Her Name Is Stella

Her name is Stella, and she calls to me.

I started hearing her four years ago after my accident. She never spoke her name, but somehow I was certain she was called Stella; so that's who I thought of her as.

I had been climbing without a harness; one of the greatest thrills imaginable. I died that day. I trained for over a year, and I died. I had almost reached the top of the cliff when I slipped on some loose shale.

Suddenly there was no solid life supporting ground beneath my feet. I was falling. I don't remember hitting the ground, but I do recall the sound of shattering bones upon impact. Then I died.

My name is Gregory Slom, Greg for short. I am twenty-four years old, and a medical miracle. I am also terrified of heights.

The first memory I have of after my accident is the sound of her soothing voice. It reached deep into my coma and pulled me like a rip tide to the surface, towards my conscious life.

I awoke with her heeding calls still ringing in my ears. I don't suppose the doctors expected me to wake, and I'm sure they were truly surprised when I opened my eyes and groaned. I was in the ICU at the time, lying face down on an operating table with a scalpel in my spine. I then felt the icy kiss of a hypodermic syringe, and darkness returned with Stella's voice riding hauntingly atop the waves of sleep.

I don't think I could have made it through the healing process without her. I felt I owed it to her, as though she'd been there all my life, calling my name in her lilting voice. I had to relearn how to walk, and after many weeks in physiotherapy with her gentle coaxing in my ear, I was nearly back to my healthy self.

She never spoke anything other than my name, but it was comforting to know she was there - that she cared. Around this time I began to doubt my sanity, as any sane person would do. As it turned out, Dr. Harper doubted my mental stability as well. After a period of observation I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, and send to a mental institute just off the coast of Ireland.

The island was... green. As the ferry approached the shore I was able to discern a series of jagged bluffs on either side of the landing. Terror raced through my entire body as a bolt of lightning through a glass of water. My already weak knees crumbled under my weight as I relived the past four years of my life at a glance.

"It all happened so fast." I stammered, "I haven't been near a cliff for the past four years, and I just- I didn't expect it to have that effect on me." I finished meekly.

"That's perfectly normal after the trauma you experience; Christ son, that fall killed you! Your heart was stopped for over an hour, it's a miracle you're even here to faint at all!" My psychologist exclaimed. Great two days in and everyone already knew my life's story.

As my papers ordered I was assigned to a room with no windows on the first floor. They claimed this precaution was to keep my vertigo at bay. My suspicions told me they thought I was suicidal and at risk of jumping. Either way I was grateful.

Stella's summons still grew stronger, in spite of the doctor's claims that I was getting better. She began to contact me through dreams. She showed me pictures of ocean spray and high rolling clouds. Though pleasant they still gave me an eerie feeling of being watched. My sleep grew restless as I struggled not to cry out as she showed me the bluffs at the edge of the island.

The reoccurring dream haunted me for over a week.

"Gregory Slom" the shadow presence of Stella called. She then turned into mist shrouding the cliff. I understood she wanted me to follow her, and it was painfully obvious she wouldn't leave me alone until I did.

Many of the other patients either kept to themselves or kept away from me. Word had gotten out that I had died several years before, and those who knew kept a fair distance. Perhaps their medication addled brains concluded that death was contagious; I'm not too certain on that subject myself.

The dreams had changed into strange and exotic sights. Beautiful gardens, bountiful orchards, clean streams, a snake, my name and then the cliff all rotated through my subconscious. Everything- as strange and random as it seemed- was completely familiar and well known to me. I decided it was time to find Stella.

Leaving the institute at night was easier said then done, so I waited until after my session to depart.

It was raining, as per usual, and the clouds hung low over the verdant fields. I zipped up my jacket and bowed my head in order to shield my eyes from the persistent downpour.

"Gregory Slom." Stella's voice urged.

"I'm coming."

"Gregory Slom." She called again.

"I told you already, I'M COMING!" I shouted impatiently into the gloom. After having your name called in your head non stop for four years, you begin to lose patience and get snippy. It's human nature, another few minutes couldn't possibly make a difference.

I approached the edge of the cliff and recoiled. There before me lay my entire dream sequence from a bird's eye view. The mist swirled about the bluffs as the ocean crashed forcefully against the jagged boulders. I shuddered at my next thought. I was going to have to go down there. I despised the idea with every fiver of my being, and several fibers of my clothing. This was to be unpleasant at best.

The slope was treacherous and slick with rain and wild ocean spray. I' not even sure what compelled me to go down there. I think I may have been desperate. Desperate for peace of mind, there's a new one.

Clinging to the slippery face of the cliff I peered through the fog, attempting to distinguish shadow from stone. To my left there came the sound of metal on rock. Shocked to actually discover life on this inhospitable frontier I quickly climbed towards the source of the motion. I had found Stella.

She was nothing more than a skeleton really, with a few scraps of clothing hanging from her narrow frame. She stood on a six inch ledge and her arms were shackled above her head to keep her from falling into the ocean.

I don't know why I approached her. She was terrifying and repulsive, yet I could not keep from creeping towards her along the ledge. My mind screamed for me to stop, to leave, to even jump if that's what it would take to get away from her. Still I drew nearer. It was as if she had a grip on my very soul, and continued to pull it forwards dragging my defeated body along with it.

Six meters away- no movement. Four, two -- no movement. Closer she pulled me. One meter - her head snapped up. She looked up at me, two fading green eyes set deep within her hollowed sockets.

"Gregory Slom." Her mouth remained motionless as the words echoed through my ringing ears.

It came in a flash of understanding. The stream, the snake, and the orchards all seemed so familiar because I was there. I had been there before. I was Adam, and Stella, well, Stella was Eve. It was an amazing sensation, reliving a life in an instant. I looked into her dying eyes and I suddenly knew; this was a continuation of our punishment for the creation of original sin.

We were each to be shackled to the bluff, trading off once every five hundred years. It was impossible to die until the other had come to claim their position upon the smooth face of the bluff.

This realization came seconds too late, before I could protest I was shackled to the bluff and Stella was released. The last I saw of her was the dim glow of her green eyes thanking me as she plummeted to the jagged salt corroded rocks below.

Sometimes, as I hang here, I wonder if things would have been different had I died during my climbing accident. Perhaps I never did wake from my coma, perhaps this is my own personal hell, playing off my fear of heights. I have nothing left but my thoughts and pleas- always calling.

Her name is Stella, and I call to her.