30 short stories

Day 1- Heartbeat

30 day writing prompt challenge

Day 1
Word- Heartbeat

    The noise started a year ago. I woke up one Sunday morning to a steady thumping noise resonating in my ears. I thought it was some noise coming from my apartment, but upon leaving for work I realized this was false. The noise stayed playing a steady beat as I went about my work in the ER. As I carried on from patient to patient the thumping continued playing its rhythm.

     I asked my coworker if she was hearing what I heard, to which I was met with a confused expression. With this knowledge that I was the only one hearing it, I came to the conclusion that it was some form of an auditory hallucination.

     I finished my day in hopes the hallucination would go away. However by the time my shift ended and I had returned home the thumping had only grown faster. I was mentally exhausted. The noise was driving me insane to the point where I even began questioning my sanity. I decided that a run would do myself good.

   Sneakers tied and a hoodie, pulled on to combat the cold, I ran. Breathing in the cold air and letting out puffs of fog I ran and ran. The noise in my ears blended with the sound of my racing heart matching to play a symphony of life. An idea dawned on me as I slowed from a run...to a jog...a walk...and then still. Yet while I wasn't in motion anymore the beating in both my chest and my ears continued.

       It was not a hallucination, I wasn't going insane. I was hearing my own heartbeat. This morphed from a mental problem to a physical one. It wasn't a hallucination, it was pulsatile tinnitus. During my time at the ER I had encountered several patients inflicted with it. Yet this still didn't make much sense. I had no history of high blood pressure or any sort of blood vessel disorders.

       In the week that followed I had my ears and hearing tested. I passed both with flying colors and no obstructions were sighted in the carotid arteries. I was recommended to wait it out, which I did.

       One month passed. The heartbeat never left. I wasn't sure at this time if I had grown numb to it or if I had become too exhausted to care.

       By the second month I had began to notice some things. I didn't think it was my heartbeat anymore. The noise in my ears would occasionally grow more rapid at night. Sometimes it would beat slowly when my actual heartbeat was racing. It felt like it had a life of its own.

     The third month into having this second heartbeat, I met a girl. A veterinarian with golden hair that could rival the sun and a smile that lite up the room. Every moment I spent with her made the annoyance of the beating fade to the background.

     In the first month of dating the girl we had our first night of passion. In the heat of the moment my heart raced as did the noise that perpetrated my ear drums. I had never felt happier.

      In the third month of our relationship, I met her parents. They seemed thrilled that she was marrying a doctor. 

     During our fifth month together I had gotten her a promise ring and told her that I loved her. My heat beat stilled as I asked, while the noise in my ear beat rapidly. My compassionate confession was returned.

     We got into our first major fight in our sixth month. We fought about how we didn't spend enough time together, that I was too busy working. My heart was beating fast due to anger, while the beating in my ears sang a somber tone. This issue was resolved within a week.

    I got the balls to ask for her hand in marriage during month eight. She said yes.

    Month nine of my relationship and almost a year with the mysterious noise and I was happy. In three months I was to tie the knot with my fiancee. Nothing else mattered to me; not my stressful job or the numb beating in my ears. All that mattered was that I was going to marry my little ray of sunshine.

    The evening on this particular day was cold and work was as stressful as ever. I was on my way home where my fiancee was waiting to go over our invitation list for the wedding. Strangely, the beating in my ears seemed to start growing fainter and slower. Was it finally going to go away?

    While I should have been beaming with joy at the thought of finally knowing silence once more, I instead felt uneasy. Paranoia caused me to press the gas pedal down harder.
   
     Time seemed as slow like the beating in my ears as I pulled into my driveway. The door was ajar.

     I scrambled to undo my seatbelt as I got out of my car and stumbled to the doorway. The lights were on.

     A path of crimson lead me to my kitchen where my fiancee laid in a pool of blood. I standard kitchen knife protruded from her upper right chest, the place where her heart was. Her once golden locks were now stained scarlet.

     I grabbed a towel from a nearby hook and got to my knees next to her side. I left the knife in, as it was blocking some of the bleeding, and pressed the towel around it to give pressure to the wound. In between all of this I had somehow managed to dial 911.

    As the seconds dragged by her breathing became more rapid as did the beating in my ears. In fact, the noise in my ears had become louder than ever.

    Her hand reached up and wiped a tear from my cheek and in a faint whisper she said, "I love you Alec."

    Her hand fell from my face and the blood continued to gush out. The once rapid beating in my ears began to grow slower and slower. Thump...thump.......thump.

    She looked at me for what felt like an eternity until eventually her eyes fluttered shut. The moment her eyes closed the noise, that had plagued me for a year, had disappeared. All I heard now was silence.

    I later found out that she was killed by an angry ex-boyfriend whom she had an ugly breakup with two years prior.

Who would have thought that my second heartbeat had belonged to the love of my life.