Aaron Mahnke

She claimed that they were calling out to her, saying her name over and over.

Her parents, chalking it up to the overactive imagination of a child, largely ignored her.

Then, on the night of July 5th, Laurence had a small seizure that left her in an odd state.

She was still conscious, but stayed mysteriously rigid for nearly five hours.

When she finally did snap out of whatever trance she seemed to have been in, she told her parents that she felt rather strange.

Of course she did, they said.

She'd had a seizure, after all.

The following day, Laurence had a second seizure and entered into that awake yet stiff state once more.

This time, though, she spoke.

Her parents sat beside her bed and listened as she told them what she could see.

But even though her eyes were open, she didn't describe the bedroom to them.

She described heaven.

Specifically, she described seeing her two siblings, her sister Laura and her brother Bertie, both of whom had passed away young.

In fact, Laurence had only been three when her brother had died, and the family rarely talked about those obviously painful memories, which made her description even more unusual.

All through the summer and well into November, Laurence continued to have these trances.

Each time, she would describe another world, the world beyond the veil of reality.

Beyond that curtain that separates life and death, there were angels, spirits, heaven, and all of the details she attached to it.

It seemed surreal.

And then, on November 27th, things, well, they took a turn at weird and cruised down Crazy Street, if you know what I mean.

The seizure she had that night was extremely violent.