Heartbeat Of Hummingbird Novels & Stories

A fully formed human baby. "Oh my God," I whispered. "There's the head. Profile view. You can see the nose. Lips. Chin." I stared. Transfixed. My baby had a face. A real face. "Moving down to the body. Four-chamber heart. Let me get a good view." The image shifted. A tiny heart. Beating. Four chambers. Opening and closing. Perfect rhythm. "Heart looks perfect. Rate is 145. Nice and strong." "It's so small."

Seventy-two beats a minute, which I know because Laurel told me, because I've started counting and because of this small device I’ve around my wrist that monitors how well my pulse is. Counting the beats the way I used to count the clicks of the mechanical heart has now become a habit, except these beats are warm and alive and sometimes they speed up or slow down for reasons I can't explain or when I see something nice or beautiful, like the heart has opinions I haven't learned to translate yet. At midnight, I hear heavy and deliberate footsteps, paced like someone counting. Back and forth down the hallway outside my door. It’s not rushed or aimless. It’s measured, like a human metronome in

But the strangest thing was the sound. In the silence, I heard her heartbeat. Not the familiar biological thump doctors listen for through a stethoscope, but something deeper, more resonant. A slow, powerful pulse accompanied by a faint electrical hum. The sound of the Core. No longer an object in her pocket, but the engine of her body. The rhythm resonated through me, and my own heart unconsciously adjusted to match it. We were in sync. Physically. Energetically.

Heartbeat steady. Energy smooth. Too smooth. Like a lake with no wind. And still water Can hide depth. Around 2:03 a.m., his lips move. Barely. No sound. Just shape. I lean closer. He whispers something faint. Too quiet to catch. But I feel it. Not power. Not spike. A frequency shift. Low. Subtle. Like something answering him. I press my hand lightly over his chest. The hum adjusts. Responds. Then settles.

The high-resolution monitor glowed, displaying the unmistakable, ethereal image of two small, distinct life forms floating in their separate sacs. ​The moment the specialist located the heartbeats, pumping rapidly and vigorously—thump-thump, thump-thump—the sound filled the room, a rhythmic counterpoint to the clinical silence. It was a purely biological phenomenon, immune to spreadsheets and stock prices, and its power was absolute.

_Asking_. “No,” I whispered. “You— your arm—” “Don’t care,” he said. “167 BPM. Say it. Tell me his heartbeat.” I pressed my hand to my stomach. Closed my eyes. [SFX: HEARTBEAT. MINE. THEN HIS. 167 BPM. STILL THERE.] “167,” I said. Crying. “He’s okay. He’s okay.” Adrian exhaled. Like he’d been holding it since the glass broke. Levinson started stitching. No anesthetic. Adrian didn’t flinch. Eyes never left me.

Lyra stared at the scan and didn’t blink. The monitor’s light flattened her features, turning her into something almost inhuman: all sharp angles and shadows, eyes reflecting thin bands of white and ghostly blue. On the screen, Aiden’s heart pulsed in grayscale motion—valves opening and closing, muscle contracting, blood moving in rhythmic bursts. Overlaid in color, a hummingbird flutter of electrical activity traced his conduction pathways. And there, in the middle of it all, lay the problem.

Now the true purpose of the device revealed itself. The collar began to hum. The crowd stilled, sensing something momentous approaching. A vibration started at the base of Caelum's throat, subtle at first, barely perceptible. Then it pulsed—once, twice—before settling into a slow, deliberate rhythm like a second heartbeat lodged against his windpipe.

I placed my palm flat against her throat, feeling the frantic pulse of her carotid artery hammering against my skin. "You feel that?" I asked, my thumb stroking the delicate column of her throat. "That's your heart, little bird. It's racing. And it's not racing because you're scared of me." I lowered my head, my lips brushing the shell of her ear, my hot breath making her shiver violently beneath me.