A Brush with Death

Nick woke up gasping. Pain stabbed him straight through his heart and thrummed throughout his body. His fingers twitched a closed into a fist and his legs curled up into his stomach as he fought the fingers of frost from snatching his limbs. His crisp, ocean blue eyes cracked open and stole a glimpse of the midnight sky overhead and watched as tiny kisses of snowflakes fell from the sky. He's never felt so alive, which was ironic since he was dead.

His breath came out in white tendrils from his mouth while his heart palpitated in his chest. As if moving through molasses, he slowly climbed up to a seated position and looked around. He was laying on the pavement outside the local cafe, where he worked night shifts. He could even see his coworker and girlfriend Grace through the store window on the phone looking distressed with tears running down her face. 

Nick placed his hands on the cold ground in front of him and rose to his feet, some loose gravel embedding into his palms. A sharp pain laced through his temple almost dragging him back down to the ground. His hand snapped to his forehead and his eyes slammed shut as he tried to breathe through the pain. 

A loud horn blared to his right, jarring him from his trance as a red car whizzed past him so fast the wind whipped his blue scarf up in his face blocking his view if only for a second.
As he reached up to brush the scarf away, his ears faintly heard the sound of sirens rapidly approaching. The sound slicing through the quiet night like a knife. And suddenly his eyes caught sight of someone laying on the ground a few feet away.

"Oh my gosh! Help! Someone get some help over here!! We need an ambulance!" Nick shouted down the nearly vacant street as he crouched down next to the person. "Hey buddy, are you oka--" Nick froze. No, no, no this doesn't make sense. How could this be possible? This isn't happening. How can that be him? Is he dead?

All of a sudden the chime of the coffee shop door rang throughout the night, catching his attention. It was Grace, she was coming towards him. Can she see him? "Grace? Thank goodness you're here, I don't know what's happening and I--"

Her hand flew up to her mouth as fresh tears streamed down her cheekbones, leaving her face shiny and beautiful in the moonlight. "Nick? Oh no, Nick! No! Please don't do this to me now!" She screamed, rushing past him and falling to her knees beside his body.

The sirens were deafening now, causing his headache to rise another octave. An ambulance came to a screeching halt on the side of the road, and paramedics rushed out with their medical equipment. "What happened, Miss?" One of the paramedics asked.

"He was walking across the street to run by the store since I needed a few things and someone-"

"Oh my gosh! Oh no! Is he okay? He just came out of nowhere and I was in a hurry to get home and didn't even see him step out in the street. Oh no--" A frantic middle-aged man exclaimed as he ran down the road towards us. 

"Sir, what's your name?" The paramedic asked as the rest of her team charged up the defibrillator and sent shocks through my chest. 

Pain spiked throughout his chest again, causing him to crumple to the ground and rest his back on a nearby streetlight. His breath stuttered again, sucking in crisp cool air into his lungs. The pain of a thousand miniature needles striking him in the chest and bringing tears to his eyes. He could just barely make out the rest of the conversation in front of him.

"My name is Daniel," the man stated, unable to pry his eyes of my body. 

Grace began sobbing as the paramedics called the time of death, 10:58 p.m. December 24th. The news echoed throughout his mind as he tried to comprehend the meaning of the words that sounded like jargon to Nick in his current state.