Last Line Blogfest

This is the end of the first chapter of my YA sci-fi novel, Embrol. You can read the beginning of this chapter here. Check out the other Last Line Blogfest posts here.

Just a little setup. The MC, Olivia, and her mother have just been in a car accident that flipped their car. Olivia’s feeling a little disoriented for some reason. ;) And I’ve been told by a couple of betas that this scene is a little graphic, so you have been warned. Enjoy!

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“Mom?” Was that shrill voice mine?

She didn’t answer. Her upturned hand lay in front of my face amid a mass of auburn hair—mine or hers, I couldn’t tell. Blood oozed into the gaps, pooling around her hand. I reached a trembling hand out to hers. My fingers brushed her palm and recoiled, my stomach lurching.

How can she feel so empty? The image of her face as her head struck, flashed in my mind—her eyes, so blue and so vacant.

A whimpering rose within me. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. I clawed at the steering wheel, the frame of the windshield, trying to free myself from the nightmare around me. My legs refused to cooperate, and every movement brought more pain, shooting through my torso and radiating out to my arms and my neck.

“Be calm. Help is on the way.” A woman crouched in front of the windshield and patted my hand. I jerked it away. That was how Mom’s hand should’ve felt—warm, pulsing with life. Tears formed in the woman’s eyes before she stood and walked away. She spoke to someone in a low voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. Clouds crowded my vision, dark shadows creeping into the corners. Sound came in spurts. Sirens, soft in the distance, then nothing—they blared closer, then nothing. An invisible weight pressed down on my chest.

Something warm brushed my hand, pulling my eyes open.

The face of a beautiful, blue-eyed angel hovered before me, the jagged edges of the windshield creating a halo around his golden curls. I opened my mouth to ask who he was, but my subconscious whispered I already knew the answer. If I could just remember…

“Olivia,” he said, his deep voice soft and comforting. The chaos around us faded away, as if only the two of us existed. My eyes slid closed, and for a moment, I was there beside him, examining the wreckage. I saw myself, my head pinned between the seat and the roof of the car, blood trickling a grisly mask over my face, my body bent in places it wasn’t meant to bend. Mom hung next to me, her petite frame held upside down by her seatbelt. Her body was clean, no blood except for the puddle around her hand. Her head rested against the roof, twisted at an unnatural angle, her eyes open, staring.

Pain shot through my chest, yanking me back to my body as a scream—my scream—shredded my eardrums. Piercing agony worked its way into every cell, throbbing with each beat of my heart. The clouds thickened, blanketing my vision, and I hovered somewhere between the light and the dark. The thread holding me there, the one I clung to so desperately, slipped in my grasp. I could think of nothing but the pain, and how it would all disappear if I could only let go.

“Olivia,” the angel whispered. Warmth flowed into me from his fingertips against my cheek. “Come back to me.”

He pulled his hand away, and the world turned black.

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Thanks for reading! :)