Charge

Emi rolled over restlessly and pushed herself to sitting. She couldn’t lay here anymore next to him. It was too nerve-wracking to to feel him so still.

She had vague recollections of these worries in the past, but never to this degree. Occasionally she’d waked during the night and reached out a hand to see if he was still breathing next to her. Usually if she had just had a nightmare that left her with a sense of dread and she needed reassurance beyond just the bulk of him next to her.

But that hadn’t been the same. Maybe a few seconds of worry before she heard the soft wheeze of his breath and felt the rise and fall of his ribcage. It wasn’t like the gnawing pit in her stomach that would continue for at least… Five more hours. Five more hours until he would be charged enough to restart.

Then would be the worst part of all, watching the text scroll by during boot up. The flare of terror when a red error message appeared. There was bound to be one or two of them, usually inconsequential, just a file path that needed updating or a missing library. So far never enough to interfere with important operations. So far. But there was always that doubt.

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This was inspired by the #freewrite prompt by @mariannewest: charge.

Image by DrSJS.