CHAPTER FIVE

LEILA

When my body hit the garden below, I felt the excruciating pain of my right leg getting dislocated and my ribs getting fractured. My head, too. My skull must have cracked. I felt pain everywhere. So much pain. I felt a salty liquid coming out of my mouth. I couldn't move. Breathing was agony.

At first, all I saw was darkness. I must have lost consciousness. Then I saw the lights from the house and from the neighbor's house. It was eerie. They all looked somehow different. Then I realized something strange. I couldn't feel the pain anymore.

My vision and attention shifted. I saw everything around me. I saw my Mom's car in the garage, the apple tree in the garden, the vegetables I planted. I saw my small, thin body, twisted and broken. I was looking at my body as if I was watching a movie.

I was floating and I felt the strong wind going around me, carrying me.

I saw the policemen arrive. They immediately got out of the car and headed towards the house. But they saw my body. They inspected my body lying there in the garden. I saw one of them talk in his radio and the other headed to the front door. The policeman who talked in the radio bent over and took my wrist, searching for a pulse. Then he dropped it.

I saw my mother being led out of the house in handcuffs. She was cursing and screaming, shouting expletives. The policeman shoved her at the back of the police car.

Finally, ambulance arrived. They carefully placed my body on a stretcher and covered me with white cloth. I was dead.

Neighbors have gathered around. Some were crying. Some just watching silently. Disbelief on their faces. I could feel their sorrow.

After sometime, a very bright light appeared. It was so very bright. I looked at it and my body was being pulled towards it. I couldn't control my movements. I was floating towards the very bright light.

Suddenly, I was in a very beautiful garden. The garden was so beautiful it didn't look real. But it was real. I had never seen such beautiful flowers. So many different vegetables, fruit plants. My feet had touched the ground. I felt the moist soft grass underneath my feet. They were so soft under my feet. I slowly walked, admiring the flowers around me. I saw the apple trees. The apples beckoned me. I went up a tree and took an apple. How can an apple be so delicious?

"Leila." a masculine voice said.

At first, I couldn't see anyone. So I just continued eating the juicy apple.

"Leila." The voice was louder. I looked down. There was a man looking up at me. He looked young, perhaps in his mid- twenties. He had a beard. His soft wavy hair reached his shoulders. He seems to brighten his surroundings, like he was emitting light.

"Come down," he commanded.

So I went down and stood in front of him, filled with awe.

He took my hand. His hand brought me so much comfort. It filled me with love.

"Leila, you're going to start your mission soon."

"What mission, Lord?" Somehow, His presence inspired me to see Him as Jesus, the Son of God.

"Your mission with Jason."

He smiled at me.

"What is my mission with Jason?"

"To take care of my people." He continued smiling at me.

"But I'm so young." I protested, scared of being given a responsibility.

He frowned at me, displeased with my answer. "You have been given so much, Leila. You will have new gifts when you return."

Then He said, "Someone wants to talk to you."

A man appeared from afar. He was walking towards me.

My eyes widened with shock and happiness. I ran to him and we hugged each other.

"My beautiful Princess!" he said, kissing the top if my head.

"Dad, " I sobbed. I hugged him tightly. "Why did you leave me?"

"It was time for me to go."

Then he explained, "my mission in life was just to bring you out to the world. Even though Evă couldn't see how precious you are, you have been chosen, Leila."

"Daddy, I just want to be happy."

Jesus intervened. His expression changed. He immediately became serious. "Don't ever turn your back on what you need to do."

I nodded, even though I could not understand what they wanted me to do.

I took my Dad's hand. "Daddy, I just want țo stay here with you."

Jesus said, "One day, you will be with him again. But not now. You need to go back. Someone there is waiting for you"

***

Jason

I went to the police station and asked them what happened to Leila.

One of the policemen introduced himself as Ethan. "Are you her relative?"

I shifted uncomfortably. I explained, not giving him the whole truth, "My Dad wants to adopt her"

"You're too late. She was already dead when we arrived."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Ethan told me, "Judging from the bruises on her body, she was beaten up by her mother before her mother threw her out in the balcony."

"Why did she do that?" I was aghast for learning the suffering Leila went through before her death,

Her mother told us Leila reported that the creditcards she was using were both stolen so she couldn't order dinner."

"Was her mother frequently abusing her before this happened?"

"The coroner said there were old wounds on her body that didn't heal properly."

I thought of my Dad. He will be greatly disappointed that Leila was really dead. "Where is her body right now?"

"In the morgue. They are still waiting for her grandma to claim her."

I didn't anymore prolong my chitchat with him. I immediately went to the morgue. I was still hoping against hope that there was a mistake, that I won't see her there.

But there she was, lying down on the table, waiting to be cut up. They had not yet performed an autopsy. They were waiting for her grandmother.

So I pulled up a chair and stared at her body. She was small, less than five feet. She was very thin. Just thirteen. Her body was just on the verge of womanhood.

I don't know why her death affected me so much. Even the information of the physical abuse she was going through before her death. She suffered so much. I thought of my childhood. My parents always doted on me.

Why did I want her to be alive? It was just not because of Emzitech. Even though her death would most likely bring huge loses to the company. I don't know if the company can recover. It was much more than that.

I was confused with my emotions.

Her small body was covered with a blanket. She was so pale, but there were bluish marks on her face. Signs of the physical abuse she went through.

I gingerly touched her hair. Yes, I'm so weird for wanting to touch a dead person's hair.

But she didn't look dead. She looked like she was only sleeping.

I took her hand.

"Leila, wherever you are right now, I hope you are now happy. If heaven exists, I hope you are there. If God is real, I hope He is now with you."

"If you were still alive, maybe it would have been nice if we adopted you and you could have been my sister, …or girlfriend." I chuckled. "It might have been nice to know someone as smart as you. My Dad was already impressed with you. You would have liked him, even though he could be quite controlling sometimes, or maybe most of the time."

I chuckled again. I looked at Leila. Strange. She seemed to be smiling, too.

i never thought I would be comfortable talking to a dead person. I never thought I could be so weird.

Then suddenly, something creepy happened. Her hand gripped my right hand.

I screamed and pulled out my hand. I looked at her with terror.

Two men rushed inside the room. The tall guy with blond hair asked me, "What happened?"

"She gripped my hand. "

The other guy came over and held Leila's limp hand. "This one?"

"Yes!" My heart was still beating loudly in my chest.

He inspected the limp, lifeless hand, turning it and moving it to and fro. "It's not moving. There's no pulse."

"Her grip was strong!" I insisted.

So I said loudly at her face, "Leila, stop messing with me! If you're alive, just wake up! You've been playing pranks on me since you called me up yesterday. I'm tired of it."

So I started shaking her shoulders. "Just wake up!"

The two men pulled me back. They were already dragging me out of the room when I turned around one last time to look at her.

Then I saw it. I saw her tears. They were falling gently, wetting her face.