I Fell for The Angel That Killed Me

2- Leaving everything behind

2015 SEPTEMBER

Nebula awoke to her own screams and stared out into the dimly lit room. It was here she felt it. Her sleep was always robbed by nightmares, ever since she was thirteen. Always waking her with its creepy vibe since.

Even now, the newly turned eighteen Nebula was still afraid of the dark at her age and slept with a light on. Currently, she's on the floor. Even if the room wasn't illuminated by the night light that was plugged in, she would have known she had fallen off her bed. Slightly shaken from the feeling, of suddenly being jerked awake, she gasped aloud as she straightened up, falling over, tripping on her sheet that was entangled between her legs.

For a split second, she thought it might have been something else. Like someone grabbing her foot... or something.

She threw herself into a slight run to the toilet, feeling much better as she relieved herself. Her pores stood on end at the same time she sensed a movement in the darkness. She shut her eyes from seeing anything as she pleaded with whatever it was to leave, in her mind. She pulled her PJs back up and both hands covered her stomach in a protective manner. She always found herself doing so, not understanding why she did it. She felt she was about to throw up.

'It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's in my head. It's all in my head.!'

Neb could not figure out why an angel would kill her. That was her dream- being killed by a man with wings. Within seconds, she forgot about the angel, but the terrifying feeling remained. And the man dressed in black. She climbed back in, willing the coldness that filled the room every time it was here to go away. The frosty air caused her to feel around for her blanket and pull it closer to her. Eyes still closed, she pulled it over her legs and clutched it like a safety net.

"Please, no eyes, no eyes," she pleaded in a silent whisper. She was always terrified that she might see someone staring back at her and looking into her tormentor's eyes was not something she was looking forward to.

Neb was scared. Terrified. She kept waking up from bad dreams. Like a nightmare that a normal person would wake up from... that eerie feeling, except hers didn't go away. Hers plagued her.

The first time it had happened, she had slept away at her desk after passing out from sleepiness, studying for a test she had to take in two days, and something had jerked her awake. The sleeping world was silent. No moving vehicles, no voices, no insects chirping... Not even a dog barked in the still night.

"Mami!" (mother) she had screamed that first night but of course, her parents being heavy sleepers, didn't hear her cries.

Her own loud outburst had frightened her even more hearing the terror in it. She had listened and heard nothing but silence except for the tap dripping into the face basin. Was that the noise that had awoken her? She should close it properly, shouldn't she? Her eyes adjusted to the darkness as she had contemplated whether she should or should not go to her bathroom.

Then she slowly got a feeling that felt like someone was watching her. Her dry throat scraped as she tried to scream to whomever it was that was with her to go away. No sound came out of her mouth then. She had then gotten up on trembling legs and switched on the light above her head.

Nobody was there. Still too afraid to move further, her legs had lost their strength and she had fallen back down on the chair. Unmoving.

She would have had to leave her room, walk a few feet down the corridor to get to the bathroom, to turn off the tap.

That was too far. It had taken her almost an entire hour of being frozen on the chair to actually make it to the bed, in one swift half scream, half run. In the morning, Neb's pajama pants were soaked.

She kept quiet almost a year after the first incident, praying and a believer in her Bible as her parents did, before her mother noticed the dark circles beneath her eyes and took her to a doctor. Back then she had just felt it. She didn't see anything. Or maybe she just didn't look. After, the medications she took was when the dreams came. Nightmares that felt too real.

They felt like memories to her.

These nightmares, as the doctors had called them, were nothing but dreams caused by too much television. One of the friendly female doctors had actually told her that she probably witnessed someone else's tragedy and had felt so much pity that she took the woman's pain as her own. "Like pregnancy," she had explained to a teenage Neb. "When a wife is pregnant the husband sometimes feels so bad that she had to go through with all that sickness that he himself gets sick too," in a tone that one would use to explain to a child. At that time she hadn't told anyone she kept dreaming she was pregnant either. Just that she sees someone in her room watching her. Which had led her parents to place security cameras everywhere and they found nothing. Nobody was there in her room...just her.

When she had confessed to the doctor when she was fifteen about her being pregnant in her dreams, the doctor's instinct was to tell her mother alone and then both parents. Both thought she was having s*x and being a child her mind couldn't wrap itself around it.

During that following year, she endured so much pain and loss. The embarrassment. She endured it all, waiting for the day she would become crazy. Or believe that she was insane. Whichever would come first.

But she didn't, because of Jon, whom she met while he was on holiday in the States, from Busan, Korea. Being half Korean herself, they had hit it off immediately. He had occupied her mind with tales from a country she barely remembered, as her parents left when she was four. Jon, a teenage kid himself, tries to comfort her even though he also went through the embarrassment of her parents accusing him of taking advantage of her.

"Are you having relations with that boy Nebula?"

Her father's words. The look of disbelief on Jon's face as her father pointed in his direction. The shame she had felt from his words, despite her telling them the nightmares started two years before meeting Jon. They didn't want to hear her. As far as they were concerned, Jon was to blame. They forbade the friendship of their daughter hanging out with a teenage boy.

"But dad. He's seventeen in Korea, not here," her childish mind had tried to argue only to realize she had made things worse.

"Seventeen?" her mother had gasped.

"Appa...ani...omma...(dad...no...mum) Please. It's not like that," she protested.

Neb had to sneak out to meet Jon. And sneak she did, for he was her only peace. She didn't know how to explain it but Jon made her mind feel clear. Her heart felt light around him. Then he left to go back to school in his own country and the dreams returned. Not immediately, but return they did. And when they did, she called him. Even his voice had kept her mind at peace.

But now her parents were dead and she was going to be with Jon.

Neb looked at the list now she had made weeks back when she had checked expenses with Jon's help.

1. One-room apartment $400

2. Mobile $100

3. Tuition per semester $2500

4. Graduation for credits 130

5. Transport and food $450

No, she did not get a full scholarship. She did not get into a dormitory. But Jon made her promise to ask him for any money she might need. And all the extra expenses would be paid by him.

She was saying goodbye to everything here and starting from anew, she promised him and herself. She would stop being haunted by both nightmares and the memories of being poked and prodded by so many strangers. Of her parents avoiding her eyes. Her parents speaking to her less and less. Of having been put through an examination to see if she was sexually active. When it was found that she was still a virgin and most definitely never r***d or been pregnant, the doctors went back to the belief that it was just nightmares.

Neb knew they thought she was a mental case though. She had the pills, didn't she?

She brought everything to mind and endured it all by just thinking of Jon. Neb let the water run through her scalp longer than necessary, closing her eyes as she thought of everything. This was her plan. Everything was going to stop as she got off the plane to begin her new life. She was going to leave all the bad memories behind.

The medication she took. The therapy she took. She thought of it all.

Of Jon being her only friend.

The feeling that she wasn't good enough for her family.

But she had Jon.

Then the deaths of her parents and her abuela last year. Her fault too, as they were on their way to visit her at the hospital. She was going to no longer feel at fault. No more guilt.

Everything she was leaving behind. All the bad memories.

Of being sent to her aunt in Spain, after their deaths, to her mother's sister, who was on the opposite side of the law and expected Neb to follow through and pay for her expenses by doing some light distribution, as her aunt Rosalie had called it.

Neb had taken all the savings she had and bought the next flight back to another aunt in America. And although she wasn't part of Neb's life before, she took her in so the authorities knew she had a legal guardian when it was time for college. And she was grateful for the home and it was more of her taking care of her aunt. Until she too died. She wasn't healthy, to begin with, and Neb knew she was in constant pain, so she was glad for her aunt when death came. A few months passed in unrest for an underaged Neb until she made up her mind to leave America.

She was alone but she never made any wrong moves that would have caused a rise in any sort of suspicion from any authority. Nebula was smart. She applied for a transfer immediately online and made the necessary information available to the university she applied to, which of course, was chosen by Jon. It was nearest to him.

She had never stopped thinking of Jon and though they never met except when he was on holiday, they had remained in contact by phone. He had returned for her aunt's funeral. And she had joked then saying, "Does someone need to die for me to see you?"

A lame joke indeed, but she felt that way. He had nudged her shoulder with his as they sat next to each other in the kitchen.

"Ya. (hey) Don't...don't say things like that Neb," he had returned with his sad side smile.

"Do I have to drop coffins to see you Jo..." she didn't get to finish her sentence as he had grabbed her into his arms and held her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder.

She would see him in a few hours. She got up to prepare for her morning flight to Busan.

'Hollin deut neoreul ttaraga ...' (I follow you as if I’m bewitched)