RILEY
MACHINES WAILED NEAR THE STRETCHER as I jerked up from sleep, breath clogged in my throat. The narrow room lined with the curtain seemed to shrink. My hands shot out to grip the latches, and I only heard an obscure retch emanating from my mouth. The covers were too warm. Sweat gathered in my back and slicked down my skin, a brutal sting in my middle as I moved. I started coughing until my stomach cramped and I hunched over.
"Are you okay?" an elderly voice called from a neighbouring slot.
I couldn't speak, try as I might. I coughed over and over to clear my throat, but it got worse with each fit, growing hoarse and thick. Something nasty and sour was bubbling inside my body. I fumbled to clutch my chest when a rasp peeled from my lungs.
The person on the other side grumbled out a concern, and in a split second, three nurses blitzed into the room with their noisy trampling.
"Why is everyone pressing their buttons?" A woman asked urgently, but I couldn't see through the curtain.
Right then, a warm liquid spilled out of my mouth and onto the blue dress, pouring over the matching sheets. My insides contracted until it felt like a fist was wrenching my organs. This was it. I was dying.
They found me curled on myself, gasping for air and vomiting rivers of blood. My eyes were swollen with tears of fear and panic, both overwhelming through their chilling folds. Nurses flitted around the bed, one jumping to the monitor while two others took my sides. A woman flung a small cabinet door open and pushed a metal basin on my lap for me to gag into.
"Riley? Riley, can you talk?"
I gave my head a desperate shake, heaving.
Veins on my hands and wrists had darkened at some point, and I could see them clear against my white-washed complexion, inky like spidery clefts or gnawed roots. The blood turned into a rosy spit as my stomach calmed down. The staff was gazing at me, almost expecting me to relate what just happened but I had no idea. I was shivering, legs tucked around the basin even though my stitches were burning.
The door banged open again and the curtain dragged aside, letting Luc inside. He stopped in his tracks, eyes trailing over the gory mess. It had dripped down my chin and vest, spilled over my thighs and pooled inside the bowl. I drew in a juddering breath, heart thumping into overdrive.
All color drained from his face.
I stared at myself as the nurses checked the veins on my arms and my wound, and a disgusted sound crawled out of me. I felt powerless when the third one began to swap the sheet hastily, like for a child. Luc rounded the gurney and leaned over the headboard, livid. I wished the nurses would tell him to go away and spare me some dignity, but they didn't seem to care. They were too busy noting everything down, detailing the color of what I threw up and such.
I wanted to explode into sobs crouched over the basin. Luc didn't utter a word, looking completely at a loss. His fingers found their way between my shoulders blades and quietly rubbed my spine. Never in my life had I wanted him to close his eyes more than now. I shuddered, thinking something went wrong in the surgery and that my end was coming.
When the nurses were gone, even Delphine as she stayed last, Luc snatched a clean cloth from the nightstand. He got up to soak it in the bathroom sink and returned.
"You have stains all over your face."
I tilted my head away as he approached the cloth and sniveled. He lowered the fabric, peeved.

YOU ARE READING
The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)
Science FictionBook #3 Lauren is back, and the small town of Oakwood reels into a near-psychosis. In the dead of a harsh winter, mutants struggle to come to terms with reality; NIO is always watching, closing in slowly but surely. A sentence is pending over Riley...