Blood Spell

Havana City, September 2018

I was running late. I knew I had promised to return early, but one thing led to another and before I knew it, it was two in the morning. I pulled the high heels off my feet and ran as fast as I could, the still warm pavement tickling the soles of my feet.

I was crossing the street when a car hit me. At first there was only a deafening noise inside my head, then all of a sudden everything went silent and I was lying on my back in an abnormal position in the middle of the street. Frowning, I tried in vain to make some sense out of what had just happened.

My breathing was ragged. My heart was pounding, my beats were erratic. I couldn't move so I suspected I had a spinal cord injury. My vision blurred, my thoughts became incoherent, I could feel that my dress was getting wetter at the height of my left thigh; I figured I was suffering a major external bleeding.

Bottom line: I was dying.

I cannot say that it is true that when you die you see your life pass before your very eyes, because that was not my experience.

There I was, at death's door, when on either sides of my body a figure stopped to contemplate my last moments of life. One of them was an angel and the other one a demon ... although by that second I was hallucinating, surely.

I suspected they were coming to judge me and decide which of them would take me.

—We found the trace too late. - Lamented the beautiful curly-blond- haired being.

—Damn it!-Snarled the black-haired, implacable-faced specter.

They both spoke in English, with a heavy accent. Five years of studying the language allowed me to understand them, me being Cuban and all.

The first one knelt to my right, took my cold hand in his and felt my wrist checking the pulse there. The other being remained standing to my left, his posture denoting a great tension, he turned his face in this or that direction, vigilant.

—The girl is dying ... one of her ribs pierced her right lung. She is drowning in her own blood- whispered the angel, his voice heavy with grief.

—Arghhh, Pfffff,- I stammered.

—Shh. - the blond one consoled me, delicately caressing my forehead. - It will be over soon, calm down.

A fit of coughing seized my chest. A metallic taste flooded my senses.

Blood.

My own blood had risen from my lungs to my throat and was I choking?

My body contracted in a spasm of suffering, my vital organs suddenly stopped one by one, and although I kept my eyes open I could no longer see anything. I was dead.