THE AMULET: Memory

The last thing she remembered saying was, "How did we hit it that hard?"

Dana Marts lay in her hospital bed staring, unblinking at the ceiling. The white tiles mocked her from twelve feet away. The monotonously cheeping box beside her monitored her fragile life; fed her fluids and kept the tube attached to her face chugging in the life-giving oxygen. Dana let a tear fall down her cheek at a weird, forty-five degree angle. She really had no other choice. Her chest lifted every six seconds as her lungs inflated and emptied the air from her frail being. Her lips were cracked with chap as the hung, swollen in the room. The blanket was draped over her, innocuously, collecting the dust that hung in the solemn air. No one sat in the chairs, no one paced the room in pregnant anticipation, and no one monitored the machine and took notes with alacrity. And the heavy metal amulet draped off the edge of the bed-side table and thrummed with its beating, amber hue. The last thing she remembered saying was, "How did we hit it that hard?"