"Your mother?" I ask.
Sarah nods and sucks in her lower lip. I can see that it is a tough topic for her to talk about. Her lip trembles as she starts speaking.
"My... mother died when I was young. She was a beautiful and kind lady. Of course, she wasn't altruistic by any means but she would sacrifice her all for my sake. Though you don't want to get on her bad side, she could get pretty savage then." She looks at us and forces a little laugh.
Then her eyes get somewhat teary.
"She... she was fine one day and the next, we get to know about her brain tumour." She sucks in a sharp breath.
"I lost her shortly afterwards. I loved her soo much! For the longest time, I could not bear the reality, I was in denial. I remember clutching to her....." She grits her teeth
"clutching to her dead body when they were taking her away. I remember shouting that she is not dead. She can't just go like this. God has long plans for her. She isn't gone!"
Flashback (Sarah's POV)
"Leave me, don't grip me! Let me stay with mama!" I say while terribly crying.
"Let her go, Sarah," My dad asks me calmly.
"No.. she.. she will get alone then," I say between hiccups.
"Sarah, move aside!" My dad again asks me.
"NOOOO!" I shout back, tears dripping along my cheeks, my nose running down!
"I said get aside, don't you realise she is dead? She is not coming back!" My dad screams at me.
"Shut up! You don't know anything! Leave us alone. Get out, GET OUT, GETTT OUTTT....." I didn't stop screaming and then I felt it. My dad's tears on my cheeks, and then he hugs me.
"I wish you were right Sarah, I.. I wish I was wrong" My dad says between his hiccups. I had only seen him cry once before. When he caught a cold and got runny eyes. I guess you won't call that crying.
I hold his shirt tight and say-
"Daddy, please bring mama back. I ...I promise to be a good girl after that, I...promise I will never ask for anything after this, I will do all.... my schoolwork properly, work hard to be a successful person.... anything! " I say between my sniffles!
My dad just holds me tighter and says nothing. His silence answered what his voice couldn't.
Then the dams broke. I cried and cried and cried till I lost it. That was the most I ever cried in my life!....
Present (K's POV)
"I got a little better with time but that emptiness could never get filled. I was really close to her. I kept going back to her grave."
She looks us both right in the eyes.
"The last words that I said to her before her death was 'I hate you'. Why? Can you guess? Because she scolded me cause I got late for school. Such stupid reason!" She shakes her head.
"I said a lot of mean stuff to her. That day when I came back from school, she was not home. I was informed by my dad that she was hospitalised. He told me it would be alright. I was too young to understand the severity of the situation."
"Whenever I went to meet her for the visits, her eyes were always closed! The looks of exhaustion caught up to her until one day she never opened them again. I was devastated at her loss. When I remembered the last words I said to her, I felt broken and miserable. I would hit myself, rebuke myself for my brattiness."
"I lost the most important person of my life and the last I saw them, I told them 'I hate you.' A mistake I never got the chance to redeem. If only I could tell her that I love her and she is the one I hold dearest to my heart."
Something drops on my fist and then I realise they were my tears. F*uck, the tap finally leaked! I look at Autumn to see her doing no better. She had hidden her face inside her sweatshirt's sleeve. My shoulders were shaking between my hiccups as I tried to cry silently.
Then, I feel an embrace around me. Sarah comes and bends in front of us, sitting on her knees on the floor and hugs us both.
"Cry as freely as you want. Don't hold yourselves!" She says and that was the cue to the Niagra falls falling! Autumn and I both cried loudly, holding Sarah for dear life and she like a caring mother soothed us. Rubbed our back, and patted us but remained silent. Letting us pour it all out. Catharsis!
This happened until our crying decreased to minor sobs. She then lets go of her hold on us.
"So..." I sniffle and then continue,
"You came to Kwangya in the hopes of meeting her?" I finish.
She nods her head.
"I was told anything is possible here. I just wanted to see her once, tell her how sorry I am, to know if she is doing alright after which I would go back home and continue my life. The guilt had never left me, instead, it always ate me, I always felt trapped because of my actions, this guilt impeded my life and I wanted to be free. To be set free, to confront her, to let this heaviness in my chest that I felt, out and move on!" She says after closing her eyes.
"The past kept haunting you," I said, Sarah nodded in return.
"You.. didn't go back then? Did you... meet her?" Autumn carefully asks.
Sarah sighs and looks at Diablo.
"You must be hating me right now, I kept so much from you." She says to him and narrows her gaze.
"I mean.. I am surprised and I also feel hurt that I was out of such a big part of your life but I can never hate you, Sarah!" Diablo replies and gives a soft smile.
Sarah gives a small smile of her own in return, her eyes creasing, her pools shining with gratitude.
"Thank you. To answer your question Autumn, I have to go far back in time so bear with me. My dad was hit by my mom's death as badly as I was. He was a travel journalist and he had been to varied places. He was a storyteller, he would research all the locations he ventured to and then write about them. He had so many travel and geography books in his library that you could get lost inside them. One day I see him searching for something."
Flashback, Sarah's POV
"Dad, what.. are you doing? It is so late already." I ask my dad who was hurriedly looking for something. He doesn't reply.
"Dad?" I say again.
"Huh? What? Oh, Sarah, when did you get here?" He replies.
"Dad, why are you acting so restless, come on let's go and sleep," I say, honestly I am getting a little freaked out. He is acting edgy and so out of it!
"Sarah, listen to me." He looks me straight in the eye with the world's seriousness and I knew that whatever he is about to tell me, sh*t is going down.
"We can get in touch with Merissa." He tells me.
MY WORLD STOPS! What is he saying? It is not even April fools. Is this something to joke about? Or does he mean via ouija board or planchette? Do those things even work?
"How... Dad?" I whisper, formulating sentences getting more difficult with each passing second.
"There is a world out there, away from ours, where anything is possible. All you need, you get it there. That is KWANGYA!" He starts saying.
"Dad, no wait...." I hold my head and shake it side to side trying to dispel this weird dream.
"Listen, Sarah, pack your bags, you and I are going on a long journey to meet your mother. Believe me. There are mysterious places in this world where people hypothesise black holes might lie. But what if it is something else other than a black hole?" He says.
"What is it then?" I ask.
"What if it is a portal to some other dimension, the portal to Kwangya." He finishes.
"This is a 'what if', dad!" I shriek!
"Sarah, I have been to enough places around the world and researched enough to deduce the authenticity of a place. It isn't what if but true! You are aware of Bermuda Triangle, right? A mysterious place with countless cases of people disappearing." He tells me hyperactively before calmly continuing-
" Different causes have been hypothesised, from alien abduction to black holes, however, it is not that but something completely distinct. There also have been instances of people experiencing zero gravity in the zone, this occurs when they get transported to Kwangya. Yes, those people didn't vanish but instead got transported to another dimension." He finishes.
I intently listen.
I can meet mama again. I can touch her again, feel her again. I can talk to her again. I want to. You won't feel lonely anymore mama, I am coming to you soon!
Flashback ends.
Autumn and I had our mouths agape. WowWW! It's....unbelievable to say the least. Like Autumn and I came here without any effort, we didn't even know about this world then there is Sarah and her dad who carefully planned the venture here.
"That is how you came here. And... what about.... your mother?" Autumn carefully asks.
"Enough talks for today!" Sarah suddenly gets up.
"Come, let us all make some pies together. The gloominess here is suffocating!" She comes to us and lightly pushes us to the kitchen.
"Huh, what?" Autumn and I say together getting confused.
"Come on, don't stand around idle. Let's go."
"Hmm, so first we have to look at how to make pies," Sarah says, actually wondering!
"Huh? You are so excited about pies yet you don't know how to bake them?" Autumn says laughing a little.
"Um... whatever, we gotta try new things." Sarah says while cutely scratching her head and smiling.
" Hey Diablo, get your Klear here. Search the recipe for pies."
"Yes yes, coming." Diablo comes while smiling.
I have to admit, it feels pretty nice. Sarah guides us throughout the process. She wipes Autumn's nose of some flour that got there. She even pushes Diablo in saying "baking pies is not as easy as pie" and that he has to help if he wants some. Diablo's 'where am I stuck face' was hilarious.
"K, don't stand aside. Come". She waves her hand towards me and I go to her. We laugh throughout the process, cracking funny jokes. Mainly it was us women siding and roasting Diablo. It was fun.
It.... felt like home. I look towards Sarah and we make eye contact. She gives me a smile and her eyes gave me that comfort. She didn't need to say it.
Maybe there are a lot of tribulations waiting ahead for us but it doesn't mean that I should not enjoy or make memories with the people around me. I don't want to think about tomorrow, for now, I just want to rejoice what I have.
Thank you Sarah and Autumn for just being here!