move. “I can’t reach my phone. Can you reach yours? We need to call for help.”

It took all of Tom’s strength to dial 911. The operator told them that due to the heavy rain, it would take an ambulance twenty minutes or more to get to them. They had no choice but to wait and pray it didn’t take too long for the Paramedics to get to them.

“Sweetheart, I am so sorry,” Tom groaned in pain.

“Hey, why are you sorry? You didn’t cause the accident. It wasn’t your fault, it was the stupid rain,” Marisa hissed.

Blood spattered out of Tom’s mouth as he tried to chuckle. “Stupid rain,” he muttered after Marisa. Tom wasn’t afraid to die. His only fear was that he would not see his baby girl. They had not decided on a name, yet. “What about Norabel?” Tom said faintly.

“What?”

“Norabel— our baby’s name.”

“Norabel,” Marisa grunted softly at the pain in her shoulder. “Uhm… that can work. I like it,” she replied.

“Yeah? You do?”

“Uhm-hum, I do. Looks like we finally chose a name,” Marisa squeezed a smile. “After eight months of throwing names around.”

“Ye...ah, looks like it,” Tom whispered, pressing his lips together to push down his pains. “Norabel,” he said for the last time as his eyelids fell.