Flash Fiction – The Door

I admit, I cheated a little bit on this. I totally forgot about the prompt and then wondered if I had anything pre-written that I could tweak to make it work. :). I was on vacation last week and managed to start writing something new for the first time in forever. (Damn it, now I’m singing that song from Frozen… LOL)  anywho, I ended up adding a little to it and working the photo prompt into it. I also figure if I share this, then I’ll be more likely to keep working on it. Hold me to it! I actually have another scene written, but it’ll wait. Here we go!

Chapter 1 – The Door

All of the women in my family have a gift.  We’re not psychic in the way that you’d see in a movie or on tv.  We don’t read tarot cards or tell people their futures by reading their palms or talking to mediums.  For us, it all happens in dreams.

Sometimes it’s about someone we know, other times it’s a total stranger.  For each of us, our talent is different. My mother, for instance, can make herself dream about a specific situation to have a question answered, whereas my visions are totally random. The thing about our dreams though, is they always come true.

I can remember growing up and listening to friends talk about their crazy dreams and I would wish that I could be like them.  That mine could be mini movies each night that didn’t have any meaning other than maybe I’d read too many scary books or ate too much spicy food before bed.  But that’s just not how it works work for the Jensen Women.  What we see in our sleep predicts what will happen… good, bad, and ugly.  If there’s nothing to predict, we don’t dream. At least not the normal way.

The first dream I ever had that came true was a simple one.  I dreamt that I was getting a puppy for my birthday and then two days later that exact little ball of happiness was placed in my lap.  Unfortunately not all of the visions ended up being so happy and full of puppy kisses.

Generally our visions come true within a couple of days.  But since I turned thirteen I’ve had the same reoccurring dream over and over again that has yet to come true.  Even the family elders have no experience with a vision like mine that doesn’t come into fruition right away.  For me, it’s been ten years of the same dream.  In other words, I’m the family freak.
My dream is always the same.  All of my visions start with me standing outside of an an old house with a blue door. It’s worn down and looks like something you’d see in a horror movie.  Abandoned.  There’s no grass, just dirt and old dried out rose bushes with branches and thorns that seem to want to snag my clothes.  I’m so used to it though, the scene doesn’t bother me anymore. I just know that when I step through that dirty blue door with the old fashioned mail slot in it, whatever I see will come true.  I walk up to it, take a breath to ready myself and then push it open.

It starts in the middle like someone just pushed the play button on a movie that had been paused.  There’s chaos everywhere like a bomb has gone off or something horrible.  I’m looking around and trying to figure out what’s going on but all I see is people running, crying, screaming… A sob gets stuck in my throat and I realize that I have tears streaming down my face.  I start to lift my hand to wipe my cheeks when I realize that my hands are already busy.  Beneath them is a waded up shirt and I’m holding it to a bleeding wound on a man who is laying on the ground.

Another sob comes as I look down at the man and he struggles to talk.  I shake my head, “Stop it… Don’t talk.  You’re going to be okay.”

His blue eyes stare into my brown ones and he smiles around a grimace of pain.  I don’t know who he is, but I know that the smile he gives me isn’t his truest one.  Somehow I know he’s faking it for me.  His hand moves and covers mine.  I flinch at how cold his skin feels and the words blood loss rush through my head.

I shake my head again, “You’re going to be okay.  Just try not to move.”  I look up and survey what’s going on around us.  Smoke is clearing finally and I can tell where we are.  We’re right outside of the emergency room of Riley Children’s Medical Hospital.  There’s an unnatural hole in the building.  It must have been an explosion.  I look down at the man again whose hand hasn’t left mine.  I realize then that the shirt I’m holding to his wound is a hospital scrub.  “We’re at the hospital…” I say mostly to myself.  “We’re at the hospital… you’re going to be fine.  I just have to find…”  I look around again for someone, anyone, to help.

I start making some sense of things around me.  I’m able to tell who some of the hospital staff are by their scrubs.  Some, like the man I’m with, are hurt too.  Other people are rushing around trying to help those who were clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Some in horribly small bodies.  I see people whose names I should know but I can’t remember anyone’s name.

“We need help!” I finally yell over the complete disorder swirling around us.  “Please!”

A woman, possibly a nurse, who I feel like I should know, pauses momentarily and looks in our direction.  She’s covered in blood but I can tell it’s not hers simply because she’s moving so fast.  She looks from me to the man next to me and a look of defeat and sadness washes over her face.  She mumbles something about the supplies in her hands and before racing away she promises to come back.

I’m still crying, sobbing really, and when I look down to the man he looks like he’s lost a ton of color.  The scrub shirt I’m holding to him has become further saturated with blood.  “You’re going to be…”

He speaks with a trembling voice that I somehow know isn’t his usual tone, “I just want to say thank you.”

“For what?  I don’t understand.  I don’t know what’s going on!”  I’m totally losing it.  I have no idea why we’re at the hospital, why there’s a huge crater in the building, and who this man is that I clearly care for but whose name I can’t recall.  “What happened?”

The chilled skin of his hand brings me back and although I’m still freaking out, I’m focused on him again.  His gorgeous blue eyes that I bet are much prettier in a different setting never leave my face.  “It’s okay, Jensen.”  He knows my last name.  Hearing him call me that instead of my first name feels right for some reason.  I just wish I could remember his.  “You hit your head pretty hard, everything will come back to you in a little bit.  You probably have a concussion.”

It’s then I realize that I do, in fact, have a raging headache.  I don’t care about that though because his hand is getting colder and his skin paler.  I can start to feel his blood seeping through the fabric of the shirt in my hands.  Dread fills my body as I think to myself, He’s going to die.  I frantically search the scene with my eyes trying to find the nurse who ran off.  “Where is she?  She said she’d be back.  I…”  He makes a god awful groaning noise as pain rushes through his body.  I keep my hands pressed to the wound. “What do I do?  I need you to tell me what to do to help you.”

His lips move but I can’t hear him over the disaster all around us.  I lean down so that my face is close to his, “Tell me again…”

He reaches up and his cold hand cups my face.  He pulls me closer and speaks against my cheek, “Thanks for loving me.”

I look into his eyes one more time before they close and his hand drops away from my face.

Then I wake up.

~~~~~

Chapter 2: Burned Heart

🙂

Like? Hate? Let me know in the comments then check out what everyone else came up with this time around.

Kris | Bronwyn | Jess | Paige | Jessica | Kayleigh | Gwen