The sunlight filtered through the blinds in the small hospital room. In the only bed in the room lay a young woman, her head wrapped in bandages. She opened her eyes and turned her head slowly towards the window. Through the partially open blinds she could see a billboard on a building across the street
but she was unable to make out what it said because she didn't speak Greek. She turned her head back so that she was staring at the
ceiling and closed her eyes because the pain in her head was throbbing. She tried once more to remember how she ended up in a hospital bed.
She could remember her and her family getting into a small plane. She, her husband, Paul, and her two stepchildren, Mark and Laurie, had been vacationing in Greece. They had chartered a private pontoon plane and had planned to fly over to a small island off the Greek coast. It was supposed to be a great fishing spot and filled with history. She remembered them getting into the plane, vaguely remembered the take off and remembered circling the island. From that point on everything got fuzzy. The most vivid memory after that was one of being inside something that seemed to be tumbling and screams...she can remember screams. Then there was nothing until she woke up in the room and a massive headache.
They, the doctor and nurses, told her that the plane had crashed, the reason had yet to be determined, and that she had been the only survivor. The fact that she, alone, survived the crash doesn't surprise her because, unknown to the hospital staff, she was an Immortal. What did surprise her was that her head injury hadn't healed yet. She knew she must have been conscious when rescuers got to them or they wouldn't have transported her to the hospital, she would have awakened in the morgue. But try as she might she couldn't remember anything of reviving after the crash, being rescued, being transported to the hospital or any thing that went on in the emergency room. Nothing until she woke up in the room a few hours before.
She thought about her family. Even those memories were more like dreams than memories. She attributed that to whatever medication they had in her IV. She pictured Paul's face and felt a distant sadness. She remembered their wedding, a quick and private ceremony in front of a local Justice of the Peace in their hometown of Sausalito, California, although not vividly. She could vaguely remember their brief honeymoon which was a weekend spent in a quaint bed and breakfast in the Napa Wine Country. She remembered that they loved each other (although not an earth shattering love) and she remembered feeling comfortable, content and secure with Paul which made her wonder, briefly, why she didn't feel sadder about losing him. This, too, she attributed to whatever medication they had her on.
Eventually she fell back to sleep. She dreamed, but her dreams were fragmented and confusing. Faces of people she didn't know, places she couldn't remember ever being.
A few hours later the young woman woke up again. She was feeling a bit unsettled by her dreams but blamed it on the medication that was dripping into her arm. She lifted her hand to the bandage on her head and pressed it around her scalp. She experienced no pain so she determined that she had healed. Now she had to figure out how to get out of the hospital before a doctor or nurse came in to examine her wound and found it healed.
She knew that she had no clothes, that the clothes she was wearing would have been discarded because of the blood and tatters. She was not sure how she knew this because she didn't remember any part of being in the emergency room, but somehow she knew it to be standard procedure. On the empty bed that shared the room was a hospital gown folded and awaiting a patient. She sat up and disconnected her IV. She got out of bed, slowly at first, walked over to the empty bed and put the hospital gown on backwards.
She removed the bandage from her head and tiptoed to the door. She opened it slowly and peered out into the hall. There were a few nurses, patients and patient's visitors milling around the nurses desk a few yards to her left. She looked to her right and saw, about 10 feet away, a sign over a door. Since she didn't speak Greek she couldn't read what it said, but it has a red arrow pointing to the door below it and she took it to mean "EXIT". She looked back to her left. When she was sure no one was watching her she slipped out of the door, letting it close quietly behind her and hurried to the door under the sign.
She tried the door. It was unlocked so she slipped through it, closed it quietly and looked around. She was in a stairwell. She went to the railing and listened both above her and below her. Hearing nothing she headed down the stairs taking two at a time.
When she reached the second to the last landing she stopped and listened at the door that led out of the stairwell. She opened the door just enough to peek out.
She was on the main floor of the hospital. Across from her was an open door that led to an office. To the left of her was a hallway with similar open doors all the way down and on both sides. To the right was a short hallway that opened into a large lobby which was buzzing with people coming, going and milling around.
She slipped through the door and headed down the hallway to her left. She managed to pass by the open doors unnoticed. She started to skirt around an empty wheel chair when a janitor pushing a mop bucket and mop came out of one of the offices further down. She dropped into the wheel chair, put her elbow on its arm and rested her head in her hand. She turned the chair slightly so she could watch the janitor.
The janitor disappeared through a door and returned seconds later empty handed, turned left and walked down the hall and disappeared around the corner at the end.
She waited a few seconds to make sure the janitor didn't turn around and come back and she got out of the wheel chair and hurried down the hall to the door that the janitor had gone into and then come out of.
When she got to that door she saw that it was a utility room with shelves filled with cleaning supplies, blankets and old pillows. On one wall were several hooks with a few old lab coats hanging from them. Next to these was a trash can that had discarded paper booties. She slipped into the room, grabbed two small booties out of the trash can and put them on her bare feet. She removed a lab coat from one of the hooks and put it on. She tore a string from one of the dry mops hanging on the back wall and tied her hair back into a ponytail.
She walked out of the utility room, head held high and shoulders back and her hands in her pockets. She turned right and headed for the lobby. She walked through the lobby and out the front door, down the hospital entrance walkway to the loading curb and crossed the driveway to the parking structure.
Inside the multilevel parking structure she made her way to the other side where she followed the arrows that pointed the way to the exits. She chose an exit and slipped through the door.
Now on a major street (determined by the amount of traffic) she stopped and looked around. She had no money to catch a cab and she was really not sure where she was.
"OK...smartass. Now what?" She asked herself.
TO BE CONTINUED