"The Frankie Chronicles Chapter I" by Frank Adrian Istad

He felt an extreme pain in his chest. An arrow had pierced him. As he fell towards the hot sand, the man knew his life was ending. The man watched his surroundings while he fell. He saw the same thing he had seen since he came to this place. A desert. A warm, endless, god-forsaken desert. Ironically, despite his pains, his main thoughts were about how much he hated this place.

He hit the ground. He grasped desperately for air, while his hands clutched the incinerating sand. The arrow had punctured his right lung, and now he was drawing his last dying breaths. A leather-clad man walked confidently towards him. His skin was gray. The man spoke some words the wounded could not comprehend, as the pain deafened all the other senses, including his hearing.

Suddenly he saw something behind the leather-clad man. Something floating above the dunes far away. Strangely, his eye-sight improved, allowing him to se the visage that was moving fast towards him.

It was his dead wife. Now merely a ghost, but a stunningly beautiful one. Her long golden hair was still as pretty as it had been when she lived. She wore the same white dress as she wore the day she died, with a bleeding hole in her stomach, were a bandit had trusted his sword. As she moved through his babbling murderer, he heard her speak.

“You will not join me this day, love.” He stared confused at her, the pain had disappeared. “You will survive.” Her voice sounded normal and soft. How? He thought. I’m dying… The ghost smiled. “Just trust me, darling, you will live.” He did not believe her. How? My body is broken… The ghost placed her hands on her hips. “Well, I did not say that you’ll live in this body, did I? Simply trust me, sweetheart, trust me.”

A silent scream escaped Frankie’s lips as he woke up from the nightmare. A single ray of light hit his face, making it possible to see his half-long blond hair. He was not what anyone would call “handsome”, but he sure thought so himself. He looked around. Then Frankie understood that he was not in a medieval desert, but his own room, in 2008.

He rose up to a sitting positing, thereby revealing his sixteen year old, somewhat trained upper body. As he leant backwards, his head hit the wall, causing the bed lamp to fall and hit his head. “What the…?” uttered Frankie before he dropped the lamp on the floor. He looked at his messy room.

He saw at the wall and the floor. They were covered by: Teddy bears! He felt embarrassed every time he looked at them, how he wish he never traded rooms with his sisters… But it was bigger though, and fit his soccer-table. Frankie began to feel tired, so he went back under his sheet and tried to sleep.

Suddenly, he felt a glowing sensation is his chest. It felt like it burned, but without the pain. Then a visage appeared in front of him. It was the ghost from his dream. The female ghost simply stared at him. He was terrified, he could not speak, but he wanted to. The ghost smiled. “You want to say something, darling?” The he suddenly said “Um, when did we get married?”