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Her heart beat. Her lungs expanded. Blood rushed through her veins.
I am alive.
What a wonderful sensation when she fully expected to be dead. Thank you for modern medicine. God only knows how long her recovery would be, but recovery was better than a dirt nap.
Eyes heavy, it took every bit of energy to pry open her lids. The fluorescent lights blinded her, and she snapped them closed and groaned. She brought her arm up and covered her face against the glare. Only then did she crack her eyes open to find she wasn’t alone.
Not unusual when you’re on a stretcher in the ER to find three lab coats staring at you with their mouths open. A senior attending physician, the head of the ER, and a resident. Confusion and surprise on a doctor’s face wasn’t abnormal. The human body was complicated. However, horror mixed with fascination was not a combination she’d ever seen.
Her arm dropped to her side, and her gaze dropped to her body. A limb missing. A gaping hole where her organs should be. That’s what she expected and didn’t get.
Two legs. Two arms. And though a sheet covered her, her organs were in place. She didn’t need to see them, just knew that they were. That meant the doctors had found something else, something horrifying that took three of them to tell her. Cancer? An aneurysm, aortic dissection, something inoperable. Something terminal.
“What!” she demanded, prepared for the worst. “Just spit it out and tell me what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing,” spat the resident. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”
Then why were they looking at her like she was death incarnate? Or something else. Needing proof of the resident’s statement, Eden whipped back her covers. A hospital gown covered her. He hadn’t lied.
Yet, something was wrong.
Not modest, she pulled up her gown. No stitches, no bandages, no scars! Nothing. Just smooth, unblemished skin. But claws had pierced her sides, her arm, her shoulder. She’d bled. Copious amounts. She should be dead. Yet... “How did you do this?”
“Do what?” the resident said.
She pulled the gown down, covering her nakedness, and sat up. “Heal me,” she snapped.
“We didn’t,” Dr. Navel, the head of the ER stepped forward.
“Huh?” That made no sense. “An ambulance brought me —”
“You appeared on a stretcher in the hallway, bleeding all over the floor. No one knew how you got there. As Dr. Lian”— Dr. Navel tipped his head to the resident — “and I assessed your condition and pronounced you dead.” He dragged a trembling hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “But, you weren’t dead. You healed. Miraculously.”
What? They had to be joking. The look on their faces said definitely not. There wasn’t a shared joke between the three of them. “How?”
“You tell us,” Dr. Navel said.
“I-I don’t know.”
“You have to know!” Dr. Navel shouted. The senior attending physician grabbed his arm, only to be shoved away. “We pronounced you dead. One fifteen. Time of death. Ten minutes later, the EKG starts beeping and the nurse is screaming for a doctor.”
“Died at one fifteen and alive at one twenty-five,” the resident said.
Eden searched her memory and came up with nothing. “I-I don’t remember any of that.” She understood the concern on their faces but didn’t like the pity mixed with fear and excitement. “What time is it now?”
“Two fifty-five. in the morning.”
“So, I returned to the living and then passed out for ninety minutes?” Were they telling her the truth?
“Yeah. What do you remember?” the resident asked.
“I remember leaving work. I work here,” she said and watched them nod. “I remember walking to the parking lot and... pain. Fighting for my life and...” The rest was a big blank spot.
A nurse entered the room. “They’re ready for her in MRI.” And waited.
Eden’s gaze shifted between the doctors. “MRI? If I’m healed, why an MRI?”
“Before you regained consciousness, we were discussing a plan of action.”
