“I must have done something right in another lifetime to deserve you, Mark,” I say to him. This time, I do launch myself at him and kiss him hard. We make out for a little while, but eventually we decide to leave before we can’t control ourselves any longer. I change into my jeans and t-shirt and secure my hair into a bun before we go.

The streets are quiet as everyone is at Oak Land. We decide to take a passage that’s a short cut. “Now the protest really must come to an end!” Mark says as he squeezes my behind.

“Mark!” I exclaim, feigning shock. He grins.

When we come to the end of the passage, two men jump out in front of us from behind some bushes.

“Oh look, its Romeo and Juliet,” snarls a muscled guy, while his friend laughs a deep, bone- chilling laugh that is not sincere.

Mark steps in front of me instinctively to protect me. “What do you want?” he growls.

“We were sent to give you a message,” says Muscle Guy.

“Well?” Mark asks, pushing him.

Muscle Guy leans on a baseball bat that he has with him. He looks down as if thinking about his next words. Suddenly, without any warning, he swings the bat, hitting Mark in his abdomen. Mark groans in pain and bends to clutch his stomach, but the bat lands on his back again, sending him to his knees.

“Stop it!” I scream. “Mark?”

I position myself between Muscle Guy and Mark to attempt to shield Mark. The other guy grabs me from behind and drags me away while his friend continues bashing Mark with the bat. I scream for help. The man holding me puts his hand on my mouth but I bite it hard. He lets go of me and I run towards Mark. Blood is practically pouring from him. “Ru…run Alex!” he stutters, lightly squeezing my forearm with the little strength that he has left.

“Let’s get them in the truck before someone sees us,” sneers Muscle Guy.

“I’m not leaving you!” I tell Mark, but then I feel a blow at the back of my head and fall on top of him.

“Alex…” I hear Mark groan, before darkness claims me.

*****

“Argh…” I groan. My head is pounding. I wake to a moving truck. Mark is lying beside me.

“Mark, can you hear me?” I say frantically as I shake him. I can feel dampness on his shirt and I know that it’s blood. He’s losing way too much blood. His pulse is faint.

“You must run Alex,” he whispers, coughing out blood.

“Not without you, baby,” I tell him. “Just hang in there.” I assess Mark. He’s still bleeding.

I take off my t-shirt and tear it into pieces. I wrap a piece around Mark’s head, and with another piece I cover his chest. The van speeds from side to side as if we’re being chased. I cradle Mark so that he doesn’t hit against the van. His body cannot take any more blows. Screams and the sound of arguing emanate from the front of the van. What are they fighting about? I wonder.

The van moves faster. I hear tyres screeching on the pavement and cars crashing into each other as the van creates havoc on the road. Who is chasing us, and why? Abruptly, we hit something so hard that the van tips over to the side and we begin rolling vigorously. Mark and I are tossed to and fro inside the van each time it hits the ground. The chaos isn’t loud enough to mask the sound of my bones being broken.

Eventually, we come to a stop. There is a deadly silence around us. Mark has me pinned between him and the van. “Mark. Can you hear me?” I ask. Honestly, I don’t know if he can, because I can barely hear myself, but he shifts slightly to rest on his back. His face is swollen and covered in blood. He’s scarcely recognisable.

“I. Love. You. Forever.” Mark speaks with great difficulty.

My head feels like it’s about to explode. “You continue to fight, OK?” I tell him. His breathing becomes gravely shallow. I’m no doctor, but I know that Mark is dying. “I love you, Mark. Stay with me, please.” The heartache I feel numbs my headache.

“I love you, Alex. I love you.” He keeps saying it over and over again.

If I weren’t so broken, literally, I would scream. The door opens. I lift my eyes just enough to see Mr Sharp Suit’s ashen expression, but he doesn’t see me. In my head, I keep screaming: “Help Mark. You must help Mark.”

Uncontrollable tears pour out of me as an indescribable anguish rips through me. It is nothing compared to my battered body. No, this pain is so thick and so heavy and so long it reaches to the very core of my soul and splits me apart. I feel an abyss expanding in my chest.

*****

“Help Mark.” I sing the mantra in my head over and over. I notice that I can no longer hear Mark. I gasp for air when I realise that he could be dead, and I do the one thing that can put a stop to all of this. I try to wake up from this dream but I can’t. My emotions are so strong, tying me down so that I cannot wake up.

I concentrate really hard. I put all my will into it. Even in my dream, Mark cannot die. I cannot lose him. I can’t stand it. It hurts too much. I push and push and, finally, I escape. My eyes fly open, quickly scanning the room that I wake up in.

I’m neatly covered in a thin blanket in a clean and sterile room. There’s a table at the end of my bed. Next to me is a machine that makes a beeping sound. When my ragged breathing calms down, I realise that I’m still awake. This is not my imagination. I move my hand and it moves. Then, all of a sudden, a sharp pain pierces through my head. I scream and my body vibrates violently.

I hear my door fly open, and thudding footsteps echo faintly from afar as a nurse and a man dressed in a white coat run towards me. “My head,” I say in pain, clutching it with both my hands.

They hover over me, poking and rapidly speaking in a medical language I don’t understand.

After an eternity, my head feels fine again.

The nurse stands over me, smiling. “Alex,” she says, my name sliding off her tongue. Her voice is full of emotion but I don’t know why. “Welcome back,” the oval, fair complexioned woman with black hair greets me warmly. The man who is tall and wears glasses looks at her fondly.

Unknown to them, my dream floods through my mind in excruciating detail.

“Mark!” I gasp, remembering the immense pain I felt. The nurse above me frowns. “Oh sweetie! Your mother is on her way.”

“Mark!” I repeat.

“I’m sorry, love, but Mark didn’t make it. He was badly injured in the accident.” She cups my hand in hers.

Now it’s my turn to frown. “How do you know that?” I ask.

“I was on duty when they brought you in.” From her neck she removes a necklace. I instantly recognise it as the one that Mark gave me on our anniversary in my dream. Only, it wasn’t a dream.

Was it a dream? What is going on?

My frown deepens.

“You held on to this for dear life when you came in. I figured it must be important, so I kept it for you.” She puts the chain around my neck.

“Read…” I choke as I realise what I’m about to say. “Read the inscription at the back.”

“Together forever, my love, my life, my Alex. From Mark,” she reads, and then she adds: “I never noticed that before.”

Oh my God! My dream was not a dream. It was, or is, still my life. I was simply reliving what happened to me before I was attacked. What in God’s name is happening to me?

So Mark really was the love of my life. Mark really is dead. Mr Sharp Suit killed Mark. I saw him after the accident. I am going to make him pay dearly for this. All my memories flood through my head in a rush.

“I must get out of here!” I say adamantly to the nurse.

“Not yet love, you are not ready just yet. Dr Tumi needs to run some tests first,” the nurse tells me, trying to soothe me. It doesn’t work. I can’t calm down. There is so much that doesn’t make sense, there are so many unanswered questions, but the most immediate thing is the feeling of my chest crashing down and suffocating me. Now that I’m really awake, I no longer see Mark as some made-up illusion in my mind. What I thought was pain in my dream is nothing compared to what I feel now. I remember Mark as a real part of my life. We really had a life together, and now he’s gone.

***

Tell us what you think: Now that Alex has woken up, how will she recover from the grief of losing Mark? Is she still in danger?