0:30:32
\“It’s open, Aubrey.” Andy says as he puts the slightly bloody scalpel in his pocket, “You’re free to operate.”
“This fucking hurts.” Deyanira stated as she looked down the where Andy had opened up her wrist so that Aubrey could try detonating the bomb by cutting veins as if they were cords, “Please do this quickly, Aubrey, I want my skin to be closed back up as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll try to do it as quickly as I can but I can’t promise that this will be a quick process.” Aubrey said as she pulled the tiny scissors out of her pocket and took Deyanira’s hand, “Please stay calm for this—I don’t want to make any mistakes.”
“I know you don’t want to make any mistakes—if you make any mistakes we’ll all die. And I’d probably die first of blood loss.”
Aubrey shivered at the thought. She had always been slightly queasy when it came to blood, but she always found a way to deal with it. Especially now when the entire world was at stake. Aubrey knew more about operations like this than her brother did—she had the photographic memory to thank for that—but Andy hadn’t remembered everything because his memory was only semi-photographic.
Aubrey took a deep breath and slightly squeezed Deyanira’s hand, “I’ll do my best.”
“Good luck, Aubrey.” Deyanira said.
“I know you can do it, Aubrey,” Andy said as her gripped Lieta’s hand, “You’ve practiced doing this—I know you can do it for real.”
“Stay calm, Aubrey,” Lieta added, “I know you can do it if you just stay calm.”
“Thanks guys,” Aubrey said, “Now don’t worry—I can do this.”
Deyanira squeezed Aubrey’s hand and smiled at her. Deyanira knew that Aubrey could do this—she just needed to make sure that the pain didn’t make her flip out. She didn’t think she would be able to do that.
Aubrey held up the scissors and scanned over all the veins. She chose a thin, lonely one and slowly moved the scissors over by them and carefully clipped the vein.
As soon as the vein split, Deyanira tensed up and took in a sharp breath.
“I can’t do this!” Deyanira screamed, “The pain is unbearable!”
Lieta quickly moved out of Andy’s grip on her and began to sing a calming chant in Latin. Deyanira looked up at her with wet eyes and took a few deep breaths as Lieta neared her.
Lieta quickly raised energy in her hands and touched Deyanira’s arm and her head. Deyanira gently closed her eyes and her breathing steadied.
“Thanks, Lieta.” Aubrey whispered. Lieta smiled and continued to sing the calming chant.
It’s all on me again. Aubrey thought as she looked back at Deyanira’s wrist. She looked over the veins once again and did her best to find the right vein. She glanced up at the numbers on Deyanira’s arm. 0:18:25. There’s not much time left and Aubrey knew that she needed to hurry. She took a deep breath and reached for a vein that was twice the size of the last one she cut. She positioned the scissors around the vein and slowly closed them. Deyanira tensed up again. Aubrey looked up at the numbers to see that that vein skipped ten minutes in the timer.
It now read 0:07:47.
Aubrey gulped and hoped that that was supposed to happen. She then spotted the last vein that needed to be clipped. She took a deep breath and slowly moved her scissors over by the vein. She wrapped her scissors around it and carefully clipped it.
Aubrey looked up at the timer.
It had completely stopped.
It read 0:01:12.
As Andy came over and everyone looked at the numbers, the numbers faded off of Deyanira’s skin. All Aubrey could do is smile. She did it.
“Now I know that you’re all ready to celebrate,” Andy said and everyone looked at him, “But before we celebrate I think I should stitch Deyanira up.
ͼΘͽ
“Mom!” Deyanira exclaimed as she ran in the front door of her house with Andy, Lieta and Aubrey trailing behind her, “We did it!”
Deyanira’s mom came down the stairs, “You did it?”
“Yes!” Deyanira ran up to her mom and hugged her, “The bomb has been detonated!”
“That’s great, sweetie!”
“Oh, and by the way, Deyanira,” Lieta said as Deyanira let go of her mom, “Happy birthday! How will we start this year?”
YOU ARE READING
Timebomb Tattoo
Short StoryBefore I even give a description I need to say one thing: This story is something I wrote to give all my friends as a Christmas present, but I didn't do what most people would. What I did was I wrote each friend a different ending. There are 21 diff...
