Still Alive Read online

  Chapter 4 – You Are Not Alone

  Melody took a deep breath and began singing a song she had been working on since the day after the attack. She knew Aria could hear her now.

  You Are Not Alone

  Lost in darkest blue

  Endless labyrinths weaving though

  Will you stagger on,

  with no star to light your way?

  Share with me your tears

  All your troubles and deepest fears

  I remember when

  you chased all my shadows away

  Won't you take my hand?

  Come away with me from this land

  Let me give to you

  all that you have given to me

  Fly horizon bound

  Find the moon behind darkening clouds

  Even far apart,

  know our souls together will be

  When the storm draws nigh

  Dreams will shatter before your eyes

  Know that you're not alone

  When the battle starts

  I will comfort your restless heart

  You'll know that you are home

  When your stars stop shining

  Endless vines around you winding

  Know that you're not alone

  I will give my all

  So your tears will no longer fall

  Down, down on sorrow's stone

  Look into my eyes

  All eternity you will find

  In this fragile heart,

  know that you will always belong

  Shout into the night

  Show the darkness that you will fight

  Hopeless you may feel,

  but inside I know you are strong

  Keep me in your heart

  So we'll never be far apart

  Let the bonds of love

  break these chains imprisoning you

  Always you will find

  Shadows lingering close behind

  Lift your spirits now,

  We shall be together soon

  As Melody finished singing, she noticed the cardiograph had sped up in cadence.

  “She’s reacting to your voice,” the nurse said in awe.

  Rhapsody was staring at her through tear streaked eyes, with her mouth parted slightly in wonder. “Two angels in one room.”

  “Truly,” another nurse who had entered behind Rhapsody at some point during the song said in a voice thick with emotion.

  Her mother was wiping her nose beneath the mask with a Kleenex, watching her with love-filled eyes. “One more time?”

  Melody nodded, starting at the beginning again. As she reached the second verse, her mother’s rich voice joined in with a counterpoint harmony that added a whole new dimension of emotion to the song. She watched the cardiograph speed up even more.

  She had always had a good voice, but her love of Aria brought an emotional passion into her melody that spun her song into something far more powerful than she had experienced before. The warmth in her stomach grew stronger, urging her voice into a realm of love she would never have imagined existed. As the final notes died away, an almost reverent silence filled the entire wing of the hospital.

  The silence was broken as Emily came into the room, pushing a small girl in a wheelchair. The child’s arms and neck were wrapped in bandages.

  “Maria says that when you sing, her burns stop hurting,” Emily told them, her eyes filled with pleading. “We’ve been unable to do very much for her pain because she has an allergic reaction to most of the pain medicine we have.”

  The small girl was watching her with wide hazel eyes that were filled with wonder. “Can you sing it again?”

  Melody smiled tenderly at the small girl and began the song again. Her mother joined her once again on the second verse. She faltered slightly for a moment as a third voice joined their harmony. Turning quickly, she saw Aria’s bandaged mouth moving as her angelic voice added a third layer to their song. What had been a beautiful song before was quickly transformed into something so enchanting that she felt nonstop tingles rushing from head to toe in rippling waves. Aria wasn’t singing the words, but a dancing scale of notes that brought depth to a previously two dimensional world.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” the small girl said in wonder as she examined her bandaged arms.

  Melody looked out the door in surprise as more burn patients congregated outside of the door, trying to see inside.

  “Who are these angels that have taken away my pain?” an older man asked, with tears leaking down his cheeks.

  “Melody, Harmony and Aria,” Rhapsody said thickly as she wiped at her own damp cheeks.

  “The pain is gone,” a middle-aged woman with bandages wrapped around her shoulders and back said wonderingly.

  “It is gone,” Harmony agreed with a beatific smile as she observed her own bandaged arms.

  Several doctors joined the group of patients, studying Aria with interest.

  “I’ve heard of musical therapy, but nothing like this,” Dr. Cole marveled, absently brushing a stray lock of light brown hair from her wet eyes.

  Her mother unwound the bandages on her arms just enough to look at the scars beneath. “Oh my God!”

  “What’s the matter, mom?” Melody asked anxiously.

  “All of the blisters are gone,” her mother replied in amazement. “It almost looks healthy.”

  “Let me see,” Dr. Cole said curiously, gently taking her arm and peeling the bandage back further. “Absolutely amazing…your arms should have taken another six weeks to recover this much.”

  The doctors began inspecting the other burn patients with equal interest. A steady stream of gasps and other sounds of amazement filled the area as each burn patient revealed that their wounds were similarly healed.

  “How is this possible?” Dr. Reid asked aloud, though he didn’t appear to be directing his question at anyone in particular.

  “What’s going on now?” Dr. Lorenzo asked curiously as he tried to squeeze through the crowded door.

  “Aria’s ability to regenerate appears to be spreading to the other patients through her singing,” Dr. Cole informed him.

  “Is she serious?” Dr. Lorenzo asked Dr. Reid skeptically.

  “Quite serious,” Dr. Reid replied gravely. “All of the patients you see behind you were suffering from intense pain just moments ago. As Aria and her family sang, the pain from their burns vanished. We just examined several of them, and they are weeks, if not months, ahead of where they should be in their healing progress.”

  Dr. Lorenzo looked around the room with a slightly confused look on his face, as if everything that he knew about the world had suddenly been tipped over. “There must be some kind of mistake. When was the last time their injuries were checked?”

  “I just changed the bandages on Maria less than an hour ago,” Emily informed him, gesturing at the small girl.

  “Does it stretch credulity too much to imagine that sound has the power to heal a person?” Rhapsody asked the doubtful neurologist. “We can liquefy glass with sound, changing its form on a molecular level.”

  “Broadcasting a single pitch to the resonant frequency of glass is a lot different than the mastery that would be needed to control the cellular regeneration in something as complex as human skin,” Dr. Lorenzo replied with a shake of his head. “It would take a complete understanding of how each pitch affected the billions of chemical bonds that make up human tissue and how to rearrange them into a new form. The complexity for such a feat is still beyond our most powerful supercomputers.”

  “I agree,” Rhapsody admitted with a small smile. “It would take a power far greater than anything we understand to guide someone’s voice through the necessary pitches required to heal a person.”

  Dr. Lorenzo blinked, staring at her silently as he processed what she was implying. “You think Aria is receiving instruction from God?”

  “Call it what you will,” Rhapsody replied with a shrug. “But yes,
I believe she has access to understanding far beyond ours, wherever she is, and is channeling that knowledge back through this body.”

  The room grew silent as everyone contemplated Rhapsody’s words. Melody smiled at the thought of her sister’s ability to find ways to help people even in her comatose state. She doubted that even death would be able to stop her selfless twin from reaching into the world to make it a better place.

  “This could easily be settled,” Dr. Lorenzo said into the silence.

  “What do you mean?” Melody asked with a frown.

  “We just need to bring someone from another burn center and see if the effect can be repeated,” Dr. Lorenzo explained. Melody noticed the aura of skepticism surrounding him was beginning to crack as Rhapsody’s arguments slowly nudged him closer to opening his mind to new possibilities.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Dr. Cole told him shortly. “There is a new patient en route to our center already. They should be here soon.”

  “What happened to them?” Melody asked apprehensively.

  “A toddler touched the glass panes of a fireplace and burned his hands,” Dr. Cole replied with a sigh. “It’s the most common cause of serious burn injuries in children.”

  Melody shuddered at the thought of a toddler suffering from such intense pain. Why can’t the human body have some kind of intensity filter to stop pain before it becomes excruciating?

  The other patients slowly dispersed when it became apparent that Aria was finished singing for the moment. As they waited for the EMTs to bring the new patient, Rhapsody suddenly looked at her with a bright spark in her green eyes.

  “They mentioned that the pain left them before Aria began singing,” Rhapsody said excitedly. “When you and Harmony sang, it stopped their pain. When Aria joined in, it healed them. I wonder if the two of you are triggers to start her singing…”

  Before Melody could reply, the EMTs arrived with a screaming toddler on a gurney. The child’s hands were already wrapped in burn bandages. Dr. Cole quickly directed them to bring the child to the space outside of Aria’s room. She paused, looking at Melody and Harmony questioningly as she uncovered one of the bandages.

  Melody took a deep breath and started the same song once more. As her mother joined in on the second verse again, the toddler’s cries quieted. As the third verse began, Aria’s soaring scales joined their song, weaving a complex tapestry of sound and emotion that permeated everything in range of her glorious voice.

  Dr. Lorenzo was watching the toddler in wide-eyed amazement as the look of pain and fear on the child’s face changed to one of tranquility. There was absolute silence in the room as the final notes of the song died away and Dr. Cole removed the remaining burn bandages. Where angry red blisters had just moments ago covered the child’s hands, a smooth pink layer of scar tissue had replaced the damaged skin.

  The mother of the toddler was watching Aria’s bandaged body in confusion, with tears streaming down her face. “What just happened?”

  “Your son was just healed by angels,” Rhapsody told the woman, wiping her own tears away with a tremulous smile.

  “Who are they?” the woman asked, staring at Melody and her family in awe.

  “Melody, Harmony and Aria,” Rhapsody replied with a wink at Melody. “Apparently Harmony had a premonition when she named her daughters.”

  “Isn’t she the girl who was in the news last week?” the woman asked in shock. “I thought she didn’t make it.”

  “She’s in a coma,” Rhapsody replied. “She’s still alive though and recovering steadily.”

  “How is she singing if she is in a coma?” the woman asked in perplexity.

  “That’s the golden question,” Rhapsody answered with a half-smile. “She started singing earlier today, but she doesn’t have any brain activity showing up on the monitors. Some of us are convinced that she is communicating from the other side.”

  Dr. Lorenzo let out a deep breath at Rhapsody’s words. He looked like a person who had just been told Christmas hadn’t been cancelled after all. “I don’t understand how this could be possible, but I can’t deny what my eyes are seeing anymore. Aria’s consciousness is still alive somewhere and it is communicating through her body without the use of her brain. This is going to revolutionize everything we understand about consciousness.”

  “It was about time for a revolution anyway,” Rhapsody told him with a mischievous grin. “We can only live on a flat world for so long before it gets boring.”