When Viviana awoke once again, the room was dark. There was no one in the room but her.
The grandfather clock in her bedroom softly ticked in the moonlight and the winds gently blew the branches of the tree against her window glass.
The moon was the only source of light in this dark room, it wasn't like her past life where there was electricity running in every home on the block. There were no cars, no cellphones, no computers. No internet, no nothing.
'Oh, God...' Viviana pleaded in her head, in her heart. Pain blossomed in her heart once more, running in her veins via her bloodstream. Her nostrils flared and burned, the rims of her eyes threatening to overflow.
'God, please let this be just a dream...'
The hot tears fell out of the corner of her eyes and ran down to her ears. It was an unpleasant feeling, yet she didn't bother wiping her pitiful tears away.
She died.
Layla died.
She died without saying goodbye. She died without texting Lisa back, she died before she could apologize to Leo— she died before seeing BTS! She died before she could get out of the damn shower!
What kind of death was that, huh?! Wasn't she supposed to live a fulfilled life before leaving for the other side? She didn't even get to graduate college, she didn't even start her fucking life before it ended!
She'll never see Leo or Lisa again. Or BTS.
Everything she ever wanted to do was gone. Her dreams of studying abroad? Gone. Her dream of living in a college dorm her junior year of college? Gone. Her plans of going on a road trip with her friends in the summer? Gone. Her plans of going camping with them in the summer? Gone. All these little things she wanted to experience were all gone. Everyone is wanted to see was gone. She was gone.
The tears, she couldn't stop them. Like a river, they flowed into her pillow, soaking it wet.
A thought suddenly filled her mind, twisting her heart and her stomach. She couldn't stop the sobs from leaving her body at this point. Just the thought of it... was so painful.
Leo...
Leo probably found her body.
She could see it.
All he probably heard was a loud thump in the bathroom but assumed that she probably dropped her shampoo bottle or something. She's fine. Sometimes she drops things. Except this time, she dropped her fucking head on the fucking bathtub floor.
But he didn't know that. How on earth could he possibly know?
Maybe an hour passes by and he realizes that her showers don't take this long. Maybe he realizes something is wrong or maybe he's just mad that she used up all of the hot water again after he specifically said not to... Probably the latter.
So he walks up to the bathroom door and pounds on it. Yells for her, maybe he asks if she's okay or he's shouting that she's used up all the hot water again. Probably the latter. He might've waited to hear her response, for her to shout her apology or tell him to piss off... but there's nothing. There's no response at all.
And he must've realized something was wrong for sure at that point. He must've. After all, Leo's her big brother. He had to have known, right?
'Leo, I'm so sorry,' Layla can only apologize in her heart. Her whimpers and breathing have become uncontrollable and heavy, her sobbing gradually getting louder and harder. Her nose became stuffed with snot and she couldn't blow it on anything because Kleenex doesn't exist in this world. So it just runs down her nostrils.
'I'm sorry that your little sister had to be a dumb bitch like me,'
So maybe Leo starts slamming his shoulders against the oak door, shouting her name. He slams and slams, his short messy hair getting dampened with sweat from the overwhelming stress from this situation.
Maybe he starts panicking at this point. The door isn't opening and his little sister isn't responding. There was no way she must have snuck out, her shoes were on the landing and her car was in the driveway. She would have told him if she was going out. Layla would never lie to him like that. He lets her do whatever she wants in the first place and as compensation, she just tells him where she's going. She can't be in her room, he heard her go in the bathroom. He could hear the running water for goodness's sake. The door's locked from the inside and only he and Layla live in this damn house. Layla is inside. And she's not responding.
And then, Leo probably got mad. Probably got real mad. Must've taken a step back and then kicked the door open with all his MMA training he does for fun. He must've ran inside and opened the shower curtain, only to see his 19-year-old little sister naked and unconscious on the bathtub floor.
Maybe he shouted her name. Maybe he screamed instead. Maybe he cried. He must've shut off the water and checked her pulse... only to find nothing.
Viviana's tiny body began trembling. Her little hands covered her eyes as if she was trying to push back in the river of tears. Her face was wet, her pillow was wet, her ears were wet. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't even think properly.
'That's how it probably went, didn't it?' She asked no one in particular.
She let out a sad laugh, 'What a fucking way to go...'
"Vivi?" A voice called out to her from the hallway. The golden doorknob twisted open, revealing a boy, who must've been five years or more older than her, enter the room.
Immediately, she sat up and stopped crying. Her tiny hands wiped away her tears and her snot from her face and wiped it on her baby pink sheets.
"Vincenzo? Is that you?" Her little voice hoarsely replied out. "Why have you come here?"
The boy walked into the moonlight, revealing himself to his younger sister. He looked exactly like father, save his dark violet hair and the mole their mother had passed on to him.
"I heard you crying, mimma."
The older boy jumped into bed with his younger sister, who promptly scooted from the center of her bed towards the edge to make room for him.
His small bronze hands quickly flipped the wet pillows over to their cooler and dryer counterparts before proceeding to wrap his larger around his younger sister and forced her to lay down with him. With his free arm, he adeptly avoided touching the area of the blanket covered in pure snot and tears and pulled it over their small bodies.
There, they laid on their sides facing each other.
Although she had stopped crying, she couldn't control her breathing just yet and continued to shake each breathing moment.
"What's wrong, mimma?" He asked in a gentle voice., his hand running through her hair once again. "You can tell your big brother."
"I— uh... I just had a bad dream, brother."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Although his turquoise eyes looked at her questionably, he waited for her to come to him.
"I had a dream where," she took a breath before finishing. "Where I died. I died and—"
Viviana matched her eyes with her brother's. He was listening and looking at her intently but patiently. She opened her mouth to finish her sentence but hesitated.
The way he looked at her... it was the same as Leo's when she had told him something of importance, whether it was school related or personal. Leo always listened to her and always put his blind faith in her to tell him the truth. And she always did. At least with the important important stuff.
"—I died and you were the one who found my body."
Thinking of Leo gave her courage to tell her new older brother something close to the truth but it also refilled her eyes with tears. The truth came and whacked her in the face.
Her life as Layla Liu was over.
She was Viviana now.
The tears rolled down from her turquoise eyes once more. It was like all she could do was cry. Cry, cry, cry. Leo used to call her a crybaby and it looks like he was right.
Vincenzo immediately reached over to her eyes and wiped her tears away with his fingers. His matching orbs became glassy and filled with sympathy for his baby sister.
"Oh, mimma..." he called in a soft voice. "It's okay. I'm here and you're alive. I've found you and you're alive, mimma."
Viviana couldn't do anything but cry harder. Whimpers escape her sore and dry throat and her pillow began to feel wet again.
Vincenzo pulled her closer to him and brought her under his chin. She sobbed into his chest, soaking his white silk pajamas. He continued to stroke her hair and began rubbing circles on her little back with his free hand.
'Fuck,' She swore in her mind. 'Big brothers always know what to say, huh?'
She cried herself to sleep.