Hello, readers!
This chapter was probably edited the most. I had to add a lot and rearrange some of it...it just wasn't up to snuff originally. I spoke to some nurses and an EMT to try and make it more realistic and authentic, so hopefully, I succeeded. Kinda helped that I've been binge watching this alien conspiracy show on Netflix for a while now lmao. That will come more into play in the upcoming chapters when she has to talk with the government more, and then when I do Nightmare edits.
Anyway, I feel a lot better about this chapter than I did before. It's a lot longer, makes more sense (I think) and I toned down a lot of her belligerence from before (she's shell-shocked, drugged up, and exhausted why is she being so damn snarky lmao). So...enjoy!
This chapter has been updated as of 6/1/2017.
~ Crayola
Chapter Eighteen
Torn Away
I drifted in and out of consciousness the moment I was hauled onto the helicopter. The guy who had picked me up told me his name several times, but I could never latch on to it. He kept trying to ask me some questions, but I couldn't focus enough to understand or answer.
Besides that, I probably wouldn't have answered, anyway. Not over the sound of the helicopter, and not if it had anything to do with Wolf, for the time being.
The second he gave up and left me alone, I closed my eyes and tried to rest. The pain made it difficult, but I was so exhausted that I still wound up passing out completely at some point, only to wake up to new faces staring down at me.
Faces were hidden behind yellow hazmat suits, silhouetted by bright white lights.
"Hold still, you're safe!" one of them said as soon as I started to struggle and fight, shoving hands away. "You're going to make your wounds worse if you don't hold still."
They were pushing my stretcher down a sterile, white hallway. I counted at least four people, but a couple of them might have just been duplicates from my bleary vision. I wasn't really sure with the lights blaring down at me.
"Mendes, you and any others who were in direct contact with her need to get to decontamination right away."
That was his name. The guy who had picked me up—Mendes. I was being held against the stretcher with heavy hands, so all I could do was flick my eyes from face to face, trying to see if I could spot him. He must have been hanging back, though.
"Wrong. I have to stay with her in case she says anything. Direct orders," Mendes said.
"She's barely conscious as it is! Just go and you can be back right away."
It wouldn't matter. I didn't feel much like talking.
All the same, Mendes grumbled a begrudging resignation and I didn't hear from him again. The hazmat doctor leaned in to speak with me again.
"Are you in pain?"
Somehow, I managed a meek nod.
"Won't be long. We just have to get you into quarantine to check you out."
Whatever that meant. If they thought I had been impregnated, they'd find out I was fine soon enough. I stared at the ceiling, counting the fluorescent lights as they passed by overhead. Another hazmat suit leaned into my line of sight and I focused on their face: a woman. Smiling, comforting. Probably no older than my mother. The tension in my body left just looking at her.
"Sweetie how did you break your legs?" she asked.
Someone else at my left lifted my arm to take my blood pressure on the run. Seventeen lights had passed by now.
When I didn't immediately answer, she cooed, "It's alright. You can tell us."
Maybe, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say. How much they knew. They were familiar with the military that had shown up and nabbed me, so it was probably safe to say that they were at least somewhat aware of what may have transpired in the woods.
But I still didn't want to say too much. My throat was dry and sore, and all the struggling with Mendes had renewed the pain in my chest from the queen hitting me.
For a while, I'd even forgotten about it because of the whole leg things.
In the end, after she pressed me for the answer again, I sighed and tried to wet my lips with my tongue. I was so thirsty all of a sudden. And hungry. And tired. I just wanted to sleep for a little longer. Or for several days.
"The ship was falling. I jumped off it," I said at last. "Landed wrong. . .hit a rock with my knee."
She nodded and we shoved passed two doors. I was assuming that the helicopter Mendes had put me on took me to Estes Park Medical Center, but none of it looked familiar. I'd been to the ER once when I'd broken my arm, but otherwise, I really hadn't spent much time at the hospital, and I couldn't see much besides the ceiling: for some reason, they'd decided I need a neck brace.
Just in case. It was probably protocol.
That was the emergency room, though. I hadn't seen any other part of the hospital, least of all any quarantine area that the military might have set up. Were these all government people, or had they brought in any actual staff? I supposed it didn't matter, so long as they took the pain away.
"The burn on your back, sweetie?"
Burn? I struggled to remember what she was talking about, then realized that it was from the fight with the drone when I'd been separated from Wolf.
If I wanted to feel better, I needed to tell them. "It was acid. I neutralized it already."
Two of the doctors shared a glance, but the woman wasn't done asking me questions yet. Mostly, she wanted to know where else I was hurt, or where the pain was coming from. I told her about my ribs, how something had hit me in the chest. The bite wound—I couldn't remember every little injury I'd sustained anymore.
The discomfort was getting worse the more lucid I was. I fidgeted and groaned, only partly aware that I was basically topless. Shifting around, however, made me remember the dog tags and other things I had in my pockets.
Most of the stuff in my pockets had probably all been scattered over the side of the mountain when I'd fallen, but if they were up there scouring it for Wolf and other aliens, then maybe it'd be found.
"These tags," I muttered, trying to lift my hand to pull the chains from around my neck.
"We got them, already. Everything you had on you. We'll get them where they need to go."
I dropped my arm again, which had been too heavy to lift all the way, anyway.
Everything felt like it was full of lead.
The nurse gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder and said, "We're gonna get you cleaned up and then take you to x-ray, okay?"
They pushed me into a tiled room, like a pool shower. Stopping, I was left alone for a moment before a hazmat doctor showed up with a needle. I squirmed, but he assured me; "It's just morphine. It'll help with some of the pain and make this process less miserable for you."
Nodding, I held my breath when he stuck me with the syringe. As soon as he emptied it, I felt immediate relief. The discomfort fled, but so did many of my more coherent thoughts, and I even sleepier than before. But, it did its job and they were able to undress me, then pick me up and put me in one of the tubs without me feeling anything.
Even modesty as they scrubbed and hosed me down with water that smelled like chemicals. Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the feeling of being clean in my drugged up state.
I was still covered head to toe in crusted-over alien spit, caked-on blood, and just various types of dirt and grime. The burn on my back especially needed to be washed, as did all of the cuts and the open wounds on my legs.
Everything was at a risk for infection.
Whatever they washed me with burning. Even through the painkillers. It made my skin red and itchy, and if I hadn't already been ready to pass out, I might have scratched myself raw.
*:・゚✧
I was out of the decontamination showers, but I didn't remember being moved. My eyes were heavy and thoughts muddled, but everyone around me was still in hazmat suits.
A man wearing one such suit leaned over me with a small light, shining it in my eyes. My fatigue and the morphine must have knocked me on my ass at some point. How long had it been? Had I already had my x-rays? No, I didn't think so . . . it just seemed to be a few minutes in the time gaps, nothing more.
"Hello, my name is Doctor Jacobs. We have a specialist coming to see you, but I'm here to do a quick exam while they get their suit. I need you to remember some colors for me, okay?"
"Yeah," I muttered, nodding.
He glanced over his clipboard and prattled off the colors. "White, purple, green, black."
I closed my eyes to better commit them to memory. The last thing I needed was to fail a concussion test when I didn't even have one. Unless I did. I'd been knocked around so many times that I shouldn't have been surprised if I did have one. I didn't feel like I had one, but I hadn't exactly sustained one before so I wouldn't know.
"Alright, I'll ask you for them in a little bit. Can you tell me your name?" he asked. He was sitting on the edge of my bed.
Somehow I managed to think through the fog of drugs, then nodded. "Nichole."
"Do you have a last name, Nichole?" he asked, taking my pulse.
That was a little harder, but I pulled it out after a deep breath. "Nichole Shain."
Jacobs turned to look at someone I couldn't see and jotted a few notes down in his clipboard. "Do you know what day it is?"
Oh jeez, I wasn't good at this on a normal day when my life wasn't in danger. What day was it? I'd been at school earlier yesterday. . .had it been the weekend? I couldn't remember. I supposed I would take a wild guess.
Kristie had gone home with a friend to stay the night, I remembered that. My parents only would have let her do that if it was a weekend. I thought.
"Is it . . . Saturday?" It was more of a question than an answer.
The doctor nodded his head and smiled. At least, I thought he was. Hard to tell from the angle I was and the hazmat mask. "Yes. Do you remember those colors I asked you about earlier?"
I pursed my lips and thought about that briefly. "White, purple, black . . . and green?"
"Very good. Another doctor will be up soon to take you for some x-rays. We'll get your ribs checked out and your legs, and maybe a few other spots just to be safe," Jacobs said.
All I could do was bob my head.
What I wanted was to be back asleep. Maybe I could sleep through the x-rays.
"I'm thirsty," I muttered.
"We've got you on fluids, but I'll have the nurse bring in a cup of water for you," Jacobs said, indicating to the IV next to my bed.
"Alright."
He stood up to leave and passed by someone else in a hazmat suit, sitting in a metal folding chair next to where two curtains met. It seemed this room wasn't a room, just an area sectioned off by screens. When I narrowed my eyes, I could barely make out the features of Mendes behind the suit. The two nodded to each other, and then the doctor left.
Mendes stood up and walked over to my bed, sitting where the doctor had seconds before.
"What?" I rasped.
"You feeling alright?" he asked.
"No." I couldn't help but feel resentment toward him for taking me away. For his men shooting at Wolf. And I guess Brutus. Kind of. Mostly Wolf.
Sighing, he bowed his head. "Right. Sorry. Well, don't worry. Once we get these x-rays done and do some really quick blood work, we can get you out of quarantine and into an actual room. Might be 24 hours to have the bloodwork rushed, though."
Looking away from him, I didn't answer.
"We'll call your parents soon, after the x-rays," Mendes said.
"If I pass them," I elaborated.
It was his turn to remain silent, but I didn't need him to confirm. They wouldn't call my parents until they knew what to tell them, and they wouldn't know that until they finished the x-rays. If I was infected, they'd have to kill me and tell my parents I was dead when they found me.
Or died in the hospital.
Didn't matter which story. I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn't infected, but knew it wouldn't matter if I did, so I just shut it again.
Shortly after, someone arrived with my paper water cup. They helped me to sit up and I found that I was actually able to lift my arms high enough to sip from the cup on my own. Some of the fatigue had worn off, but only a little.
After I was done, Mendes took his seat across the "room" again and said nothing else to me. That was fine, it meant I could sneak in another drug-induced nap.
*:・゚✧
Having my x-rays done was the only thing familiar going on. It only took a couple people to move me to the table, then they put the lead vests down so I wouldn't get radiation poisoning. They checked my spine, too, and finally took off my neck brace when I threw a fit about having to wear it, and after Mendes confirmed that I had been fine when he found me.
The whole process took about forty minutes, and then I was carted back to the makeshift room they had for me. A new doctor—she introduced herself as Doctor Kendrick—took a few samples of my blood and said she'd have it rushed to a lab for priority.
Even after the x-rays came back, though, I was still confined to the screened area and the bed. I managed to sneak in some Zs between doctors and exams, but they always woke me up.
And asked me dumb questions.
Why couldn't they just let me sleep? Or at least bring me something to eat.
None of them had stopped wearing the hazmat suits, either. I couldn't say I blamed them, but it was unnerving to have them examine me and work on me with those bulky things on. It just reminded me that I'd had an encounter with aliens.
Which I had, but I didn't want to think about it for a while.
"My wrist hurts, too, but I think I just sprained it," I announced while the nice lady from before—Jaime, the nurse said her name was—stitched up the bite wound on my shoulder. They had pulled out the staples Wolf had used.
They'd been bagged and carried off somewhere, probably for a different round of tests. I wasn't sure what they'd hope to glean from them.
"I forgot to mention it earlier, when you asked," I said in way of apology.
She glanced at me, then nodded. "That's alright, I'm sure they took an x-ray of it. If not, I'll take a look in a moment just in case."
I nodded in return and settled back into my bed, trying not to look at my legs. Even without the x-rays, it had been obvious that my left femur had broken through the skin. They'd set it sometime while I was being cleaned, but I'd heard the word "surgery" thrown around quite a bit.
My knee had been a big, swollen mess. Now that I was clean and wearing nothing but a thin paper gown, I could easily see every bruise and cut. Every swollen joint and scabbed abrasion. Jaime was busy with the task of stitching all the deepest cuts, but anything else would have to be done by Kendrick when the blood work returned.
Why they were even bothering with the stitches were beyond me, unless they had already seen the x-rays of my chest and decided I didn't need to be put down immediately.
Jaime cut the suture and set down the equipment. "Okay, which wrist is it?"
"This one," I murmured, lifting the wrist in question. It had some discoloration, but nowhere near the amount of bruising on my legs or other parts of my body, and was only slightly swollen.
Carefully, she took my wrist in her gloved hands and massaged it with gentle pressure, looking up from the tops of her eyes to gauge my reactions. When the pressure didn't do anything, she bent my wrist and manipulated my fingers until I winced.
"Definitely not broken, like you said probably just a bad sprain. I'll go see if I can find a brace, okay? Will you be alright on your own?" she asked, glancing pointedly at Mendes.
I glanced at him too, then smiled faintly. "Yeah, I'll be alright."
Nurse Jaime lingered a moment longer, looking torn, then nodded and left the room. The curtains swung closed behind her and Mendes unfolded his arms from over his chest and approached my bed. My entire body tensed, making my muscles ache and stitches strain.
"They should be bringing up your x-rays, soon, to show you the extent of the damage. The results are clean, though, so we called your parents," he said.
My heart skipped a beat and I struggled to breathe a moment.
"You won't be able to see them until we get the results from your blood tests, but they know where you are and that you're safe and alive," he assured me, mistaking my distress. "Let us know if you need any more painkillers. Are you comfortable?"
"For the most part," I said with a quiet voice, staring at my hands and the IV line.
He nodded and backed up to his seat. "I know you're probably hungry, so when the nurse comes back I'll have her try to get something for you from the cafeteria."
"Not like you probably care," I sighed, more to myself than to him.
Mendes heard me, however, and replied. "Of course we care. Just because things could have, um, been bad if something was wrong with the x-rays doesn't mean we would have taken any pleasure from it. You're the only survivor, and we need to know what happened."
Of course that's what they cared about.
Figuring out what happened.
Instead of instigating an argument, however, I kept my mouth just and glowered at my lap. For a moment longer he continued to stand, then he cleared his throat. I looked up at him, brows knit together, waiting for him to speak.
"Is there anyone else out there we should be looking for? Other survivors, maybe?"
I turned my head so he wouldn't see my eyes water. Wouldn't see my lip quiver. When I was certain that my voice wouldn't betray me, I said, "I don't think so. Not unless they were lost in the woods, or survived the ship falling off the side of the mountain."
Mendes shook his head. "We've already spoken to the ones who made it out of the woods, and the ship blew up."
My neck popped when I turned too fast to look at him. "How many got out?" I demanded.
It barely registered that he'd mentioned the ship had blown up. I was pretty sure I'd already known that.
"Half a dozen, maybe less. We're still trying to discern how much more are missing, but not everyone's noticed their kids aren't home," he said. His smile might have meant to be comforting, but it just looked like he was trying too hard. "We've contacted next of kin for all the IDs you managed to scavenge. Everything else will just be trying to decide who's missing, who's just wandering the town, and who . . . did not make it."
It took a couple seconds for that to sink in. Not even half a dozen had made it. Had never been grabbed or forced on that ship. They'd been the ones with a head start, or the one's fate, luck, whatever, had smiled down on. They were living, breathing proof that the old adage was right. That there was safety in numbers.
So what was I living proof of?
"What made you start collecting that stuff?" he asked. "Did you think of that on your own?"
I shook my head and said, "No. Met a guy named Simmons. He started it. I finished. I might have dropped some when—when I was trying to escape."
He nodded. "That's understandable. You did us a service."
Part of me knew what he was doing here, right now. He was warming me up, getting my gums flapping so he could ask all of the questions I hadn't been able to answer on the helicopter.
And he proved my point with his next question.
"Was it the alien you were with when we found you? Did it take all of you?"
Finally, I pried my eyes off my lap and looked up at him. "No. It was the black things. The one you were looking for inside me."
Mendes shrugged. "They didn't tell me what they were looking for. Just that you would either pass the x-rays or you wouldn't, and what to do for each situation. I'm on a strictly need to know basis and I guess I didn't need to know what exactly they were looking for."
If that was the case, I wasn't going to tell him. The fewer people who had live with that image in their head, the better.
After a pause, he continued. "What was alien doing with you, then?"
"I don't know," I muttered. It was at least sort of true. "Helped me escape, I guess."
"Why?"
Instead of answering, I deflected with my own question. "Did your men get them?"
His shoulders heaved and he shook his head. "Not sure. Last I heard, the aliens fell back and with that weird . . . invisibility thing they had, we couldn't find them. Now we're just scouring the mountain for anything salvageable."
Leaning back, I chewed on my next question for a few moments. When Mendes didn't take over, I decided to go for it. "How many did you lose."
He paused, then said, "Last I heard, seven. Then the aliens retreated. We wounded at least one, though. They found blood in that clearing and took what samples back we could. Do you know how many of those things are out there right now, stranded without a ship?"
All I could do was shake my head. It was enough that they knew there might be more than one. I didn't want to give them anything else if I didn't have to.
For Wolf, at least.
None of that information did me any good. I'd still wanted to ask. Wanted to know how deadly those two were even as beat up as they might have been. For the most part, I was just content to know that Wolf probably wasn't dead, if maybe he'd been shot.
It would have been real shitty if he'd survived the whole thing, helped me do the same, only to be gunned down by my people.
After a moment, Mendes reached out, making me flinch in surprise. He had second thoughts after that and pulled away again before motioning toward the collar of my hospital gown. "What is this mark it gave you? The doctor says it's like you were branded."
I glanced up at him and suddenly felt annoyed with him. I didn't want to be questioned. I wanted to eat and I wanted to sleep up until I was able to see my parents again. Which I still wasn't looking forward to. "How would I know? He didn't exactly speak English. Maybe we're betrothed now, I don't have any idea."
The corners of his mouth twitched in what I thought was almost a smile, but he turned away and cleared his throat. I wished then that I'd let the nurses put a bandage on the thing.
Though he opened his mouth to ask more, the screen pulled open as the nurse returned. Mendes closed his mouth and took his seat by the opening. Jaime had come back with the brace for my wrist at just the right time.
"Alright, I found one. It wasn't very swollen, so I didn't bring you an ice pack but I can grab you one if you'd like," she said, taking a moment to set the brace for me.
"No, I'm ok. I'm hungry, though," I said before Mendes could.
She nodded and said, "I'm sure you are. Any requests?"
"A burger? Or a hot dog or something?" I asked after a moment of thought.
Jaime smiled from behind her mask. "I can get you a burger and some fries from the cafeteria. Only water to drink, though."
"That's fine." I was still pretty thirsty, even with the fluids being pumped into me. At least they'd eased up off the morphine so I wasn't completely doped up, but I could still shift around with only a little bit of discomfort.
After excusing herself, Mendes seemed intent on asking me a few more questions, but I pushed the button to lean my bed back so I could lie down.
"I just want to eat and sleep," I huffed, staring at the ceiling.
Mendes said, "That's fine. I'm mainly just asking for my own curiosity. I'm sure someone will be along later to ask the hard questions. I'm mostly just here to watch you, like protective custody."
"Whatever."
He fell silent and I was glad for it. I didn't look forward to spending the next 24 hours with him hanging out until my blood tests came back, but I supposed I couldn't help it. The screened in area I was in didn't have a TV, so I was sure he'd get bored and start talking again.
If I could help it, though, I'd just sleep through the whole thing.
*:・゚✧
The blood tests didn't end up coming back until almost 48 hours later, my only company that of Mendes and someone who came to replace him at some point. I was brought some magazines from the waiting room to keep myself entertained, but as planned, I did a lot of sleeping.
Thanks to the drugs, I didn't dream much.
That was something I was looking forward to even less than seeing my parents. Would they be mad, or just glad to know that I was alive? Probably both, knowing them. I was afraid that Kristie or Alan wouldn't be with them, too, for the wrong reason.
But I hadn't seen them on the ship . . . .
It was such a large ship . . . .
I tried not to think about it too much, but when I was given the clear to be moved to a private room, my apprehension grew. At the very least, I wouldn't have to look at these people in their creepy suits anymore. Just their regular doctor's frocks and scrubs.
A lot of my time in silence was spent wondering what Wolf was doing. If he was going to be able to call for a rescue or something with Brutus.
What kind of range did those wrist computers have?
Would they be able to sneak back on board their ship and jerry-rig an array so they could send out an SOS to their people?
Most of all, I wondered if I'd see him again. If he'd come for me. If this mark made me his property or something and he'd come to collect. I didn't know what I wanted. I was safe, clean, and warm now, even if it meant having to face up to what I did.
Before I was moved, though, I had been cleared for surgery—from the higher-ups and my parents, I guessed. The doctors had not been shy about expressing their displeasure for the run-around they were being given. The longer they waited, the more work they'd have to do during the surgery to fix what had started to heal improperly. As soon as they got the okay, though, I was rushed to the OR and put under.
There wasn't much I remembered after that. I could barely even recall what they'd told me before they'd started. When I came back from anesthesia, I was in a much different room.
For starters, the walls weren't white, but more of an off-white eggshell. There were a couple scene paintings hanging up on the walls. Next to my bed was a window, but all I could see was the floor next to me, covered in gravel and sporting a single AC unit. Still, now I could tell that it was sometime during the day.
Best of all, though, was the fact that there was a TV up in the corner and a remote at the table next to me. Finally, something to look at other than the screens and Mendes' face.
Oh, wait.
He was there, too.
"You're awake," he said as if I couldn't tell for myself. Apparently, he'd switched back into shift watching me. The guy who he kept switching with was lost in the wind to me.
All I answered him with was a groggy hum.
"I'll let them know."
To my surprise, he stood up and left, closing the door behind him. I'd never known him or his shift partner to leave me alone in a room without at least him or the doctors. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd managed to finagle his way into the operating room.
I watched the door for a moment, then leaned my head back and took a few deep breaths. My ribs felt a lot better, and they'd told me I hadn't broken any. A small hairline fracture on some of them, but I didn't have the same amount of discomfort breathing as I had before. There was a dull ache in my legs, leftover from the surgery.
One of the details I was fuzzy on was what exactly they'd done. I'd seen the x-rays, so I knew my femur had broken pretty cleanly with only minor splintering, but my knee had been basically shattered.
At some point, they were sure to go over it with me again.
By the time the door opened again, I had managed to sober up enough to turn on the TV and find a station playing Spongebob. It was nice and mindless—good since I wasn't able to fully focus on anything to understand a real plot.
When the latch clicked, I looked over expecting to see Mendes and a doctor, but it wasn't him. The person walking in made my stomach lurch.
"Nichole? Nichole!"
The tears came before I could stop them. I didn't even care that Mendes was there to see me, hanging out in the back and waiting to come inside. If my legs weren't broken and if I hadn't been getting fluids intravenously, I would have stumbled from the bed. As it was, though, I couldn't move. I could only lift my arms and choke out a sob.
Of all the scenarios I'd played over in my head, after all the dreading and stressing, I couldn't deny that I was so happy to see her.
"Momma!"
She came flying across the room and practically collapsed on top of me. Her arms engulfed me and I embraced her. She was already in tears and I let myself break down. There was no reason for me to be brave anymore. The danger was gone, my parents were here to be brave for me. The bed sunk as my dad sat next to us and I groped with my good hand for him until I felt his calloused fingers squeeze my own. My mom and I babbled incoherently through the bawling.
For the first time in the past few days, I allowed myself to feel vulnerable.
