The Mirrorverse

Ka

Time had slowed down. Ka was watching as if through a cloud as the paramedic bent over Maya’s lifeless body. Surrounding her head in a sadistic pool on the marble floor, her blood shone in the fluorescent light. Ka nearly laughed out loud when he thought that maybe it was tomato sauce, just a big joke. But it was no joke, and his urge to laugh died away with a part of him.

Ka was pushed out the way by a paramedic taking the stretcher to his girlfriend, his love, his life, his everything. Before he met her he was an empty shell, wandering the earth in search of that one person put here just for him. Two years they’d been together, two short years. he needed her like he needed air to breathe, but there she was, unconscious on the bathroom floor, hanging somewhere between life and death in his terrified eyes.

“Please...” he begged to no-one in particular as they strapped her into the stretcher. It wasn’t real, none of it was real. Ka followed behind the stretcher, not noticing the house passing as he left it behind for the alien brightness that was the ambulance.

Ka watched Maya’s beautiful face, saw the blood staining her cheek. He wanted to wipe it off, to preserve her beauty but was somehow pinned to the seat that he realised he was sitting in, yet had no recollection of getting there.

The ambulance ride lasted a lifetime yet was over in a heartbeat, all at the same time. They pulled up and the doors flew open as if by magic, then Maya was being taken away. Ka tried to follow but there was something stopping him. He fumbled with the seatbelt that had been fastened without his knowledge, eventually stumbling from the ambulance and following the stretcher that held his love into the hospital.

He sped up to keep up, when suddenly a searing pain shot through the right side of his face as he collided with the doorframe. He barely noticed it as he joined Maya in a room full of machines and tubes.

“Sir, are you okay? Could we take a look at you?” A male nurse was looking at Ka with concern, but he just brushed the nurse away. He wasn’t interested in himself, only Maya.

“Sir, you can’t stay in here, you need to come with me,” the nurse insisted, taking Ka by the arm and steering him out of the room as they were connecting Maya up to machines.

Looking back over his shoulder at Maya, Ka was led into a cubicle and sat down on the bed.

“Right, I think you’re going to need some stitches.”

“What?” asked Ka, looking at him for the first time.

“Sir, you have a laceration to your right temple which is bleeding profusely,” the nurse advised him urgently.

Ka looked down to see that his black t-shirt was wet, and touched the side of his face to find it covered in blood. Typical, he thought.

Thankfully, instead of stitching it, the nurse decided to superglue the gash on his forehead back together, and by the time he returned to Maya she was awake.

“What the bloody hell is going on? I go from one hospital to another!” Maya was yelling at the top of her lungs, trying to wriggle out of the bindings holding her head still.

“Try not to move,” a nurse instructed from the other side of the bed.

“Bollocks to that! Movement is underrated,” she continued, clearly concussed.

“Hey baby, just hang in there,” Ka found his voice, but wasn’t sure if it was his. It sounded strange to him, strained in an unfamiliar way.

“Ka, you’re there! They said you didn’t exist!” she cried, smiling a wonky smile up at him.

“Don’t worry,” the doctor turned to Ka. “She will be a little confused and disoriented for a short while but I’m sure she will be fine.”

I’m sure didn’t sound very definite, and panic started to creep back over Ka. He suddenly came over faint and sat down abruptly as a seat hit the back of his legs.

“Take it easy, that’s quite a bump you’ve had,” advised the doctor.

“I can’t see, what’s going on?” Maya complained, unable to move her head since it was strapped down.

“I walked into a door frame, it’s nothing to worry about,” reassured Ka, as the pain went from a distant dull ache to a sharp stabbing pain. Maya laughed at his clumsiness before yelping as the movement hurt her head.

“Why am I strapped into this thingy?” she demanded, her hand reaching for his.

“You fell in the bathroom, cracked your head open,” Ka told her gently.

“You can be out of this now,” said the doctor, as two nurses disengaged her head from the splint keeping it still. Maya turned her head to Ka.

“Jeez, you look like you lost a battle with a lawnmower,” she gasped, looking horrified.

“Not looking too much better yourself,” Ka returned, laughing, while Maya joined in.

Despite the amount it hurt, they continued laughing, occasionally stopping to shout Ow.