Ch. 13 - Into the Dark Part 1

Theme Song: "Run" by Snow Patrol

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The young doctor hightailed it up to the ICU, leaving Pierre flustered and vulnerable behind the closed door. 

“What is her blood pressure?” He asked without turning his head to the nurse at his left.

“Systolic is 70, diastolic is 50, doctor.”

“This is not good.” He said, preparing for a shock. “Wake up, girl!”

The doctor’s voice muffled into the corners of the ICU room, and all the girl could hear was her own heart beat faded while everything around her was dreary dark.

A light flashed upon her eyelids. 

She awoke, lying in the bed. Staring up at the lamp hung from the ceiling above her, she swore it could have had fallen down to her head, crashing it while the bed was swung by the wild rhythm of waves, and worse, in any time soon, the boat might flip over, sink deeply into the dark sea, to the bottom where large predators were waiting for their last supper. Obviously, she had watched too many movies about jaw of sharks. 

Getting hold of herself, she pushed the blanket aside and rubbed her eyelids. The sweet perfume of old wood pines filled her nostril. She inhaled. Her chest swelled as she took a deep breath.

Stranding in seconds with only a blur vision, her first sight was a closet, colored in blue paint. The walls were painted in blue as well, bright like the color of the morning sky. The corners of her lips lifted up. At least the warm feeling the room brought  made her forget all about the sharp teeth inside a shark's mouth. 

"Ugh...!"

She groaned as she pushed herself up to sit on the bed. One thing at a time, she still remembered her  name. It's Rose, Rosaline White. She wondered why they named her Rosaline like the name of a character in one of Shakespeare's books she had just finished reading. She's the lady whom Romeo first had a crush on. She didn't know what happened to the character, but she thought it was so foolish of her to being oblivious to someone who has pure heart like Romeo, but then again...  did Romeo ever told her about his feelings? When she has grown up and become a mature woman, she's not going to be like Rosaline in  Shakespeare's story. She's going to become someone's Juliet.

Smiling to herself, she flicked her hair back over her shoulder. Her long hair was a bit tousled. She got it fixed by running her fingers through it, but she stopped in the middle as it felt hurt as she did this. The dizziness still had not left her, even though she had spent almost a half of an hour in the afternoon: standing in front of the sink, regurgitating her unabsorbed food since her stomach was responding violently to the movement of waves and a burnt omelet which her mother had made in the morning,... and not to mention, the long sleep she had taken. She wondered of how long she had been asleep for her head felt heavy and everything seemed so dark outside. Lucky for her, there's no need to go to school that day, not when it's midnight, and they're far from the land, being drifted at sea instead. 

Listening to the rhythmic of wave and the sound of the wind attacked the steering wheel, causing it to moving on its own, her anxiety came rushing forward again. Still, she didn't mind about the sudden departure they're taking, even though, everything were in sudden.

She recalled the time when they were in rush to go to the harbor in the earliest dawn, all they did were sitting silently in the car. Her father was driving the car. Val was sitting next to her, and her mother was in the front seat. She noticed of how her mother was acting a bit strange. She noticed it through the rear view mirror as she threw her gaze at it. Each time her father raised a question; her mother only mumbled and stared to the window at her left. Silent did she make when he made a joke about the burnt breakfast, when he told them how lovely their vacation would be, and even when he complimented how beautiful their mother was that day. Obviously, her mother wasn't behaving like usual, but her father was even acting more peculiar. To that minute, and even after they hoped into the boat, and pull the anchor, he had not explained to them why they're taking the sudden trip.

She shook her head for thinking about the matter again. Whatever his father's reason was, one thing for sure, her throat longed for a glass of mineral water.

She flung her feet to the wooden floor. The warmth rose through her bones while her nostrils inhaled the fragrance of pine from every corner of the room. She shifted her gaze to the alarm clock on the table next to the bed. It was 10 pm, not yet in the midnight as she had predicted before. However, it felt as though. The pain on the back of her neck proved her so.

After a flick of moment regaining her strength, stretching her arms sideways and yawned wide enough, she got up from the bed and shuffled to the door.

The air was quite chilly, but she forgot to bring her pink sweater with her. If only her father had not horned the car in the dawn, she would have gone back into her room and taken it before finally plumped down on the back seat of the car. Now, shuddered in cold, she could only wrap her arms around herself.

Being outside, and as she closed the door behind her quietly, a snore made her jumped. She looked around. Her eyes caught him in the corner, sleeping in a couch, snoring, snuggling in cold.

"Val?" She whispered his name under her breath. The air was cold, and he had no blanket to cover up his body. "You'd better move to your own bed now." She shook his feet. 

His body only shifted an inch. She lifted her hands up to her waist. "Come on, Val! I could not possibly carry you there." There's no way that she could. Being fewer times bigger than her, they could have fallen down on their way there. One way the other was to get him a blanket to cover up his body.

Keeping quiet, she hustled to the nearest closet that kept an extra blanket inside. A glow streamed through the window distracted her mind and allured her gaze to her left, to the light from a lighthouse glistening in the dark sky full of stars. However, not only beauty which she saw that night.  As she turned to the window before her, a distressing view was caught.

There, on the deck... her parents were standing. They weren't just talking. Her mother's gesture wasn't like a woman having a conversation with her husband in soft-spoken words. Her face though wasn't that clear for her to see, nor their voices could be heard from inside, she could tell- from the way her mother raised her hands and pushed her body forward as she spoke to him- that they were having an argument.

Her father was responding in the same way, cold... furious.

She stopped her paces and observed them. The sound of lighthouse bellowed drowned out their voices. Her body shivered. Never for once, she saw them getting into a fight before.

"What was it that caused them to fight?" She wondered. Was it because she had a seasick and led her mother to confront to their father that the trip wasn't a good plan after all? If her body had not been so weak, could it be that her parents would have not gotten into the fight by then?

Thinking about these, her heart dropped, eyes turned downcast. Not bear to see another view of her parents in a fight, she threw her gaze away from the window and to her right. She wanted them to stop.

Then..as soon as the light from the lighthouse hit upon the deck again, everything became still. Her parents were in silence like a pause button had been pushed. They were not arguing anymore as though her prayer had been answered.

She exhaled. Seeing her mother and father were holding each other close, obviously reconciliation had been made between them.

With a smile, she waved her hands at them. Her small feet were in rush to get near toward the window, but something stopped her from getting closer.

Blood pumped into her heart – faster. 

She covered her mouth, not believing her eyes. Fears crawled from the tip of her fingers.

Outside, something flew down from the sky. It was tall, big, like human, and its body- or whatever it was - was covered with thick metal whilst blue gas gushed from its feet.

It landed on the deck and stood right behind her parents.

With a blast, it shot something into the glass window, breaking it into billions of pieces scattering all over the floor. She screamed, ducked down, covering her head with her hands. 

The sharp pieces cut her bare skin while the heat was burning her body.

Her breaths raced with her heartbeats. What's happening?

After the blast, came silence, only the heavy sound of the remaining piece of pine wood fell down onto the floor. Still covering her head, her eyes searched for her parents. The wind blocked and attacked her skin. There was a hole at the front side of the boat that used to be the window. Her breath halted. She coughed. She couldn't see her parents for everything was  covered with smoke. She coughed again and shut her eyes. Strange substance was filling her lungs and hurting her eyes. It was gas.

Turning her head around to find her brother, a creaking sound of glasses being trodden was heard, followed by heavy thumps onto the floor and the sound of a machine being driven. She held her breath, eyes widened in fear - concentrating on a piece of pine wood above the floor shook in the same rhythm with the thumps while the sound of the machine was getting closer and closer.

   

Definitely, something was going near her.

She covered her mouth, fear that her screams would tell about her existence. 

Her survival instinct ordered her to run. She got up, but tottering, not able to stand on her two own feet.

And it was already too late.  The creature had already stood in front of her, making a giant leap to reach and confront her with its high velocity.

It's grip holding her tight. 

Her body hung few meters above the floor. Blood rushed to her feet as her head hit the ceiling.

The creature was holding her- lifting her up.  She choked, gasping for breath. Between her efforts to free herself by punching her hands on the hard metal thing, her eyes caught two red lights before her. They were sharp, making her body froze within seconds. The smoke faded and left her with a frightening vision. In front of her was its face, looking at her with no pity, no emotions, tilting his head to one side, as though it was trying to understand the being it was holding.

"Living. Name: white, Rosaline, age: children, weapon unarmed." With a buzz, the creature voiced out  some rigid words.

She screamed, but her screaming formed into clouds of breaths. She could not move her hands, as well as the rest of her body. 

"Let go!" She punched her fist on its neck.

No one responded to her and she could not find the existence of her parents or her brother everywhere. She shut her eyes. 

If it's the way she must die, she wished to see her family again. Let them live, even though she will not. Let it be a nightmare, like nightmares in every other night. Her eyes would open soon and she would find herself lying in the bed again. 

A light glowed upon her. Serenity embraced her as she soared through the light.

She was ready to go, to the place where she came from.

But, inside the light, a woman called her to go back. "It's not your time yet." Her voice was clear, mellifluous, and familiar to her ears as though she has known her for a long time. 

Something pushed her away from the light...

and made her body collapse against the wooden floor.

All was turning black, - even the light went off -, and all she could feel was the sway of wave underneath the keel, moving the boat, drifting it off to nowhere. 

To be continued to Part 2