Prank Gone Wrong Chapter 06

Prank Gone Wrong Chapter 06

I woke up in the Memorial Hospital ICU.

Pain hit first. Overwhelming. Suffocating.

Every inch of skin. Every muscle. Every bone. Like I’d been fed through an industrial shredder.

Tubes covered my body. Monitors beeped in mechanical rhythm. IV pumps cycled on schedule. Cold machines kept me tethered to the living world.

My mom was slumped over the bed rail. Her fingers clutched her cross necklace. Her face was streaked with tears.

She looked a decade older. The bakery shifts had already worn her down. Now she was bloodless. Hollow. Her eyes swollen like fruit.

She saw my eyelids flutter. She choked. Her whole body trembled.

“Oh my sweet girl. Maya. You’re awake.”

She tried to hug me. Stopped herself. Terrified of the tubes. She pressed her lips to my fingertips instead.

“Mommy’s here. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

Tears dropped onto the sterile sheets.

I tried to call for her. My throat was full of crushed glass. The breathing tube had scraped my trachea raw. No sound came out. Just a dry rasp.

A nurse heard the monitor alarm and hit the call button.

The attending swept in. Residents trailing behind him.

They read my vitals off their tablets. Cold medical terms. Pronouncements of my fate.

“Seventeen comminuted fractures. Multiple locations.”

“Epidural hematoma. Emergency decompressive craniotomy performed.”

“Severe depression of the zygomatic bone and nasal bridge. Multiple facial reconstruction surgeries required.”

“Splenic rupture. Splenectomy performed.”

The attending was a stern man. He looked at me with something too close to pity.

“Kid. The fact that you’re alive is a miracle.”