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***The Week Before***

The entire blood transfusion was an awkward moment of long stares and silent doctor work.  Dr. Hemaz was chilling with his work, not even bothering to turn on the warm light provided to the examination room and allowing only the icy sunlight to brighten the room.  Carlene was more than happy to get out of the hospital and away from that doctor the second she could.  She’s never felt the place so unwanting before; normally the hospital was actually a warm and jolly place for her and Jessie.  Some place they went to make Jessie feel better—and the effects were normally near instantaneous.

In the past her daughter has been a trooper when it came to the hospital.  She was used to being prodded with needles and the sting when the blood started running into her veins.  But years of this cycle resulting in a euphoric high and never ending energy caused her daughter in some twisted sense of mind to actually grow obsessed with the hospital and blood.  At age six her daughter had already move away from wanting to be a princesses decided she wanted to work in the hospital, to make people feel better.  Whenever playing dress up Jessie was always the nurse or would go around pretending to fix people.  Or when someone did actually get hurt whether it’d be one of her friends or a random kid on the playground at school, she was always the first one on scene, band aid in one hand and a worried face.

But with this blood transfusion there was no instantaneous arousal from her daughter, she didn’t wake up from her limp state and want to race down the halls pretending to be an ambulance.  Her daughter stayed limp and weak.  This has never happened before.  Dr. Hemaz explained that she was probably weaker than most times she got the transfusion.  With this one time it might take a bit longer before Jessie wakes up.  He recommended she wait at the hospital for at least an hour or two to make sure—but another hour with him?  There was no way.  With that she took her exit, the was no legal reason she couldn’t leave and she knew what to do if her daughter kept her numbing state for another hour or two—come back.  But she’d rather wait it out in the warmth of her home and not under the stare of that doctor.

So she left and now was about half way home.  It was cool outside, but nothing near freezing; it never got that cold in this city.  Her heater though was still cranked up fully.  She wanted it stuffy hot—as if the heat inside the car would warm Jessie’s blood and snap her out of her current state.  The drive home was about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on traffic.  They were at a red light now.  Mrs. Yemon looked in her rearview mirror.  She had the mirror tilted down and aimed at her daughter, to keep an eye on her.

She could see her daughter’s eyes flickering, and one of her arms was slowly moving back and forth.  She’s waking up.  The little girl’s breathing had increased considerably since leaving the hospital and her previously cool skin was now flush red.  Moving again, but not for long—a second red light.  The girl’s fingers started shaking and her breathing became faster, small beads of sweat formed of her forehead but her eyes refused to open.  It was like the little girl was fighting off an infection, something that came with the blood. Carlene noticed the sweat. Maybe the heat was too much?  She turned it off and rolled down the driver side window.

Jessie’s head rolled against the seat and she let out an almost silent moan before the entire girl’s body froze its movements and dropped limp—breathless.  Something was wrong.  Carlene saw, motherly instincts took over and she forced her car over two lanes and to the nearest curb, nearly ramming it.  Her daughter wasn’t breathing. 

With the car pulled over Carlene unbuckled herself and twisted her body to reach her daughter in the backseat.  Carlene quickly grabbed her daughter’s wrist and began unbuckling her daughter’s seatbelt, preparing to lay her flat for well-rehearsed CPR. No pulse, there was no pulse.  With her daughter flat and her twisted body half-way into the backseat the mother was ready to try and save her daughter’s life.  Then Jessie’s eyes opened right as a tear left her mother’s face and hit her own cheek.

Beautiful blue eyes, oh such beautiful blue eyes.  Jessie let in a short and controlled breath, opened her mouth just slightly and mumbled, “Mommy… he’s broken…”

Mrs. Yemen had tears in her eyes and nodded her head slowly, slightly confused about what her daughter was talking about.  She smiled, now coming down from her adrenaline rush and said with a crackling voice, “Who? Who’s broken?”

Jessie looked away from her mother’s face and towards the seat above her head, “Him, can’t you see?  He’s broken…”

“Okay,” Mrs. Yemen replied, “let’s get you home fast so you can fix him.”  The mother turned around, back to the front of the car and put her hands on the steering wheel to calm her nerves.  That was probably the most terrified she’s ever been. 

“You can’t see him?  He’s broken.”  She heard her daughter mumble from the back as Jessie lifted herself back up into a seated position. 

“No sweetie, I can’t see him.  You can tell me about him when we get home, okay?”  Carlene buckled her seatbelt and pulled her car into drive allowing it to start rolling forward and pulled into the nearest lane, heading up a steep hill.  She just wanted to get home and find some way to calm her nerves. 

“I’ll bring him here.  I’ll make you see him.”  

Carlene didn’t even turn around, “No, no I’m okay honey, when we get home we’re almost there.”

“Look Mom, he’s broken.”

Carlene glanced into the rearview mirror since it was still aimed at her daughter.  Her daughter wasn’t alone.  On her daughter’s lap and across the back seat was a shady black figure that wasn’t completely there.  Its short black hair was all over her daughter and its body was smoking.  The figure was clothed in all black attire and was moving ever so slightly up and down. 

Carlene slammed on the breaks throwing the car into park as soon as it had stopped.  She didn’t care if she was in the middle of a currently empty road on top of a sharp incline, she didn’t care if she was blocking traffic that was bound to come.  “What in the hell is that!” she yelled, ignoring the whiplash she just gave herself and probably her daughter.  The figure had rolled mostly off her daughters lap with the mass deceleration and only had what looked like an arm left on Jessie’s lap.  The rest of its body was down between the seats.  

Carlene forced off her seatbelt and clawed at her door until it opened.  She took no noticed of a passing truck with its horn going off full force and was on the other side of her car in seconds, opening the door her daughter was behind.  Someone, something, was in the back of the car with her daughter.  She had to rescue Jessie. Carlene opened the door.  Jessie wasn’t in the seat next to the window anymore.  She had managed to unbuckle herself in the time it took her mother to circumnavigate the car and was trying to help the smoking figure out from between the seats. 

“Jessie, get out!”  Carlene shouted as she reached her hand into the car to grab her daughter’s wrist.  A car sped past her side of the vehicle, having to weave to miss the door.  More horns.  Jessie retreated further into the car while keeping one of her hands on what looked like the figure’s face

“No, look Mom, he’s broken.”  The little girl reached her fingers under the figure’s chin and lifted it up, showing her mother its face.  A boy, the figure was a boy.  His face was cracked and dried, the cracks were filled with blackness and had smoke coming out of them.  His eyes were as dark as a moonless night and had small lines of red zigzagging randomly through them.  But it wasn’t like he was all there, his face, his body, seemed to fade in and out, but it wasn’t through him Carlene could see, it was darkness—a dying void of swirling dust and debris.  When the boy would fade the void became the most visible in his eyes, it was like looking at a sphere of cracked glass with something rotten just out of view, just out of sight on the other side of the glass.

Carlene covered her mouth with her hands and started sniffling, backing up slowly as if she just saw the devil.  Jessie started coming out of the car too, pulling the broken boy out with her.  “Look Mom, do you see now? Do you see he’s broken?”

“Get away.  Get him away.”

“You see now?  Something’s wrong.  Something’s very wrong.” Jessie stepped out of the car, and managed to help the boy turn around and place a foot outside of the vehicle too. “Look, look, look… LOOK!”

“Just get away, Just get away from it.  No, no—” Carlene turned around, away from Jessie and the boy.  Just then a large SUV bowled up the hill, never seeing Carlene in the middle of the road at the top of the hill.  The mother turned towards traffic just as the SUV hit the peak of the hill at close to fifty miles per hour.  There was a crunch, wind, a light spray of some kind of liquid, and then she was gone—along with the SUV, gone down the other side of the hill somewhere.

Jessie stopped, she just saw her mother get smashed by a speeding vehicle, a second and her mother was gone.  Dead, she was dead, she had to be.  “Mom?  Don’t you see?”  Jessie mumbled.  She didn’t cry, she didn’t even spare a tear.  Instead she pulled the boy the rest of the way out of the car.  “Sean… I don’t think she saw…”