Broken Angel

Aiden stormed out the door and reached for his car, just a minute away from strangling someone. Irritated, he grabbed his irresistible messy hair with both hands and scream his lungs out in the car. Fool of him for thinking this day would be normal.

He was tricked again.

He’d chose to wear a black t-shirt with a loose denim jacket on top of it and a pair of black skinny jeans and also a pair of black checkered Vans when his parents informed him of the family dinner. He’s been thinking of wearing smart casual kind clothes to the dinner. Aiden’s not into fashion so instead of wasting time trying to pair clothes that look cool and make girls drool when they look at him, he decided to wear whatever he feels comfortable wearing on this cloudless hot sunny day.

Whatever, it’s not like wearing something cool makes me cool anyway.

Aiden starts the car and drove past the enormous gate that helps secure his parents’ house. This house is not his anymore, he’d long for the day he can finally get out of that place and now he can come and go whenever he wants. It’s not like he doesn’t love his family. He does. But they get on his nerves sometimes and all he can do is breathe, in and out and in and out.

He’s driving towards the south in a sudden downpour without knowing his exact destination. All he wanted was just to disappear. To get away from life. From everything. Without realizing, he’d zoned out replaying every single thing that his mother said while speeding at 95km/h.

(Everyone must’ve seen this coming anyway) When Aiden finally zoned back in, he has already lost control over the car. It crashed to another car before hitting the barrier on the other side of the road. Unfortunately of him, the barrier broke and his car crashed after they fell from that sharp corner up there. The world then blackout before his eyes and before he knew it he was in a very deep sleep.

When Aiden woke up a few hours later, he finds himself in a rather strange place, he figures that it is some kind of a forest. The highway’s gone. His car is gone. He cupped his face and then look at his hands and feet, there are no injuries, even after that fall.

“Am I dead or is this a dream?” Aiden asks himself.  “If this is a dream did I actually never get into an accident?” is the second thing he wanted to know after waking up. He checked his watch—not working, then his phone—not working either.

Still clueless, he managed to walk a few steps ahead from where he was standing while rubbing his eyes, and when he looked up a whole new world he has never seen anywhere else before standing in front of him.

Grasses made of crystals shimmers as the sunlight shines through the forest. Trees with shady orange leaves surrounding the forest give autumn vibes to whoever saw it. Their bulky trunks help them standstill on the ground. A few trees have their roots coming to the surface which makes it a really great spot to relaxed and rest after a long walk. Even the sky looks lovely–blue cloudy sky with a hint of purple.

On one side, there’s a river flowed by a girl’s tears. She looks like a ghost from the 17^th century. Her pale skin illuminates the way a lightbulb would in the dark. Big round eyes full of sorrows stare down the river as she cries. Her lip forms a line showing no emotion. Beautiful crown-braided dirty blonde hair decorated with blue and purple flowers shines under the bright sunlight.

She’s wearing a stunning blue dress long enough to hide her feet, with layered laces sewed on the wrist part and useless fabric buttons sewed on the chest just for the sake of stylishness. She looks like royalty. For someone that doesn’t care about fashion, Aiden finds that she wears the most fabulous dress ever, unlike the kind most girls wear to prom, this one is way better in the most sophisticated way.

This girl, however, looks familiar in Aiden’s eyes. He then walks slowly towards her to confirm his confusion.

“Amanda?” he said as he stands 3 meters behind her. The girl turns around and meets his eyes not saying anything to deny nor confirm that she is Amanda that he claims to be. But Aiden recognizes that eyes and beautiful lips that she refused to turn up into a smile.

“It is you, you’re Amanda, right? I thought you were dead!”

“I’m not Amanda…I’m Heartbroken”

Wait, she can talk? Had she been lying to everyone all these years? And why is she here? How is she here?

Aiden ignored every question that’s building up inside of him and say what he promised to say if they ever crossed paths again, even in dreams.

“I know that you are and I’m sorry that I broke your heart…but please…would you please forgive me for what I had said that day?”

“No.” She simply replied. “I’m not heartbroken. My name’s Heartbroken. Others have the same name as mine.”

“Oh!” he’s speechless, doesn’t have any idea how to respond to this madness. But he knows she is totally Amanda. So, he created questions so he can keep on talking to her because now she had turned away after his ‘Oh’ and continue flowing the river with her cry.

“By any chance, do you know where we are? And how can I get out of here?”

“We’re at the land of Forgotten…and no…there’s no way out of here”

“Stop messing with me Amanda!” he exclaimed furiously by her responds

“Again. I. Am. Not. Amanda. I have no idea who she is. And you

couldn’t get out of here until you’ve accomplished your mission like the other humans that accidentally came here.” She replied with the same steady voice from the beginning.

“What mission?”

“Judging by the way you look and how you talk so much I know that you’re not one of us. So you must’ve been here by mistake. You need to tell one of us how you felt before you got here and they need to do the same thing for you to get out of here. I don’t know how you got here but that’s all I know.”

“What exactly does ‘one of us’ meant?”

“It means you are not one of The Broken Angels. We are emotions and feelings that failed to be delivered before our owners are dead. We’re trapped here until we finally told a human what we felt before we die. And my name is Heartbroken probably because my owner is dead while she had her heartbroken. However, Forgotten is filled with things people ignore such as us the emotions, broken things that no one cared to repair, and ended up being buried at the back of their house or simply extinct animals that nobody cared about or remembers. There, I explained everything to you.”

He’s tongue-tied again. Only then he realizes that this place is full of very old things, or simply unwanted—a few granddaddy clocks are laying around this place, old couches, music box. Besides that, he knew he saw a peacock when he walks over to Amanda (or Heartbroken), but now the peacock is nowhere to be seen, only a cat lingering near the river. This place is strange indeed, but what she said just doesn’t make any sense.

“If I need to share my feelings to get out...let me ask you something.” He pauses and waits for her to say something when finally, she nods once allowing him to continue talking. “What makes you a Heartbroken?”

“The thing about me is I don’t even know who my owner is before I got here or, but I think I remembered that someone told ‘me’ to get lost, that they are tired of being in a pointless relationship and that they are sick of communicating with ‘me’. So I guess my owner’s death while trying to ‘get lost’?”

The part where someone told her to get lost is familiar to Aiden, he said that to her 3 years ago, before she’s gone from his life forever.

Everything hasn’t been going the way he wants this week. He’s fired from his job, a few days ago he’d been told to pack his things because he hasn’t paid rent for 4 months–it’s not like he doesn’t want to, but everything is so expensive these days and…, today he’d been diagnosed with brain cancer. He doesn’t like money that much but somehow everything in this world requires money even when his life is at stake.

Now his fiancée is standing in front of him and using sign languages asking when will they hold a wedding ceremony. Amanda is mute, but she could hear, so if she wants to say something she will use signs and Aiden will respond by talking. He’d learned sign language because he wanted to ask her out 3 years ago, then they promised to get married last year.

But his mood is off and for an introverted person like him, talking is not something he likes very much. But Amanda doesn’t seem to get it, she kept on nudging him to talk. That’s when he lost control and yelled at her, “Could you please stop asking about the wedding! I don’t even have any money to pay for rent but you keep on asking me for things like marriage and a house! And for goodness’ sake do I have to read your signs every time I want your responses? How will you comfort me when I’m down? By using signs? I’m sick of needing to stare at your hands every time we talk. Can’t you see, our relationship is pointless. Unless you can talk like a normal person, get out of my sight at once!”

Amanda then ran away reaching for her car and drive away from his house.

Now he learned that Amanda is dead for 3 years, he felt so stupid and mad at himself for what he said to her. He couldn’t ask for her forgiveness, and he couldn’t visit her grave either since he doesn’t know where it is.

Then he told the Heartbroken ‘Amanda’ how he felt before he got there.

“My mother wants me to find my ex-fiancée and reconcile with her. So I’m mad because I don’t want to and I felt ashamed of what I’d said to her when we part ways. I was being a jerk to her before and I don’t deserve her forgiveness even if she had forgiven me. So I get out of the house and started driving. Then, I got into an accident and got here after I woke up.” He replayed everything from family dinner until the time he smashed the barrier and faint.

Night has come and ‘Amanda’ is sitting beside him. They don’t talk, just staring at the river together and enjoying each other’s presents. Aiden still felt bad about Amanda, after all, she died while driving because he told her to get lost, but he tried to let go of the past. Hours pass by and he fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, he finds himself on the bed. He looked around him and saw his best friend Jayden and his parents staring down at him.

“Where am I?”

“At the hospital. Everyone has been searching for you for five days. You got into an accident and fell off the highway. We searched and searched and by a miracle, you appeared laying down in between trees on day five. How did you even get there?” Jayden asks.

He couldn’t answer them. All he could think about is ‘Was all that a dream’? No one knows…