Known Afterlife (The Provider Trilogy: Volume I) Read online

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  The Source, guided by a divine touch, caressed like a warm shower. The touch massaged away dense knots of negative energy and aligned his soul with body.

  "The flesh will heal but his vibrational resonances will not harmonize. He remains imbalanced. An energy I have never encountered is preventing true symmetry..." The voice, at first coming from the far reaches of his consciousness, was now so close he smelt the speaker's sweet breath brushing his ear.

  Steffor tried to open his eyes and found he could not. A gummy epoxy had formed around his eyelids, keeping them closed.

  "Let me help you," said the musical voice, still intimately close. A soft hand ran across his brow and eyelids, followed by the gush of his own tears, forcing his eyes to open. The salty sting of tears revived his connection of mind and body. The next sensation to register was his complete immobility.

  Sensing his sudden panic, the voice said, "It’s all good, you are in a Healer's shell."

  Healer's shell? Why am I in...the dive championship...the branch...I am alive! How? I should not be alive, I do not...wish to be...alive. I just want to rest.

  With new tears, tears of grief, streaming down his face, Steffor looked around his surroundings as best he could, given the tight but cushioned head-to-toe grip on his body. In doing so, he recognized the conical ceiling of the Healer's shell. He relaxed, a conditioned response triggered by the healing Source pulsing through the curved walls of the spacious room in soothing, warm colors. Given his centered proximity in the room, he concluded he was lying in a Healer's table: a waist high block, shifted from the Trunk’s Source-rich sapwood.

  He was no stranger to a Healer's shell. His first visit to a Healer occurred after shattering his wrist training for a regional dive qualifier ten seasons prior. The Healer submerged Steffor’s entire arm into the table. The Healer then moved his hands in a rhythmic motion over the smooth, pliable wood and shifted the Source into Steffor’s injured hand. His wrist healed within minutes. A pang of withdrawal followed the procedure and lingered for days after.

  Steffor lost himself in the memory. Life seemed much simpler back then. Everything made perfect sense, a time when thoughts of not wanting to live were foreign. As he ached for a time past, feeling sorry for himself, he could not recall how or when her face appeared. That face, conveying love in ways he never imagined possible, instilled a new purpose to go on.

  "Welcome back," she said as if on cue, beaming a relieved smile.

  All Steffor could do was stare into her corroborant, gray-blue eyes. He tried to return the smile but could only muster a babbling sob. To his relief, she simply hovered over him with a caring smile. Steffor did not question this gift. On the contrary, he greedily accepted it; staring deeper into her cathartic eyes until all concept of time disappeared. The trance broke when her face contorted with an expression of mild pain and her lips parted to release a soft moan.

  "Why won't you align?" She asked, sounding both disappointed and concerned.

  Because I no longer belong here.

  Instead of giving voice to his thoughts, he answered her question with the only question he cared to know the answer: "Who are you?"

  Face-to-face, Steffor realized for the first time that she was lying on top of him. Rather, she was lying on top of the table, his face being the only portion of his body not submerged into the table.

  "My name is Calivera. I am your Healer."

  "How long have I been here?"

  "Three days. By most definitions, you were dead when you arrived."

  "You saved me?"

  "You saved yourself. I simply helped you find your way back. Do you feel strong enough to leave the table?"

  Not waiting for a reply, Calivera swung off the table and moved to his side then leaned into the right side of his vision. "No one has ever been completely submerged into a healer's table, much less for three days. If you are able, we need to make the separation."

  Hard as he might try, Steffor could not feel his body. For that matter, he could not remember what it meant to have a body. The only feeling he could remember was how Calivera had caressed his soul.

  "Are you ready? I will go slowly." Rejected by her insistence, he was far from ready to leave the table, to face the world, to go on. "Here we go."

  Breath sucked from Steffor's lungs the moment the sapwood lowered and exposed his body to gravity. "Stop! The pain…it’s too much!"

  "It will pass," was all Calivera replied, continuing the slow descent of the table. Steffor fought against the pain as his tormented body shook with agony.

  "Stay with me!" Calivera commanded.

  Steffor turned to her in desperation, pleading to stay within the supportive confines of the table. She conveyed love and sympathy but continued the torturous withdraw.