Flash Fiction: Killing Machine

While mulling over Chuck Wendig's flash fiction writing prompt, I ended up re-imaging as scene from my current project in a sci-fi setting (and in present tense rather than past). Just a bit of fun that I thought was worth sharing:

I smell ozone. Moments after I smell it, I feel a pulse that isn’t mine forcing blood that isn’t mine through my veins. My gag reflex ripples, then the buzz hits – energy, out of nowhere.

I open the eyes that are no longer mine. A soldier waits by my bedside, his hand tensed and ready to reach for his weapon. The bed sheets are bathed in green light.

“Welcome back,” he nods, taking a quick puff of a cigarette and breathing out menthol smoke.

“I shouldn’t be back,” I say. “I should be dead.”

“The higher-ups disagreed. They thought your, uh, killer skills might come in handy.”

“I killed myself.”

“Yeah,” the soldier says, breathing smoke again. “Then you came back and killed a few more.”

“Balls.”

I sit up in the bed, my new wings dragging across the sheets. I can hear them humming. The material is thin, and the heat from my blood radiates off them and leaves my skin sticky.

“What do I do now?” I say. I shut my eyes, feeling every hot line of blood running through my body. They’ve replaced my bones with lightweight metal, and my joints are rigid – my fingers unfold stiffly, my fist clenches like a steel trap.

“Well, the expect me to show you the ropes,” the soldier says, “That OK?”

Of course they brought me back to kill. This body is designed for murder, fast and strong and deadly in the right hands. Trained, safe hands. But I am not stable, and I am not safe.

And I am not pleased.

“No. It’s not.”