Chapter Thirty-Nine

Isaac Hanson

I sighed with discontent and impatience as the plane seemed to snail its way from the Tulsan airport to the Rochestarian one, even though, in reality, it would only take us a few hours to get there.
I lay my head back, gazing out the window. Zac was reading beside me. Well, pretending to be reading. I had yet to hear him turn a page. I struggled to stay awake. I didn't want that dream from the night before haunting me again like it had that morning. Though I had forgotten it by dinnertime, it had all immediately come rushing back when I had heard the news about Taylor. I could remember every detail. And I was freaking out inside because of it.

It's cold. And cloudy. It's cold and kind of cloudy and drizzling a bit. When I look around me, I begin to notice my surroundings. There are trees and emerald green grass and...gravestones?
That's when I figure out that I'm in a cemetary. It's not until I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to see my father crying hysterically that my previous suspicions that something is wrong are confirmed.
I turn my gaze away from his sorrowful face, tears sliding down his cheeks in heavy rivers, and see the rest of my family standing in a semi-circle, all dressed in black, all in the same state as my father. Someone is missing, though. But who?
Finally, I notice the open grave at my feet that I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, would be there all along. Inside the rectangular hole is a large casket with a single red rose lying on top of it.
Curious, I look up at the gravestone set at the head of the grave. There, in scrawling letters, this is written:

Jordan Taylor Hanson
March 14 - May 10
Loving son,
Loving brother,
We wouldn't know

I gasp in horror and begin to back away, but my father replaces his hand firmly on my shoulder and after a moment of struggling, I hear his voice.

"It's all right, Isaac," he says to me in a voice sad beyond words. "It was our fault for getting so attached to the boy in the first place."

His words confuse me and stop me long enough for me to notice something. There's a person kneeling by the open grave. The person is...Taylor?

The look on his face is somber, his eyes unmoving from the rose laying on top of the casket, his hands clasped in prayer form as he kneels next to the grave.

I try to go toward him, but my father just holds me back.

"Taylor!" I cry out, but it's as if the open grave is an endless chasm and my voice only echoes back to me. "Taylor!" I cry again to no avail.

"His name isn't Taylor," my father's voice says calmly from behind me.

"What?" I say in confusion.

"His name isn't Taylor," he repeats.

"Then what is it?" I ask.

"His name isn't Taylor," he repeats again.

"What's his name!" I yell with frustration.

"His name isn't Taylor."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see some movement and turn to gaze toward that. I see the backside of a woman, dressed in bright colors that don't register in my mind and I won't remember later and a man dressed in a dark business suit leading Taylor away from the gravesite.

"Taylor!" I scream desperately, but they don't turn around. "Taylor, come back! Come back to us!!"

That was the part I woke up at.

It wasn't so much the fact that I was at a funeral that happened to be Taylor's and Taylor was attending it that disturbed me the most. It was more the quickly approaching date of May 10th, along with the news that he was in the hospital. I've heard that your dreams tell you your future in a subtle way. So maybe I still have a chance.

You know, as long as you're spending too much time on the internet, you could drop me a line to tell me what you think of my story...
Index
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Forty