Young Writers Society

Except for Isaac de Veer, the unoccupied receptionist desk, magazine side-table, and a door, the waiting room was empty. Isaac turned the pages of the newest addition of Highlights magazine. He had always kept his subscription to the magazine, even after he had passed the age-limit of the publication. Now he was seventeen and his eyes were well-trained to finding the hidden pictures and words. There was the wrench, pretending to be a tree branch. He tilted his wrist to the side so he could see past the glare from the fluorescent lights overhead and read the hands on his watch. Ten past three and exactly fourteen seconds; just the same it had read a few moments ago.

Isaac tapped the watch’s face with his finger. It must have stopped. He brought the watch to his ear to listen for the soft ticking and wiring of the miniscule gears. He shook his wrist and the clicking emanated from within the wristwatch. The hands remained frozen at 3:10:14. He shrugged and turned back to the hidden-picture puzzle.

“How long has it been?” a woman’s voice to his left asked.

Isaac glanced beside him, even though he already knew no one was there. The voices were always there and always talking. Sometimes they were silent, but it was never long until one of them spoke up.

“48 hours,” a stern male’s voice responded.

“Since what?” Isaac asked aloud, even though the voices never responded.

“What else can we do?” the woman’s voice asked.

“Maintain his vitals, wait, and hope,” the deep voice stated solemnly.

They’re talking about me again, Isaac thought to himself. The voices discussed him frequently or partook in polite conversational exchanges. They spoke in whispers, gentle voices only used when someone was sleeping. They never acknowledged Isaac and his attempts to join their dialogue.

“What about permanent damage?” the woman continued.

Permanent damage? Isaac thought to himself.

“It will be difficult to fully determine the full extent of the injuries until the subject is awake.”

* * *

Isaac had read the same issue of Highlights thirty-four times in a row before the door finally opened. The voices had gone silent after the eighteenth reading, leaving him to the roaring silence of the waiting room. The door was directly across from him and could have almost blended into the white walls, except for the silver handle that jutted away from the smooth surface of the door.

The door groaned open to reveal a man in a white coat standing in the doorway. His smile of perfectly straight teeth matched the sterile white of the room’s interior. His hand carefully touched his styled black hair that gleamed with hardened hair grease sculpted into a 1940’s hairstyle. His chin protruded with the slightest indentation in the center and was connected to a clean-shaven square jaw. He was slightly taller than Isaac by about five inches. His features were overall handsome, except for his eyes. His beady eyes were pinched closely together towards the center of his face, almost giving the illusion that he was cross-eyed. They gleamed with pure black irises and pupils that fixated on Isaac who still clutched the magazine in his right hand as he cowered in his seat.

The man raised the clipboard in his hand to his face and skimmed the top sheet of paper with his crow-like eyes before calling out: “Isaac de Veer?”

“That’s, uh, me,” Isaac responded, awkwardly clearing his throat.

"Hello, Isaac. So, now we finally meet face to face," the man greeted, his voice thick and gravely. It rumbled in his chest and warbled with age. An age that did not match the man's young appearance. "You can call me Doctor Azra'il," the man stated and allowed the clipboard to hang loosely in his hand by his side.

Doctor Azra'il turned on his heel and exited the door with a flutter of his lab coat. Isaac remained in his seat, gripping the armrests on either side so that his knuckles had turned white. He would not follow this Doctor Azra'il. Isaac would remain in the waiting room, read Highlights, and...what? Wait for someone else to invite him out of the barren room with fake office plants, empty chairs, disembodied voices, and one magazine?

Doctor Azra’il halted suddenly as he departed down the hallway outside the exit and swiveled his head around until he was able to focus on Isaac.

“I suggest you follow me. We have much to discuss,” Doctor Azra’il growled. His black eyes narrowed as his grin was vacated from his face.

Isaac raised his green-blue eyes to match Doctor Azra'il's glare. Isaac flinched in his seat as Dr. Azra’il’s eyes glittered sinisterly underneath the fluorescent light which caste ghastly shadows underneath the man’s high cheekbones. A shadow grew and expanded to cloak the room. The lights overhead buzzed sporadically and flickered as tendrils of darkness reached out towards Isaac. A chilling air emanated from Dr. Azra’il as he glowered with features and a demeanor consumed by evil directed towards Isaac.

Thud...thud...thud. Isaac clutched his ears as a drumming noise overtook the room. It pounded from within his chest, heavily pressing periodically against his rib-cage. The sound rattled his bones and echoed in his skull.

“His heart-rate is increasing!” a voice proclaimed.

“Isaac? Can you hear me?” the familiar female voice asked, with an edge of panic in her words.

The tendrils of shadow reached his leg and his skin prickled with the darts of ice. Isaac gasped and clutched the armrests as the tentacles crept to his knees.

“You fear me Isaac. Even when you sought me out, you feared me. You didn’t expect to end up here. You imagined I would go along with your plan, assumed I would be the only one on your side. I am on no one’s side; not your’s or their’s, that’s why you fear me. You thought you could choose me, but guess what? I am not your tool or weapon against yourself,” Doctor Azra’il whispered. “I can choose you right now.”

The tendrils curled around Isaac’s limbs as he remained frozen in his chair. He inhaled desperately as the shadow fingers surged towards his chest. Gradually, the pounding of his heart diminished and the air was pressed from his lungs.

"Isaac! Hold on. Wait. Don't leave," the woman's voice pleaded.

A dim realization formed within his mind: I’m dying.

All at once, the overwhelming darkness vanished and the room returned to its normal state. A rush of air filled Isaac’s lungs and he slumped down into his chair.

“Isaac?”

Thud...thud...thu...th...

“I could choose you if I wanted you,” Dr. Azra’il spat out venomously with a sneer plastered across his face.

* * *

Their footsteps echoed through the hallway. The waiting room was long behind them through a labyrinth of turns and doors before reaching another windowless room. An examination table covered with sanitary tissue was pushed against the long wall parallel to the door. A sink and counter stood in the corner, littered with jars of cotton balls, tongue depressors, and medical supplies. Doctor Azra’il set his clipboard on the metal counter and pulled out a stool from underneath the counter. Dr. Azra'il's voice was cool and calming, as he gestured to the examination table.

"Who are you really?" Isaac inquired, folding his hands across his chest.

"I'm sure that will become more clear to you once we discuss why you are here."

Isaac sat down on the examination table and sank into the top leather cushion with a crinkle of tissue.

"Let's begin. What do you remember before the waiting room?" Dr. Azra’il inquired.

Isaac frowned. His brow furrowed and kneaded together as he began to pick at his thumb's cuticles, "I remember...I remember the voices. Except, the voices weren't just voices, they were faces too."

"Can you tell me more about the voices?"

"They talk about me. I hear and try to respond to them, but they never acknowledge me. There’s a woman and other more serious voices. They sound concerned about me, like I did something or something happened to me. I’m not really sure,” Isaac paused. “Okay my turn to ask: who are you really?”

Doctor Azra’il’s slight smile diminished, the corners of his mouth turning down, “I am your friend but also your enemy.”

“So, frenemy? Is that supposed to be a riddle or something?” Isaac asked incredulously.

Doctor Azra’il tossed his head back in a throaty laugh, in a mixture of a hag’s cackle and a drunk man’s belly laugh. Through his laugh he exclaimed: “I guess you could call it that, Isaac!”

Isaac looked on Doctor Azra’il with disgust. The man had used bizarre powers and scared him half out of his wits and now he was laughing at his question, as if Isaac should have known the answer.

“I just want to know who you are! Just answer the question!” Isaac exclaimed and the laughter ceased.

“I am assuming you do not understand the name ‘Azra’il’ then?”

Isaac glowered.

“There is only one being that is both your friend and enemy. He is neither good nor evil and takes form in anything. I am he. Can you guess yet?” Doctor Azra’il grinned.

“You’re death,” Isaac whispered. Then what does that make me? Isaac asked himself.

“‘Azra’il’ translates from Hebrew to ‘angel of death.’ I am here to make you choose again. You chose me in the midst of a tantrum and selfishly tried to leave your life behind. You are neither here nor there. Your body remains supported in reality but your soul is still undecided,” Azra’il stated.

“Death,” Isaac whispered unbelievingly, “how can I choose when I don’t remember anything besides my name?”

“You’ve heard the voices. You listen to them.”

“I still don’t understand...”

“The voices are a part of you, as much as you are of them. They are your connection to your life on Earth. They will never stop speaking around you. Even when you have moved on, they will still grieve. You will forget them and learn to ignore them, find peace perhaps.”

“What will happen if I choose to return?” Isaac’s eyes looked up suddenly, into the unemotional darkness of Avra’il’s eyes. “Will there be...pain?” the word felt foreign on his tongue, as if he was dusting off a book he hadn’t read in a long while. It felt familiar all the same; as if there was a meaning or memory tucked away in his consciousness that connected with the phrase.

“There will be. You made life very complicated for yourself and overthought it. Pain is something you created in your life. You have a chance to fix that or a chance to move on.”

* * *

Sunlight and the fresh spring breeze spilled into the open hospital window. The melodies of songbirds intermixed with the rhythmical wiring and beeping of hospital instruments that pumped oxygen and fluids into Isaac de Veer’s pale body. He lay peacefully underneath the thin, standard hospital blankets. If it wasn’t for the multitude of IV’s, oxygen tubes, and electrodes connected to his skin, he would almost look healthy. The cuts, bruises, and other surface injuries had almost completely healed from the suicidal car crash two months before. The broken ribs, shoulder, and femur continued to heal and would be for the next five months.

A woman with curly blonde hair was asleep in the bedside chair after another nighttime vigil by Isaac’s bedside. They had detected brain activity a few days earlier, the first glimmer of hope they had witnessed in the past month. She was determined to remain by Isaac’s bedside until his condition returned to its earlier hopeless state. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in a waterfall of frizzy curls, almost masking the swollen bags underneath her eyes.

A sudden spike in Isaac’s pulse triggered an irregular beep to emanate from the electrocardiogram. The woman’s eyes fluttered open, her ears well trained from the duration of his coma to pick out any irregularities. His heart rate had been below normal ever since he had a sudden spike in his pulse three days after the crash.

“Isaac,” the woman whispered hoarsely.

The pulse steadied and stabilized on the screen of the electrocardiogram at a higher level than it had been before: 68 bpm. His pale eyelids twitched with the movement of his eyes underneath. Suddenly, his mouth opened and exhaled then inhaled a small wavering breath without the assistance from the oxygen tube running through his nostrils.

“Isaac,” the woman knelt on the floor, clutching his limp hand. “Nurse!” she called out to the open doorway.

Footsteps pounding on the linoleum tile down the hall was her only answer. She squeezed his hand tighter.

Isaac squeezed back. All at once, his eyelids drew up to reveal his dilated pupils that reflexively shrank from the sunlight.

“Mom?” Isaac rasped.

“I’m here,” she whispered and gently brushed his cheek.