It was almost midnight. The kind nurse was going to finish her shift soon but decided to check on Alice and her daughter before she left. An odd nervousness came over her as she approached the door of Alice's hospital room. Entering, she found the endearing yet sad sight of a daughter sleeping next to her mother's hospital bed.
For a moment it was almost peaceful, but the nurse was quickly snapped out of that dream when Alice opened her eyes the slightest bit, barely managed to place her hand on top of her daughter's head and looked at the nurse with an expression that clearly said "thank you". By all means it should be impossible for Alice to be conscious, much less moving, so it took the nurse a few seconds of stupor before she realized what she had to do. But it was too late. With the last of her strength, Alice smiled at the nurse, then at her daughter, and finally took a slow deep breath before letting out what was left of her life force.
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It was just three seconds...
One, the ear piercing beep from the heart monitor replaced the room's once silent ambience.
Two, the sound entered her ear and she didn't even have time to properly wake up as her body had shot up in shock, knowing what was happening.
Three, dread, confusion, shock, a whirlpool of emotions flew in and out her mind.
The feeling was so clouding she didn't have time to properly process the doctors rushing in, the kind nurse trying to comfort her, or the doctor noting time of death. By the time she came to, she was already walking home carried by a robotic instinct to continue that soul sucking routine.
It was past midnight at this point, the street was empty of life or sound and even the lights seemed dimmer than usual. The eerie calmness was comforting to her since it made it easier to think of all that had happened in the past few hours.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It was an odd feeling to say the least. There should have been so many emotions rushing through her. She should be crying, screaming, writhing in the many pains she should be feeling. The grief from loosing her mother, the sense of betrayal from not getting the wait she felt she was owed, the anger from not having been able to do anything, the frustration from having wasted so much of her life in vain. Any of these would be understandable and even expected, but instead she felt nothing. Somewhere along the burst of emotion, panic and confusion at the hospital everything stopped flowing. All that came out was simple acknowledgement. Unable to do much about it, she just accepted it and continued walking with a somber expression.
She didn't get that far though, as her depressing walk was interrupted by what she could only assume was a gun at her back.
"Don't scream or I shoot, got it?"
"..."
She just nodded, understanding her situation.
"Good to know you're a smart girl. Now take a right here, will ya."
They walked around a corner to an alleyway where she could only assume she'd be raped and killed, not to mention beaten profusely somewhere in between. In those few steps her mind wondered emotionlessly.
'It'd be safer to just do nothing, after all, he might let me live if that's the case. I mean, I haven't even seen his face so maybe... maybe I could say something to convince him otherwise. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will come by.'
In between the maybes and the what ifs, the memories of what she's done with her life so far, how she's lived, how much it was worth, it all flashed past her. How she never got to do what she wanted and instead lived life "safely" to not risk making things worse.
"Why don't you turn around for me. If you cooperate, I promise to make this qui-"
*Crack*
*Krick~slide*
With a swift step and turn she managed to hit the gun out of the man's hand. In that one moment, all rational thought was thrown out of her mind. Instead what was left was a raw , instinctive, animalistic rage and desire to kill this bastard for making her day that much worse.