NaNoWriMo 2012 Novel

Chapter 1 - part 2

Another burst of pain shot from the back of my neck, all the way up to the top of my head. “Holy, crap!” I moaned. “What is happening?”

“Cara! Watch your language!” my mother chastised.

“But, mom…” A blast of pain shot right through my right eyebrow and burst into a fiery ball inside my skull.

“Oh, God, oh God, oh God,” I cried. My body crashed down on the smooth, concrete front porch and my legs curled up towards my chest.

I sensed my mother’s fear as she touched the side of my body. I couldn’t see her anymore. I couldn’t see anything, for that matter. She shook my arm as terror crept into her voice.

“Cara! Cara! What’s going on? What happened? Is it your eyes? Did somebody hurt you? Did you fall? Cara, answer me!”

I opened my mouth to speak but then red-hot fingers dug into the back of my neck and slowly pulled my brain down. Then, without hesitation, the fingers ripped my brain back and forth like a dog playing tug of war with a rope. A flood of tears covered my unseeing eyes and sobs racked my body. The sobs made the pain worse. “My head,” I managed to whisper. “It’s my head. Oh, God, mom. The pain.”

My mother’s fingernails dug deep into my arm as the fingers in my head continued to shake my brain. The sensation of two sets of fingers grabbing at me felt so wrong and yet I was powerless to stop both.

My mother’s hands raced over my body, searching, checking for something. I didn’t know what she could possibly find. The pain wasn’t there. Someone had stuck a knife into my head and was joyfully stabbing it with wild abandon. A hand cradled my head as her fingers ran all over my face and my scalp. “Natalia!” my mother screamed, “Natalia! Call 911. Now! Your sister is dying!”

It felt like I really was dying and I prayed that the ball of pain would just explode so that I could experience the sweet ease of relief.

Another burst of pain shot from the back of my neck, all the way up to the top of my head. “Holy, crap!” I moaned. “What is happening?”

“Cara! Watch your language!” my mother chastised.

“But, mom…” A blast of pain shot right through my right eyebrow and burst into a fiery ball inside my skull.

“Oh, God, oh God, oh God,” I cried. My body crashed down on the smooth, concrete front porch and my legs curled up towards my chest.

I sensed my mother’s fear as she touched the side of my body. I couldn’t see her anymore. I couldn’t see anything, for that matter. She shook my arm as terror crept into her voice.

“Cara! Cara! What’s going on? What happened? Is it your eyes? Did somebody hurt you? Did you fall? Cara, answer me!”

I opened my mouth to speak but then red-hot fingers dug into the back of my neck and slowly pulled my brain down. Then, without hesitation, the fingers ripped my brain back and forth like a dog playing tug of war with a rope. A flood of tears covered my unseeing eyes and sobs racked my body. The sobs made the pain worse. “My head,” I managed to whisper. “It’s my head. Oh, God, mom. The pain.”

My mother’s fingernails dug deep into my arm as the fingers in my head continued to shake my brain. The sensation of two sets of fingers grabbing at me felt so wrong and yet I was powerless to stop both.

My mother’s hands raced over my body, searching, checking for something. I didn’t know what she could possibly find. The pain wasn’t there. Someone had stuck a knife into my head and was joyfully stabbing it with wild abandon. A hand cradled my head as her fingers ran all over my face and my scalp. “Natalia!” my mother screamed, “Natalia! Call 911. Now! Your sister is dying!”

It felt like I really was dying and I prayed that the ball of pain would just explode so that I could experience the sweet ease of relief.

I tried to lift myself up but all the fingers touching me had other ideas. My mother’s hands gently pushed me back down while the evil fingers in my skull decided to use my brain as a stress ball. They weren’t very gentle as they squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. The tighter they squashed my brain, the tighter my body curled up into a ball. I needed the pain to stop. I wanted to just rip my head off my neck and toss it into the San Francisco Bay.

I reached out and grasped my mother’s hand. “Mom” I whispered to her, my voice sounded very light and thin. Maybe I was dying. “Make it stop. Please, make it stop!”

That sentence. That one simple sentence. 

It was like a hole had been drilled opened and all the pain started to ooze out. The white sheets began to lift in front of my eyes and I could make out the fuzzy edges and the blurry shape of my terror-stricken mother slowly came into focus. I cautiously lifted my head and used my free hand to feel the ground around me. Where was the pain? What did it look like? I thought I would feel the sharp, wet stickiness of it underneath my head but the ground was bone dry.

“Mom? Where is it? I asked in confusion.

“Where is what, honey?” Panic crept into her voice and she brought her face closer to mine. “I’m here, Cara. Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave you.”

“Natalia!” my mother screamed again. “Where is that ambulance?! I will not have your sister die on our front porch!”

I head Natalia’s footsteps coming closer; her usual stomp was replaced with an air of quietness. Her voice shook as she spoke. “They’re on the phone. There was an accident on the 280 and they’re stuck in traffic. They said they’d get someone here as soon as they could.”

“That’s not good enough! Give me the phone!”

I saw my mother’s arm reach over my head and snatch the phone. She started barking orders to the poor soul on the other end

“Now you hear me, my daughter is practically unconscious on my front porch. You will get someone here ASAP and help her. If she dies, I will come after you. Do you understand? No, I will stay on the phone with you so you can tell me where the ambulance is every step of the way.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. There was no stopping mom when she was on the war path. I massaged my head with both hands, trying to erase that searing pain from my memory and secretly trying to find that hidden hole. Neither attempts worked.

My vision was improving by the minute and the last of the pain invisibly dripped out onto the concrete porch. My arms shook with weakness as I tried to sit up. 

My mother pushed me back down.

“Cara! Just lie down. You’re as pale as a ghost. I don’t need you rolling down these steps and onto the street.”

“But, Mom, I think I’m better now,” I said. The edges of her body were sharper and I could see every creased worry line on her harried face. “I want to get up,” I continued and my arms shook again as I pushed myself back into a sitting position.

 “Lay down! You look like someone ran you over with an armory car and I don’t want you to faint. Wait! I hear the sirens. That must be the ambulance.”

 My mother went back to the phone and discussed the exact coordinates of the ambulance with the 911 dispatcher. I could just barely make out the piercing shrieks of the siren when a cop car barreled into our driveway.

 Great. Now the cops were involved. Gotta love the San Angelo police. They’ve been showing up to every incident since they failed to save that twelve-year-old boy from being kidnapped. Saving kids had now become their number one priority. Unfortunately, that would now include me.