Her Death, My Revenge

Chapter 3: Not my name

The voice felt like it came from somewhere far away, yet it echoed strangely around me. Like it was traveling through water too. I try to turn my head. I try to respond. My mouth opens to answer but my body betrays me as nothing comes out. Another image pushes forward.

“Noah.”

His small hands tugged at my sleeve. His voice asks, soft and unsure. “Lily, will you come to visit me?”

My chest tightens painfully. “Yes,” I want to tell him. “I promised.”

WHAM!

I came in contact with something else again. Harder this time. My head snaps back as white lights explode behind my eyes.

The fight in me leaves all at once. My arms float. My legs stop kicking. My body just glides across the sea for a moment. The cold spreads inward. Seeping into my bones. Into my thoughts, pulling me down to the ocean floor.

Silence.

Every sound disappears. The pain I felt fades. Even the fear dulls, like I got tired of struggling. This is it, a quiet part of me realizes. I'm dying and no one would know or care. No… Noah would. Noah would notice. He would cry if I did not visit.

I think of the necklace. The cold silver shine of its metal chains. The way it caught the light and its unique design. It had names on it but in my panic I couldn't register what it said.

Darkness closes in as everything goes blank.

Beep.

Beep..

Beep…

A sharp beeping sound cuts through the darkness. Once. Twice. The sound repeats itself steadily and unforgivingly. I furrow my brows. Or I try to.

My body felt wrong. Heavy and numb. Like I was buried under layers of fabrics I could not push through. “Am I not supposed to be dead?” I thought. “Or is this the afterlife?” Unfamiliar voices reach me next.

“Her vitals are stable now,” A calm masculine voice says. “But she breathed in a lot of water, so we're still monitoring her”

“How long has it been?” A different voice asks.

“A bit too long.”

The words ‘too long’ echo in my head. I tried to move my arm. Nothing happens. Panic flares in me briefly, then halts. I don’t even have the strength to hold onto it.

Another voice breaks through. It sounded female but tense. “Is she… she is alive, right?”

“Yes,” the first voice answers. “Although barely.”

Alive… The word feels distant. Like it belonged to someone else. Something presses gently against my hand. Warm but firm. “Natalia,” a woman says. Her voice shook with choked sobs. “Please… please wake up.”

“Natalia? Was she talking to someone else?” The name sounded foreign to my ears as it did not belong to me. I try to pull my hand away. My fingers twitch instead.

Someone gasped. “Honey! Did you see that?”

“Yes… she moved her fingers.”

“She heard us.” A sob breaks, from the lady holding me, it seems. The voices crowd closer. Too many and too loud. “Natalia.” They all called out.

I wanted to scream at them to stop saying that name. To move away from me as I suddenly felt caged. My chest tightened as my breath came in uneven rasps, speeding the beeping sound up.

“Slow down please,” the calm voice says. “Give her space.” Crowding her would do more harm than good right now.

Pause…

Everywhere became silent for a moment.

“She was reacting to external stimuli,” the voice says. “That’s a good sign, a very good one.”

“What does that even mean? Where am I?” I asked in my head. I could not make sense of what they were saying and who Natalia was. Luckily I was able to force my eyes open.

White light flooded in, blinding and harsh. I shut them back almost immediately, then tried again. I gasp this time, sucking in air like I had forgotten how to breathe. My chest heaved deeply, while confusion and panic crashed over me all at once.

I sighted a hand reaching out for me from my side view. I jerk away in shock with a broken sound tearing from my throat.

“Don’t touch me!”

The words come out hoarse and thin, but they stop everything. Bringing the room to a complete silence.

“Talia dear,” the woman says again, slower now. “It's okay, you’re in the hospital.”

I blink rapidly, realizing I was no longer at the edge of the cliff, no longer drowning at the sea. Everything looked blurry, before sharpening into focus. White walls. A beeping machine with wires connected to my body. A doctor and a nurse. Faces. None of them were or felt familiar. My heart slams, painfully against my ribs.

“No,” I whisper. My voice sounds wrong too. They were too soft. It sounded soft like silk.

A man stepped closer. His eyes were red. His jaw clenched like he was holding something back.

“It’s okay sweety,” he says. “You've been out for days. You scared us.”

“Us?” I looked down at my hands.

They were not mine. The skin looked smoother, not rough from days of washing dishes at a restaurant. The fingers were longer. No calluses. No scars I recognize. And cute pink nails that screamed girly.

My breath caught once again as I looked up at them with confusion masking my face. “Who… who are you?” I ask.

The room went still.

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Baby it's me mom, I'm your mother, Evelyn Whitmore,” she says gently. “And you’re Natalia Whitmore, my daughter.”

The name settles over me like a weight. “Natalia Whitmore. Not Lily Hayes.”

The beeping sound continues. Slow and steady.

I opened my mouth to say they'd got the wrong person, but then a piercing pain racks through my brain. Memories flood in. Not mine. No. They belonged to someone else. To the girl named Natalia.

I see the moment where she was dancing at her birthday party. The time a girl hands her a drink. Her falling into the pool. Where she couldn't even scream as the water pulled her under. Basically, her whole life flashes before me.

I collapse against the bed, staring at the ceiling as the truth presses in from all sides.

I didn’t survive. Someone else did. And I was wearing her life. The last thing I remember before my eyes closes again is the ocean.

And the necklace swinging in the dark.