The Permutation

Homeostasis (Part 4) Michelle

Michelle's gaze fell back on the boy just in time to see him lunge towards her, knife outstretched.

"No," was all the boy said.

The knife felt like it had been dipped in fire as it slid into the right side of Michelle's abdomen. The blade felt like it ignited the contents of Michelle's stomach before being unceremoniously yanked back out. Blood welled from the wound, more blood than she was comfortable with.

The boy looked at the blood-soaked knife, looked at Michelle, and then looked back at the knife again. The knife clattered to the ground with a delicate, metallic tinkling that was at odds with the savagery it had just exacted on Michelle.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," the boy repeated over and over like a prayer, "I'm real sorry lady, really sorry."

He stepped backward as he spoke, eyes locked on Michelle's. His eyes seemed to beg for forgiveness, but when he had gotten a sufficient distance away, he disappeared into the darkness of the alley, leaving Michelle to bleed out on the pavement. Oddly enough, she did want to forgive the boy.

Michelle felt a pleasant warmth seep into her socks. Blood had dripped down Michelle's clothes saturating her sweats and socks. A pool of blood started to spread out around her white sneakers.

The violet healing factor in her blood did not jump to her rescue as she slumped to her knees. She recalled a vague memory of a CPR lesson to keep pressure on wounds like this while waiting for emergency services.

But that's assuming they're on the way.

She pressed one hand over the wound while she used the other to pat herself down, looking for her phone, like the nonexistent twenty dollar bill, it was nowhere to be found.

Light-headedness threatened to pull her down, and she was tempted to let it. The world spun around her like one of those obnoxious rides at the fair that substituted substance for revolving around real fast, and Michelle knew that lying down on the ground and closing her eyes would stop the ride for good.

No.

She needed to call the authorities. Then she could rest.

She forced the world to stop spinning long enough to scan the alleyway to see where her phone had gone. It lay cracked on the pavement about fifteen feet from where she stood. Her lunge must have dislodged the contents of her pockets.

I survive a near-apocalyptic event in Lancet Falls, Idaho, but I die to a random mugging. Real smooth, Michelle. Real smooth.

Michelle lowered herself to the ground and started to scoot herself back down the alleyway without taking her hand from the wound. The result was an awkward, three-limbed effort that involved a lot of knee and palm scrapes. The thickness of her sweats shielded her from the worst of it, but she could still feel the pain through the cloth.

The hand holding the wound felt sticky and warm, and Michelle would not have been surprised if clotted blood wouldn't try to keep her hand there if she wanted to remove it. The sensation was somewhat akin to soda drying on your hand, an unpleasant stickiness that Michelle couldn't stand.

Soda? Why soda? I haven't had soda in years. If this is what your life flashing before your eyes are like, I must have led a pretty dull life.

After that, all coherent thoughts faded to the background. The journey to the phone became a mechanical process. The pain felt like it was happening to someone else, and a part of Michelle watched that Asian woman drag herself towards a cracked phone. From Michelle's birds-eye view, it didn't look like the woman was going to make it.