#SaturdayScenes: No. 14

For #SaturdayScenes this week, I bring you a piece of flash fiction I wrote a few weeks ago for an informal contest over on the the Writer's Discussion Group community on G+. +Amy Knepper posts these challenges and I always enjoy them. Hope you enjoy mine!

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Em Wakes Up

It was a miracle. As Michael watched, the flatline monitor began to blip. Once. Had he imagined it? No! There it was again. A blip, and another. He ran to the hospital door, his face still wet with tears. “Nurse!”

No one came. He ran back into the room and punched the call button about fifteen times. An annoyed woman’s voice came on. “Yes?”

“She’s alive!”

“What?”

“Her machine. It’s blipping. She’s alive!” He dropped the device on the bed, and grabbed Emily’s hand. It was cold and unmoving, as was her face. But the monitor continued to beep steadily, picking up speed bit by bit.

“Em? Can you hear me? Em?”

The hand in his twitched, then gripped his fingers. Michael gasped. He wasn’t imagining this. She was definitely beginning to move. Em’s grip tightened and tightened again. It was incredibly strong. Painful. Michael tried to pull his fingers away and found that he couldn’t.

“Em? Em, honey? That hurts. Em? Can you hear me?”

Emily didn’t open her eyes, but Michael could see the quick movements beneath suggesting that she was conscious or dreaming intensely. He suppressed a yelp of pain as she continued to squeeze his hand. “Help!” He yelled toward the hallway. Fumbling for the remote he pressed the call button again, but no one answered this time. He yelled into it anyway. “Somebody help! She’s breaking my fingers!”

Em let go of his hand. Michael jumped back from the bed, pulling his injured fingers against his chest, afraid to move them and find out the full extent of the damage. In one fluid movement, Emily sat straight up in the bed. She turned her head towards Michael. The movement was impossibly fast, not at all like someone who had just been unconscious and presumed dead. She moved like some kind of tiger.

The stare she turned on Michael froze something deep within him. The eyes were cold and seemed to look through him rather than at him. There was no recognition in them. Michael looked behind him quickly, praying someone had come. Someone who could help. Instead, he saw only the closed hospital door. He was sure he’d left it open.

He turned back and Em was standing right in front of him, near enough to kiss him, if she chose. He hadn’t hear her leave the bed or cross the floor. “Em?” he said one last time, his voice soft and pleading.

The woman in front of him cocked her head to one side, then smiled, revealing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Michael didn’t even have time to run before she was upon him. 

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If you would like to check out more scenes by some really great writers, you should search under the hashtag #Saturdayscenes. The movement is the brainchild of +John Ward , who suggested that writers should share their work each Saturday.

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My other #SaturdayScenes contributions:

Week One: Elopement Day from WIP, Cold Spring

Week Two: Linda Makes a First Impression from WIP, Her Father's Daughter, sequel to Going Through the Change

Week Three: Claiming Alex, from unpublished novel His Other Mother

Week Four: Things Get Hairy for Linda, from unpublished novel Going Through the Change

Week Five: a poem: A Clear Day in Kodiak, Alaska

Week Six: a snippet from an idea barely begun, Lacrosse Zombies

Week Seven: Mathilde's Visit, from WIP, Cold Spring
Week Eight: Sherry bakes, from His Other Mother
Week Nine: I Said So, Didn't I? (a scene in dialogue)
Week Ten: Losing Faith (a poem)
Week Eleven: Shop Girl, from WIP, Cold Spring
Week Twelve: Mary Braeburn, from WIP, Her Father's Daughter
Week Thirteen: Patricia is Kidnapped, from WIP, Her Father's Daughter