NaNoWriMo Brainstorms and Stuff

Prologue

When shattering glass hits tile it makes a beautiful tinkling melody, light and ethereal, like distant wind chimes or water washing over pebbles in one of those meditation fountains you can buy at the Just Like On TV store in the mall. I could hear it so clearly, the melody, more real to me than the faraway sounds of car alarms, shouts, and sirens. From where I lay, sprawled on the ground, my head lolling to the side, I could see the glass skittering across the floor in slow motion, catching the rays of sunlight that shone in through the jagged hole partially filled with—what? an SUV?—where a solid glass door had been just moments before. The effect of the light on glass was dazzling. A haphazard prism.

I heard someone calling my name, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the glass. Rainbows of color all around me. So pretty.

“Juliet? Juliet?”

It was a dream. All a dream. Shattered glass, faraway voices, something dark and red slowly seeping out and away… Oh, no. No, no, no.

I remembered.

The reunion newspaper article. An afternoon spent poring through old yearbooks in the school library. The deafening squeal of rubber on asphalt just as I rounded the corner of the deserted school hallway. Flying metal and exploding glass knocking me off my feet. Papers I had spent hours gathering flying every which way. A sudden violent pain searing through my chest. A tidal wave of agony washing over me, before dissipating into a dull, faraway ache wholly unconnected to me. Not me. Not real. Only a dream. I could not be lying in a pool of shattered glass and blood. Blood. My blood?

“I want to wake up now.” Did I say it? Did I think it? I was awake in a dream. That was it. I closed my eyes, shut out the glass, the tile, the rainbow colors, the stuff that wasn’t–couldn’t be!– blood. Wake up, wake up, wake up…

“Juliet? Stay with me. Please, Juliet, stay…”

Someone knelt next to me and swore softly. I felt a hand brush gently against my cheek, wiping away splinters of glass. It stung. Like needles. Like bee stings. The person gasped. I moaned. Suddenly my button-up shirt was ripped open. Mind muddled, I tried to remember if I had picked out a cute bra that morning. But it didn’t matter. Not really. Medical professional. Plus, dreaming. I felt a tug, followed by a fieriness that radiated across my abdomen. Warm hands felt their way across my stomach, coming to rest in exactly the spot that, when pressure was applied, caused shooting pains of white-hot heat to explode in my head, illuminating the insides of my eyelids to a blinding pinkish-white.

I was definitely awake.

I gasped and struggled to move, but quickly realized that the movement only made things worse. Much worse.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the voice whispered. “Pulled out the glass… have to apply pressure, I’m sorry…”

I blinked, groggy, foggy, and could just make out a person, a male person. He had his hands on my belly, and was leaning in to look at my face. He was close, I could feel him, but it was as if I was looking at him from the end of a long, dark tunnel, with the sun illuminating him from behind, obscuring his face in shadows. He smelled faintly of the ocean, and where his hands pressed, I burned.

“It’s not time yet,” the voice whispered, his lips so close to my ear they grazed against it softly. “You have to hang on. Stay here… stay…”

Where am I going to go? I thought to say, but keeping my eyes open was struggle enough. He continued murmuring words of encouragement, but his voice grew softer and was finally drowned out by a wave of darkness roaring towards me. I gazed up at the shadowed face once more, caught a glimpse of dark eyes, wide and panicked, eyebrows raised almost into his hairline, and for a split second I could see myself reflected in his eyes, strands of my dark hair plastered to my bloodied cheeks as I lay pale and still beside him, my body peppered with slivery shards of glass. I wanted to say something like “who are you?” or how I wasn’t ready to die yet, thank you very much, but all that came was a gentle sigh as I let the dark wave wash over me and carry me away.

Two weeks ago I died. So here’s my question: Why did I have to die to finally feel alive?