By: Katheryn B. (OneYeshua888) + 2 more
Date Submitted: 12/26/2009
Last Updated: 12/28/2009
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Words: 987
Rating:

Beginnings

Prelude.

Over.
The one word screamed through my head, followed by the sentence: It was all over. I was going to die here. Alone.
My head swam and I looked down my body at the monster standing there. No, not quite alone. A tear slid out of my eye. But I'd prefer alone to...this.
The monster shambled towards me. I scooted myself farther back and kicked my good leg. My right foot connected weakly with its left knee.
It kept walking as if nothing had happened. “No!” I shouted in vain. “Stop!” I turned myself over onto my stomach and desperately tried to gather both my feet under me so I could run...to no avail.
My ankle could not support my weight and I tumble to the ground again, this time banging my head on the wall.
I blinked a few times.
This waiting room would become my grave, I realized.
A strange sense of peace overcame me as I acknowledged the fact that my death was imminent, inevitable.
We all die eventually—some of us just quicker than others. It was idiotic to avoid it. I actually smirked. I sounded religious or something.
I closed my eyes as I felt the monster grab the back of my throat...

Chapter 1.

Eighteen hours earlier.

I don't really get emergency rooms.
If you walk into the emergency room and tell them you have an emergency, they write your name down on a nice little clipboard and ask you to have a seat.
You turn around and find yourself looking over a sea of repulsively repugnant people with all sorts of injuries.
So you sit down next to some smelly fat guy who claims he has MRSA, gangrene, or something equally unpleasant and wait your turn.
Sometimes—most of the time—it takes about five hours for them to get around to you. By that time you could either be dead, maimed, or paralyzed from the waist down.
Doesn't this defeat the purpose of an emergency room?
I mean, I have an emergency! I need help right now! I shouldn't have to wait hours on end for the help I need!
Like I said, I don't really get emergency rooms.
So when I walked into the emergency room with my feeble grandmother, a little feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach.
I wasn't the one who needed the emergency room—it was my sick grandmother. My grandma is the only living relative I, Tony Fallon, seventeen year-old misfit, have. I'm lucky if she remembers my name on any given morning.
Back in our teensy-tiny apartment, she'd told me she was having a hard time breathing, Johny. That was what she said, “I'm having a hard time breathing, Johny.”
I'd sighed and told her I wasn't Johny. She'd given me a puzzled sort of look as I guided her towards the door and said between hacking coughs, “Why, of course you are! You told me at the dance last night that you were Johny!”
I rushed her to our little dinged up 1992 Toyota Camry and drove to the emergency room...and here we were.
I glanced at the fat guy sitting next to me and tried to hold my breath. He smelled like crap, sweat, urine, and garbage all rolled into one.
He glanced at me and gestured to his split forearm. “Fell into a dumpster from my fire-escape. Cut myself on some glass.”
“Big piece of glass,” I blew out before turning away to take a relatively fresh breath of air. I didn't care if it offended him—he must be an idiot if he didn't already know he smelled bad.
“You have no idea,” the man muttered.
I glanced at my Nan. She seemed alright now, but I still wanted a doctor to take a look at her. I refused to think about what would happen if she died. I wouldn't be able to give the poor woman a proper funeral. I'd miss her beyond belief—I already did. I missed the old Nan. Then one who actually remembered my name.
I know her death was inevitable. I hardly ever thought about it—I locked that thought away in my head behind a brick wall. But she was all of eighty-eight years-old.
I knew my Nan had lost it years ago. She didn't even remember my name most of the time. It made me sad, made me cry sometimes in my private moments. But there was nothing I could do. She was a shell of her former self that I refused to let go for anything.
The emergency room doors slid open and a raving maniac lunged through. He was sputtering foam. I leaned back in my seat and gasped. Tears came to my eyes—only because I got a big whiff of the goon next to me.
“Rabies!” Someone cried. It was a nurse. She rushed over to the man's side and helped him to a wheelchair. She pushed him down a hall, two doctors rushing towards him.
“Really?” I growled. I did have sympathy for the guy, really I did, but I couldn't help but feel slightly miffed that he got to go in before my Nan.
So I care about the people I love—sue me.
The guy next to me passed his gas, adding another repulsive smell to his already varied ones.
I think my face turned green.
I leaned closer to my Nan, hoping to get a big whiff of her perfume. She noticed me and leaned closer. She whispered gravely, “Johny, we'd better hurry.”
Concern crept up in me, I looked her over more closely. “Is it hard to breath again?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No! We're going to be late for the wedding, Johny! It's going to start without us!”
I sighed. Sometimes I wish I had a sibling. While I was wishing, I may as well ask for my parents and fifty-million dollars.

(Yes, this IS going somewhere.)

The Eclectic Pen - Beginnings.

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