Thread by @CarliFrueh

The Moment After Death by Carli B. Frueh

Chapter 1
Post-Mortem

Excerpt

There she was, still sprawled across the cold, sterile operating room table, the harsh LED lights buzzing overhead like angry cicadas, casting stark shadows on the blood-stained homogeneous vinyl flooring

It all stemmed from one chaotic moment on the rain-slicked highway, where a speeding vehicle had veered wildly into her lane to dodge a reckless swerving driver ahead, slamming head-on into her car with a deafening crunch of metal and bone. Mayla lay, motionless, long after the

emergency room surgeon and her exhausted team had stumbled out, their scrubs damp with sweat and flecked with crimson, faces etched with fatigue and the weight of defeat. It had been an endless, grueling night, filled with the relentless beeps of monitors and the frantic rhythm

of life-saving efforts. Mayla had been rushed in amid blaring sirens, her body ravaged by severe traumatic brain injuries—swollen, bruised hemispheres pulsing with unseen agony—and brutal internal organ damage, including a jagged puncture in her lung that whistled faintly with

each labored breath.

She died right there on the table, the machines flatlining in a mournful wail, but there she was, somehow alive and dead, hovering in a weightless haze, gazing down at her own body below, pale and silent as if in a deep, unnatural slumber. It made no sense

she thought, a whisper of confusion rippling through her ethereal form. I am alive…

The Moment After Death is set to be released, December 1, 2025. Follow the author on X for updates @CarliFrueh