My Ex-Husband Begged Me to Take Him Back - Chapter 42

Chapter 42: Reality or dream?

Later that night…

When Dylan made sure that Gianna had drifted into a deep sleep, he quietly slipped out of her room and went to see Ava. He found her sleeping peacefully, her expression serene, as if all the tension and pain from the day had vanished.

For a moment, Dylan stood frozen, just watching her. Ava looked beautiful even in her sleep. Her delicate features captivated him.

Her face was calm, her rosy lips slightly parted in sleep. Her head was tilted softly to the side, and her long, curled lashes rested on her cheeks, giving her an ethereal look. He half-expected her eyes to flutter open and catch him staring.

Compelled by an overwhelming urge to be close to her, Dylan walked quietly to the side of her bed. He stretched out his hand to caress her cheek but stopped an inch away, hesitating. He didn’t want to disturb her rest. Instead, he sat down in the chair beside her, his eyes never leaving her face.

Ava’s steady, rhythmic breathing had an almost soothing effect on him. As he kept looking at her, the events of the previous night flooded his mind.

Everything had seemed to be fine the night before as if peace had been restored between them. With her in his arms, he had slept soundly, without the nightmares that usually plagued him. Her presence had brought him a sense of calm that he couldn’t find anywhere else. Hoping to have a peaceful sleep tonight as well, he had come there.

From the moment he had woken up, he had been running from one place to another, not even having time to eat. By now, exhaustion crept into his bones. His eyes grew heavy, and he dropped his head onto the edge of the bed, he closed his eyes. Slowly, his tension eased, and sleep began to take over.

But tonight was different. Sleep didn’t offer the comfort Dylan had hoped for. Chaotic images flooded his mind—Gianna’s sorrowful face, Ava’s desperate cries, and the twisted expressions of those women. The surveillance footage of the women torturing Ava kept playing in loops.

Through the fog of the dream, Ava’s voice pierced through. ‘You killed me! I hate you, Dylan!’ Ava’s cries, her accusatory glares, and her blood-stained face all came flashing back, haunting him.

He wanted to wake up, to rip himself free from the nightmares gripping him, but the twisted dreamworld held him tight, dragging him further into the darkness.

Suddenly, Dylan found himself crawling across the cold, hard floor of a dimly lit room. His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, his hand clutching his chest where a sharp pain throbbed.

‘Why? Why did you do this to me?’ Dylan gasped, looking up at a shadowy figure standing before him.

The figure turned slowly toward him and then came the sound of menacing, dangerous laughter, making his skin crawl. He tried to focus on her face, desperate to recognize who it was. But the face was blank, featureless—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. It was the same terrifying vision that had haunted him before.

‘Who are you?’ he shouted desperately, but the figure only continued to laugh, the sound growing more sinister. The pain in his chest intensified, spreading like fire. He gasped, struggling to breathe.

Then the laughter stopped. The faceless woman squatted down beside him, her icy fingers gripping his jaw with a force that made him wince. ‘Soon, you will die just like Thomas died.’

Dylan struggled violently for air, his pulse pounding as if his heart was about to burst. His chest felt like it was being crushed, tightening with each failed attempt to inhale. It was as if someone was choking him.

His body trembled uncontrollably, wracked by spasms, and he collapsed on the cold floor, fighting desperately for each breath. He felt his life slipping away, the edges of his vision darkening.

As his strength ebbed and everything blurred into the abyss, one name escaped his lips, ‘Ava!’

His body convulsed as he tried one last time to draw breath. But soon, the darkness engulfed him entirely, dragging him into its depths.

With a sharp, gasping breath, Dylan jolted awake. His whole body was drenched in sweat, his heart still racing as if he had just returned from the brink of death. He sat up abruptly, his chest heaving with quick, shallow breaths. The suffocating pain in his chest lingered.

‘What just happened?’ He scrambled for explanations. The nightmare clung to him, too vivid, too real. He had the unnerving sensation that he had truly died and then came back again to the world.

But his logical mind warred with the absurdity of the thought. ‘Dead people don’t come back,’ he told himself, trying to calm his racing heart.

Was it some sort of hallucination? He couldn’t think straight; confusion clouded his thoughts. What would he name it? Time travel? Rebirth?

It was impossible.

Dylan thought he had lost his mind. Yet, his rapid heartbeat and the throbbing pain in his chest screamed a different reality – too real to ignore.

Fearing he might disturb Ava, he quietly left the room. A wave of dizziness overtook him, and his vision swirled into darkness.

He staggered, his legs giving out beneath him. Before he could brace himself, his body crumpled to the floor. The last thing he felt was the cold, hard surface before everything went black, and he lost consciousness.

When Dylan finally regained consciousness, it was already the next morning. He found himself on a hospital bed, Justin sitting in the chair beside him. He blinked a few times, disoriented, his head heavy and throbbing.

“What time is it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“7 am,” Justin replied. “You scared me to death. You were fine, and then you lost consciousness. What happened to you all of a sudden?”

Dylan let out a long sigh, rubbing his temples as the confusion from the night before clung to him like a fog. The surreal nightmare, the suffocating pain, and the haunting feeling of death still gnawed at him. But what baffled him the most was the bizarre thought that had wormed its way into his mind.

“Is it possible for someone to go back in time after they die?” he asked, still in a daze.