r/Writingprompts

Written September 13, 2019

[WP] You look at the Doctor and nervously ask, "Why is my hand shaking?" He smiles and responds "Your skeleton is ready to hatch."

I wanted a new life. I wanted to be reborn. I wanted to escape from it all. I remember that it's how I felt all my life, even before I blacked out.

I don't remember the immediate events leading up to it, but when I came to, I found myself on a stretcher being rushed somewhere. Blinding white lights periodically passed by overhead and my chest felt like it would explode with each breath I took. I looked to my side; doctors. I looked around; my parents were missing. Thank god.

They rushed me to a room with surgical lights and instruments. Was I going to get operated on? What happened? As I blinked in and out of consciousness I overheard soft voices, muffled by masks.

"Multiple lacerations, possible internal bleeding. Jeez what the hell happened?"

"Family issues, or so I heard."

The voices became jumbled, the lights became dark, I slowly faded into the depths of my consciousness.

I woke up in a daze, but even in my haze I could see them standing around me, smiling.

"Doc wha-what happened, am I okay?" I tried lifting my hand but it didn't budge

"Everything's going to be alright Mr. Kafka, just take it easy alright?" My hand trembled violently, but I couldn't feel it move.

"Doc my hand, my, my hand, what's happening to my hand" I slurred.

"Mr. Kafka, take it easy... Your skeleton is ready to hatch."

The fog in my mind had been cleared in an instant and my adrenaline flared.

"Doc what the hell is that supposed to me—" An excruciating pain pierced my hand and halted my speech. It encompassed my arms, my shoulders, my chest, my neck, my head, my torso, my legs and my very being. My very being, felt like it was being ripped from existence. A pain beyond comprehension. I couldn't see; it was blinding white. I could feel nothing but a dreadful lightness. I heard nothing but a shrill whistle.

The pain subsided. My vision restored. My sense of touch returned. My hearing relieved. I was invigorated with energy I had never known before, with a liveliness that I never had. I sat upright, confused, in something damp and sticky. It was blood. I stared at it in a haze. I looked around: I sat in a husk of myself, a coat of skin with a padding of muscle and fat, like a snake shedding its skin; like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. I looked at my hand, stained and sticky with blood and I looked up into a mirror to see someone else looking back at me. No, it wasn't someone else, it was me. I had become someone else. I was not Kafka anymore. A new face, a new opportunity, a new beginning, a new life, rebirth. A smile crept into my face as the doctors clapped.

"Congratulations on your metamorphosis Mr. Kafka, we wish you all the best with your life starting from now." I barely heard their wishes in the midst of my excitement.

I exited the operating room and walked past my parents with a grin.