I sat up groggily and rubbed my eyes. A chorus of voices broke out somewhere in the room,
"She's alive...Esme, Esme, can you hear me?" I fell back onto the pillow, confused, and murmured,
"I...I'm not Esme..." Another voice muttered, probably coming from a man,
"Cheryl, she's lost her memory...don't get your hopes up..." My vision finally cleared and I looked around, astonished. I appeared to be lying in a hospital bed, with seemingly familiar faces around me. But the problem was, I had never seen the before. At least, I didn't place it at first. But they had been calling my mother's name. I looked down, with shock, to see my body rematerializing, noticing my hair changing from brown, to its usual sandy blonde, my skin gaining a dappling of freckles. I had been in someone else's body. My eyes rose to meet those of the people around me whose mouths were wide with surprise. The only sound that penetrated the room was a shriek from a nurse who had fainted, who had been standing in the corner moments earlier. I said quietly,
"My name is Hazel." And the doctors in the room whose presence had gone unnoticed to my senses before broke into rapid conversation, allowing me to catch only snippets.
"Could it be...?"
"It's only a theory, mind..."
"It shouldn't...it can't..."
"We have to check. That's all we can do." With that, they rushed out of the room with a desperate air.
The people standing around my bed had still not budged. I stammered,
"So, who are you? You look familiar...why am I here?"
The man in the tight blue shirt said,
"I-I have never seen you before. I am Robert Oakley, this is my wife Cheryl, and these are our children Laurette, Brian, and Ashley. Wh-why you are here...I do not know. Our other daughter...Esme, she fell out of a tree this morning, blacked out." He rambled on, "We brought her here, they told us she was b-brain dead...she---you started moving and then-then you reformed, pixelated and then rematerialized."
I lay back and thought hard. I was surely missing something. And then it struck me. They were my grandparents, aunts, and uncle. Who had been calling my mother's name? I gasped. What had happened? Time had broken.
YOU ARE READING
Broken Time
Science FictionHazel wakes up, surrounded by her family...but not quite. They were calling her mother's name. Time, had broken...
