SOMETIMES The Dead Talk

5 YEARS AGO

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with a dull, relentless hum that drilled straight into Mia Pettyfer’s skull. Her legs swung inches above the tiled floor from the stiff office chair, sneakers smeared with drying mud.

Her aunt had been nearly terrified when she brought her in nearly an hour back, crying and wringing her hands, begging for someone to help her niece.

“They were still alive when the car flipped.” The twelve-year-old said, her voice cracked raw halfway through the sentence. She clutched the paper cup between trembling fingers, water sloshing over the rim onto her jeans.

The woman across from her maintained the same careful expression adults always wore around crying children. Tight smile. Soft eyes. Pen gliding smoothly across paper.

“Mia,” the woman continued gently, “you’ve already explained that part.”

“No.” Mia’s pulse hammered painfully against her ribs. “No, you don’t understand.”

The room suddenly felt smaller for the little girl. Her stomach clenched so violently she nearly folded in half.

The office flickered.

Not the lights, but the room itself. For a few impossible seconds, the beige walls dissolved into twisted metal and shattered glass glittering beneath rain.

Mia sucked in a sharp breath, seeing her father hung upside down in the crushed driver’s seat, blood pouring slowly from his forehead in thick streams. His eyes moved as if searching.

“Mia,” he gargled weakly just as she remembered earlier when her aunt tried to convince her she was having a nightmare. That it’s typical after losing her parents in the way she did.

The vision vanished, and the office slammed back into place so hard it made her dizzy.

The woman’s pen had stopped moving.

“Mia?” the doctor probed in a gentle but clinical voice.

“She couldn’t breathe,” Mia whispered, staring at nothing. “Mom couldn’t breathe because the seatbelt got stuck.” Her fingers curled tighter around the paper cup until it crumpled inward. “She kept trying to unclip it, but her wrist was broken.”

Silence settled heavily between them. The evaluator shifted carefully in her seat.

“Mia,” Dr. Reed murmured, “you weren’t inside the vehicle.”

“I was there.” Mia trembled out, feeling so cold. What did they have to have the A.C. so low, she wondered, but was too frantic to even think about it more.

“No, sweetheart. You arrived afterward with emergency responders.”

Mia’s heartbeat sputtered unevenly. Why did they keep saying that when she was there? Her father called to her. Why would he call out to her if she wasn’t there?

Is this what they considered therapy? To convince people they were never there to see their parents die, in hopes that they would find a way to move past the blood and gore?

That wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all.

And they were all wrong for that. She could never forget such a… her tears spilled over. Because she remembered it.

But she also remembered being at school when her aunt came to pick her up, looking like quite a fright… so how? Where was she really when they died? Is this what a lack of sleep caused? Mum always said if she didn’t get her night’s rest, she wouldn’t be able to tell the days eventually.

But… if she indeed had been at school, why could she feel the cold rain soaking through her clothes? Smoke filling her lungs? Seeing her mother choking on blood while clawing uselessly at the seatbelt latch.

How could that be if she had not been there?

Mia’s breathing sharpened, and her swollen eyes, lacking sleep since that tragic day, nearly two weeks ago. “She kept apologizing,” she whispered.

Dr. Maya Reed’s brows pulled together faintly, her hands clasped on her lap. She had years of experience with cases like these. “What?”

“My mom.” Mia swallowed hard. “She thought the crash was her fault.”

The evaluator’s expression didn’t change, but something behind her eyes shifted. “How would you know that?”

Mia stared at her, he words tangled into knots inside her throat. “Because I heard her.”

The office door creaked open, and a man stepped inside carrying a thin folder beneath one arm. Gray suit, silver watch, calm face that looked carved rather than born.

His gaze settled on Mia with unnerving stillness.

“Dr. Levin.” The evaluator glanced upward immediately. “Sir, we’re still in session.”

“I know.” He crossed the room slowly.

Mia’s stomach twisted again. Something about him felt wrong. Not dangerous, but he seemed stern, and she didn’t like people like that.

The man, Dr. Levin as Dr. Reed had called him, placed the folder onto the desk. “Could I speak with you outside for a moment?”

Frowning slightly, the woman hesitated, then she rose from her chair and followed him into the hallway, pulling the door mostly shut behind her.

Mostly, not fully, so Mia could still hear them.

“…details weren’t public.”

“I understand that, but-” Dr. Reed’s tone was the same as always. Flat. As if she had no emotion at all.

“The mother’s injuries were sealed in the report.”

“Yes, I know, but the aunt could have told her.”

“She mentioned the seatbelt, Dr. Reed. That was not a detail released either. The aunt knows the cause of death, not the details surrounding their deaths. I think she’s got it, Dr. Reed.”

Mia hugged herself tightly, wondering what the man thought she had? Madness?

She hated this place. Hated the pale walls. Hated the buzzing lights. Hated the way adults stared at her now. Like she wasn’t a grieving girl anymore. Like she was something sitting under a microscope.

After the accident, Mia had been told the sessions were grief counseling arranged through Halcyon Dynamics, the company both her parents had worked for before their deaths. Therapy, they’d called it. A way to help her process the trauma.

Now she had a new fear- were they going to send her to a psych ward now?

The smell returned without warning. Smoke. Rain. Blood. And Mia's nausea began again. Her vision blurred violently, and just like before, suddenly she wasn’t in the office anymore.

Mia stood beside the overturned car beneath flashing ambulance lights.

Rain poured against her skin in freezing sheets as she stared, horrified at the overturned wreckage of her parents’ vehicle.

Stooping to the balls of her feet, she saw her father. His breathing rattled wetly inside the crushed vehicle. Mia stumbled backward, panic exploding through her chest. “No…”

Her father’s head shifted slowly toward her, his swollen lips parted. “They saw us.”

Mia froze..

“They’re coming for-”

The scene distorted violently, and her mother screamed.

Metal groaned, and it was then she saw the other vehicle behind, and then another sound split through the rain. A door slamming close then…

Footsteps approaching, crunching glass.

Someone was approaching the wreck!

Mia spun desperately toward the darkness beyond the ambulance lights, heart slamming wildly against her ribs. A figure stood there, tall and watching.

But Mia could not see the face, only his silhouette.

And then everything shattered apart.

Mia gasped sharply as the office returned around her.

The paper cup dropped from her hands, and water splashed across the tile. She screamed, and the two adults rushed inside.

Dr. Levin rushed back inside immediately. “Mia?”

“No!” Mia shoved herself backward in the couch-chair. “There was someone there!” Her breathing came fast and sharp. “He was watching me!”

Dr. Levin knelt carefully in front of her. “Mia, listen to me. You need to calm down. Who was watching you?”

“I-I don’t know. I didn’t- I. He said they saw us!”

“Who?” Dr. Levin’s face was etched with concern as he held Mia’s arms on both sides

“My dad!”

The room fell silent again. Not normal silence, but heavy silence. The kind adults thought children couldn’t recognize. But Mia knew she said the wrong thing.

Dr. Levin slowly rose to his feet, studying Mia carefully now, eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “What exactly did your father say?” he questioned.

Mia’s pulse fluttered painfully, telling herself that she shouldn’t answer. Every nerve in her body screamed that instinct at once. But the words slipped out anyway. “He said…” Her throat tightened. “He said they’re coming for me.”

Neither adult moved, both pairs of eyes widened, and that frightened her more than shouting would have.

“Mia, do you even know what you’re saying?

“Yes?

“You’re saying your parents spoke with you after they died? And you were not there, but you were?” Dr. Levin continued, watching her carefully. Then he released her arms and turned to Dr. Reed. Reed. “Do not transfer the child to state psychiatric care.”

Mia’s chest tightened when they exchanged looks, in that way that children never understand.

“I agree, sir. She’ll be placed under specialized observation effective immediately.”

Specialized observation. The words sounded…cold, and Mia suddenly wished she had never spoken at all. She should have never told her aunt anything, she should have never screamed, she sho-

Suddenly, she began seeing dark dots in front of her. She hadn’t slept in so many nights, but even through the fog, she tried to hold on. “Am I in trouble?”

For the first time since entering the office, the man smiled. It never reached his eyes, but somehow it comforted her nevertheless. “No, Mia,” he said softly.

Head too heavy, she rested her head back on the couch, sleep already making a claim to her.

“You’re very important.”