Whew, okay, another update here. I'm trying to get reoccuring themes going on here. Obviously my main point here is about clouds of negativity overhead, but there's that one shining beam breaking through. I really hope if you're reading this you're able to get some of the things i'm attempting to portray. extra emphasis on "attempting" sooooo yeah! enjoy!
A HIRO'S TALE PT 3
The team was rushing. Even though Hiro was out of the water and now in the care of a team under an operation table the battle was not yet won. He felt them there, just barely conscious as the medical team around him worked against time. His breath shallow as a puddle. He opened his eyes slightly once more, dizzily, attempting to assess the situation at hand. Rushes of bright lights and people in white blurring across his vision every which way. It was too much to take in. His eyes rolled back into his head once more and he fell limp, his conscience fading against his will.
"SHIT! His heartbeat is fading! Get the defibrilator right now!" A voice shouted.
Hiro processed that last bit on the verge of passing out and his own conscience took over once more. He had felt this before. Was he dying again? He felt no control over his body as he heard a very long, clear and distinct beep.
His heart flatlined and a new battle for Hiro's life had sprung into action.
"GODDAMNIT HIRO DON'T YOU DIE ON ME!" The voice shouted, pressing the two metal plates together generating electricity .
"CLEAR!" The shout rang through the air as the doctor placed the plates against Hiro's bare chest. His body convulsed as the shock ran through. In just the slightest grip of consciousness hiro felt it, but still he was slipping further and further away.
"FUCK. RECHARGE THE SET! GIVE IT ONE MORE AND TURN IT UP TO 200 VOLTS!" The voice now wild in irritation.
"Don't you do it Hiro. Don't you fucking dare!" the voice cursed loudly, pleadingly.
"CLEAR!"
The electric plates rubbed once more generating an electric current. The plates pressed into Hiro's chest again, vigorous force applied as the shock bolted through Hiro's limp body once more. And there it was.
A lone beep on the EKG resounded sofly. And then another, and another and a slow, pitifully weak stream of heartbeats slowly pulsed on the display of the machine. It was weak, but it was still there. Within that single moment A wave of relief washed over the team. A few high fives were shared and in that joyous moment there shone a gleaming light of hope out of the darkness of the current circumstances, but all the positivity was just as quickly dispersed. This battle was not yet over. Not by a long shot. The doctor took a long deep breath in, exhaling thoughtfully closing his eyes. Eyes still closed his brow furrowed and he slowly opened his lids, his gaze resting on the barely alive boy before him. He broke his gaze from Hiro and sent one sweeping glance at his team meeting each of their eyes individually. As if telepathically, the message resounding was clear. Hiro Hamada must not die tonight.
For the next several hours the team worked tirelessly attempting to revive the young boy genius. As it were, Hiro had been underwater for nearly twenty minutes. Underneath ordinary circumstances Hiro's life would have been long gone and cast to the wind, but there was something mysterious about this case. Even the doctor thought it was strange himself. It was a miracle that Hiro was even able to breathe on his own. Or maybe...it wasn't. A miracle would indicate that the current situation had a minimal success rate if any at all. The doctor being a hard learned veteran of medicine had long ago abandoned his idealogy of things like God and angels and spirits. In fact, he laughed about it and slandered the thought, but there was no other way to explain it. Someone up above was watching after this child. As the doctor guided his team to the following procedures it was an enigma how clear his head was and the pace that he and his team were working at. As he raised a surgical knife to Hiro's back side in attempt to place a breathing tube into his lung he felt his hands move, weightlessly, uneffortlessly, as if his hands were being guided. He had no time to dwell on the thought and furrowed his brow in determination. He was going to save Hiro's life.
The doctor sat quietly in the break room, a marvelous open area with large bay windows to display the San Fransokyo before him. It was well after sunrise, the pink sun rising higher in the sky. He rested his chin in the palm of his hand, his elbow resting on the palette white table. A cigarette was lit and slowly burning in his other hand, the smoke whisping away on clever spools and streams and shrouding ever so slightly around his head. He brought the cancer to his lips and inhaled deeply, thoughtfully, relishing the harsh yet satisfying burn in his throat beholding the San Fransokyo sunrise over the multitude of buildings out to the bay. On the table laid a thick manilla folder. Neat numbers and codes decorated it and across the top read "Hamada, Hiro".
A medical record.
The doctor rose the cigarette once more to his lips simultaneously lifting his head off of his palm and opened the folder.
Condition: temporarily stable
Vital signs/heart beat: 33 Beats per minute
The doctors eyes glared at this number and he cursed.
"Thirty three beats per minute...Sweet mother of jesus..." He continued scanning the information in the folder.
Blood pressure:80/60
The doctor cursed again, louder this time. As it were, these numbers were apalling. Atrocious even. In the ideal healthy individual their heart would beat somewhere between fifty five to sixty beat per minute. The ideal healthy blood pressure would be ninety to one hundred twenty over sixty to eighty. It didn't take a doctor to know that if these numbers didn't rise, Hiro's body would eventually shut down. While Hiro was indeed somewhat stable after the hours of operation it took, this battle was proving to be a much longer one than anyone had anticipated. Unfortunately for the moment, all anyone could do was wait. The rest was up to Hiro.
The doctor closed the folder and tossed it to the far side of the table and dragged once more on his cigarette, his face rigid with stress. With his other hand he began to massage his fingers across his forehead. A key indication of his anticipation. Behind him a pair of footsteps gently stepped through the threshold into the break room. From behind it was easy to see the doctor was quite a mess.
"You alright Doc?"
Without even looking up the doctor sported a slight smile with a small huff. He sighed deep and breathed it out vocally.
"You should be more worried about the kid than me." The doctor said resting his cheek against his palm once more, his elbow propped back on the table. The footsteps stepped a little closer to the doctor and pulled a chair out from under the table and he sat down, long blonde hair slightly fluttering about his shoulders.
"Nah, Hiro's a strong kid. But his vitals are kinda..." His voice trailed off.
"Shitty?" The doctor interjected raising an eyebrow in the boys direction. The blonde boy smirked slightly in amusement.
"Yeah...pretty shitty..." His voice trailed off once more. He seldom cursed. Foul language left an arsenic after taste in his mouth.
"Say Fred..." The doctor started.
"Hmm?"
"How...How did you know where Hiro was at..? How did you know where in that entire ocean that boy had been..?" The doctor leveled Fred with a curious glare, smoke from his cigarette whisping about.
It wasn't as much of a mystery as it had seemed. In the early hours of the morning when Hiro had first jumped, Fred recalled back to when Tadashi had made his first major invention. BAYMAX the health companion. An artificial intelligence created in the concept of the preservation of human care and nurturment. Prior to Tadashi's tragedy, Tadashi had used BAYMAX to scan all of his closest friends in case of an imminent emergency. Fred, Gogo, Wasabi, Hiro, even Honey Lemon had found this precaution somewhat laughable as they were all blissfully unaware of their own mortality. In this case though it had proved immeasurably useful. After Tadashi's funeral, Fred was granted Tadashi's ipad filled with all the encrypted data and healthcare software regarding BAYMAX's healthcare system, including the emergency alerts as well as BAYMAX itself. Deep within the software a program was running still, monitoring all of the groups vitals and as Hiro's signs grew irregular and diminished, the software had sprung into action therefore activating BAYMAX into his alert mode. Fred recalled how BAYMAX had sprung from his box, sirens emanating from the robot and how they had startled him forcing him to fall out of his bed. He sat there in a jumbled mess of stuffed anime characters and teddy bears with his bed sheet strung across him as he tried to get a handle on the situation. Baymax scurried up to Fred.
"There is trouble. Hiro is in danger. We must go to him." BAYMAX said in his uncharacteristically emotional voice. Fred had no time to muster up an answer and simply replied with a blank stare and a "uhhh...?" Without further ado, BAYMAX picked up Fred bridal style and launched himself out of Freds large panel windows to the open water right outside of Fred's mansion. Engaging it's floatation gear BAYMAX turned into a buoy with a motor and raced out into the open water. Fred was freezing. The ocean off of San Fransokyo was cold enough in the day, but in the night it dropped at least fifteen degrees lower. As water slightly splashed against Fred's face he looked down at the ipad with an indication marker flashing by the second. A beacon. He recalled back to BAYMAX saying Hiro was in trouble and a hundred questions raced through Fred's head. Trouble? Hiro? What? How? Nothing seemed to make sense, but one thing was for sure. Hiro needed help.
BAYMAX bustled towards the coordinates the signaled to his hard drive that simultaneously lit up on the display.
"Hiro's vitals are dimming. We must hurry. I have alerted the local authorities. They shall arrive momentarily, but we must stabilize Hiro first."
This stream of information worried Fred. He gripped onto BAYMAX hard and gulped, a grimace stretched across his face. Fred being such an easy going guy it was strange to see him so serious, but the situation was dire. Suddenly BAYMAX killed his motors and came to a halt.
"Hiro is directly beneath us approximately twenty feet. Fred you must dive down to rescue him. My body is comprised of air and vinyl. It was impossible for me to breach the surface of the water." Fred looked horrified. One because Fred wasn't much of a swimmer. Two because twenty feet down is quite deep. Fred rarely ventured any further than the shallow end of his own pool. Three because Hiro's life was hanging by a thread. Under different circumstances Fred would hesitate, but he had already lost one friend recently and he wasn't about to lose another. He looked down into the water but was crestfallen. The water was pitch black all around him. As if psychically, BAYMAX illuminated, casting a large wave of light down into the depths of the water. Multiple fish caught in the light scurried away and Fred glanced around. And there he was. Just as BAYMAX called it, Hiro was floating there several feet below, drifting freely. The sight of that alone set Fred's body ablaze and without a second thought, he took a large breath in and plunged down. The temperature of the water was not enough to dampen his resolve or dim the fire roaring in his gut. He stroked down, growing closer to Hiro with each sweep of his arm. Without even taking into account his surroundings he finally was just mere feet from Hiro. But there was something...
Suddenly a wave of sheer terror washed over Fred. He looked slightly to his right and noticed a dim silhouette against the light of BAYMAX shining above. His heart pounded hard in his chest as the silhouette grew clearer, swimming closer to Fred and Hiro. It was blurry at first but then...a fin. A lone sharp fin atop the silhouette pointed like an enormously large dinosaur tooth, and then behind it a fin swaying idly from left to right. Fred's heart was beating faster now, just on the verge pumping out of his chest. It was yards away, pointed body, hydrodynamically designed...a predator. A perfect killing machine. It turned broadside and Fred's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. It was enormous. At least fifteen feet long, sharp teeth protruding from the mouth in every direction like jagged steak knives. It circled menacingly. Slowly. Stalking like a lion hiding in the brush hungrily eyeing a fawn. It was survival of the fittest, and Fred and Hiro were sitting ducks. Limited air supply, and the moment Fred attempted to grab Hiro and race for the surface he knew the creature would strike. It dipped a fin into the stream of light from above and retreated back slightly, as if strategically striking fear into Fred. There had been stories of attacks in the ocean but Fred had never truly believed it. Shark attacks, yet this was no ordinary shark. Scales almost is impenetrable as chainmail, fins sharp enough to cut diamonds and gnarly teeth that could cut out pieces of concrete. This was gargantuan. A behemoth, and against this perfect specimen of evolutionary design there was nothing Fred could do. Fred grabbed onto Hiro and wrapped an arm around his shoulder pulling him close and gazed at him, feeling the tug of his lungs as they softly begged for an exchange of air. Hiro looked so peaceful, as if not a care in the world. As if he was far away in a deep slumber. It was tragic...Fred had failed. First Tadashi, and now Hiro. Never had Fred openly admitted to supplying Tadashi with the heroine that would eventually lead to his demise, but he had always felt Tadashi's blood on his hands, and no matter how hard he scrubbed it remained there. No one else had known of the exchanges but Fred was forever guilty. Forever in his conscience was a small voice muttering a single world. Murderer. He'd had nightmares on a nightly basis reliving the gory mess of Tadashi's death. The pictures of the autopsy he had seen from the San Fransokyo Police Department forever burned into his mind with vivid detail. And they remained. Not only did he feel the guilt of this, but now it was renewed. Stronger this time. He owed it to Tadashi to take care of Hiro, if anything, it was Fred's self appointed responsibility. Oh, how he had failed miserably. Epically. There was a pang in his heart, and had it not been for the surrounding water, Fred's eyes would be watering in remorseful tears. He looked down at Hiro's face once more, grief stricken, any shining chance of hope now cast to the wind. In his periphery he saw the shark, now fully illuminated still circling around menacingly. Fred closed his eyes and pulled Hiro in tight, holding him, awaiting his impending doom. The shark lurched forward, pointed straight at Fred and Hiro like a torpedo. Game over.
And in the midst of doom there shone a ray of hope once more. Considering the large size and speed capable of the shark, moments had . Fred would've thought he'd be getting ripped to shreds by now. As Fred's eyes remained shut he felt the water ripple on either side of him, above him, and below him as if the water had roared to life. And in the darkness behind his eye lids he heard something, a very distinct clicking and mewing. Hesitantly he squeamishly opened his eye, and then his other and was in disbelief. In front of him just before his very eyes a battle was unfolding. Like bullets the flew fast and ferociously ripping through the water. One, and then another, and then one more speeding through the water at insane speeds colliding with the shark head on.
Dolphins.
They ganged upon the gargantuan unfearfully, and in that moment, Fred felt the rage of the beasts protecting his life. He looked behind him and saw one more dolphin swimming up to him in a hurry. It halted mere inches away and faced its back to Hiro and Fred as if inviting them on. It was Fred's chance at redemption. Without another thought he grapped on tightly to the dorsal fin of the dolphin and felt the water rush against him as they sped towards the surface, he looked back down at the battle and saw the shark fleeing away into the darkness, the other four dolphins in tow. Fred's oxygen was running excrutiatingly low and he struggled to hold back the urge to breathe. Closer to the surface now Fred felt a warm tug at his heart. They were safe. The dolphin broke the surface of the water and Fred gasped breathing in large swaths of air in attempt to catch his breath. Without thinking, Fred propped Hiro up onto the back of the dophin and shimmied back on top of BAYMAX. BAYMAX curiously looked back to analyze the situation at hand.
"Hiro's vitals are almost unreadable. He must receive mouth to mouth resuscitation before I can aid him. His body temperature is quite low as well. He must be warmed up."
The dolphins chirped as Fred pulled Hiro onto BAYMAX to get him out of the water. Everything had happened in such a rush that Fred was almost in shock himself. He flipped Hiro onto his back and tilted his chin up with his index and middle finger and pinched Hiro's nose shut with his other hand. He breathed in deeply, now that air was available, and exhaled deeply into Hiro's mouth. Vigor encasing his breaths, Fred breathed violently into Hiro and began pumping his hands hard against Hiro's rib cage. Once, and then again he repeated the cycle.
"Come on Hiro, don't you quit on me." Fred said pleadingly. After a close run in with death he was not prepared to let Hiro go.
"COME ON!" He breathed once more into Hiro and was startled as a large splurt of water escaped from Hiro's lips. He felt a sensation of joy wash over him.
"YES! THANK YOU GOD! YES HIRO THAT'S IT!" Fred paraded. He rolled Hiro onto his side as Hiro continued to convulse and spit up water, the color of life slowly returning to his skin. Just moments later the sound of a helicopter reverbed over head. Fred looked up and around against the night sky and saw in the distance a spotlight shining, scanning to and fro all over the ocean surface. Fred fell back onto his buttom and sighed once deeply. He looked down at Hiro, reassured in the shallow rise and fall of his breaths. He wasn't a failure. He did it...He succeeded. He saved Hiro's life for the time being. The dolphins nearby chirped once more gaining Fred's attention and they swam away. He smiled to himself.
"Thank you..."
If not for the dolphins Fred knew he and Hiro would have been fish food, nothing in the world could ever gain such praise and thanks from Fred. Him being alive was a true testament to the power of hope. In one sense, Fred was thankful to the dolphins. In another sense, Fred had known that it was because of something much greater. In the distance he heard the clicking and cawing of the dolphins and saw them fly from the water. It was amazing. One jumped and two followed, and they repeated in pattern until they were out of sight. If he hadn't known before, then Fred had definitely known now. He recalled a random fact from out of the recesses of his mind and smiled. Dolphins had always been Tadashi's favorite animal.
WHEW! that one was a doozy. If you guys get a chance please review, let me know what you think. what you hated, what you liked. WHATEVER! maybe remind me how cliche the shark scene was lol. But anyways, thank you for all the support so far. Until next time! Corporal Douglas signing off