Prompts used: Shipwrecked & Alt. Survivor's Guilt
"I'm going to go down to get a coffee," his dad announced as he stood up from the chair and stretched. Gordon could practically hear his joints creak. "You want anything?"
"No, thank you," Gordon replied. Not like there was much he was allowed currently anyway, so he wasn't sure why his dad was even asking.
"You sure?" His dad pressed.
Gordon shook his head.
"I'll be back in a short while." His dad sent him a smile that Gordon barely had the energy to return. Then, he grabbed his wallet and headed out of the room.
Gordon slumped back against the pillows and let out a deep sigh. Finally, he was alone. He rarely had any moments to himself anymore, between his family and doctors and being poked and prodded. He hoped his dad took a while getting his coffee so he could finally have some time to breathe without anyone constantly asking him if he was alright.
He closed his eyes for several long moments and just enjoyed the peace and quiet, or as much quiet as he could get with machines constantly beeping all around him.
When he eventually opened his eyes, he felt a little better. He looked over at his bedside table, and reached for the cup of water to take a sip, but then he paused as his gaze got caught on something else.
His dad had left his phone behind.
Gordon sent a look back to the door.
His family had allowed him barely any access to the outside world. Everything he heard about was from them or anyone who came to visit him. He knew they wouldn't lie to him, but he also knew they had been sugarcoating everything so that it was easier for him to swallow. He had been desperate for a moment to find out what really happened that day.
He only hesitated for a moment longer, before he grabbed the phone. His dad's password was easy to know as it was their mother's birthday, and as soon as Gordon had the phone unlocked, he immediately opened the web app.
Because of his family's overbearing need to protect him, he hadn't been able to go on the internet yet and see all the news coverage of the accident. He knew they had the best intentions, but still, Gordon wanted to see for himself.
He typed into the search bar and pulled up the first article about the accident.
When he read the headline, the air left his lungs so quick it was like he had been punched in the chest.
Hydrofoil crash results in death of five crew members
Of course Gordon had been told that he was the only survivor. That had been one of the many awful days that he'd had since waking up in this hospital. However, seeing the words laid out before him, and his crewmates being summarised as just five crew members and not the people they were, still hit him hard.
With a shaky hand, he scrolled down and read the article. It didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. It talked about WASP and the test run of the ship and the crash that followed. It mentioned his crewmates that hadn't made it, with their names and ranks, but there wasn't much more. It briefly mentioned him, and how his situation was critical. This article was dated from just after the crash had happened, and clearly hadn't been updated.
Gordon came out of that article and clicked onto the next one. This one went into a bit further detail, and actually had photos of each crew member and a bit of personal information about who they all were.
Gordon blinked back tears as he was reminded who each person that was on that ship with him was, and how their families were reacting and grieving and how they were never going to be on a ship again. There were mentions of funerals and Gordon was struck by the reminder that he had missed out on that all because he was in a stupid coma. He wouldn't be able to say goodbye to them, not like that. He would never get that.
He hadn't even realised he was several articles deep until he wiped away the tears and his blurry vision cleared enough for him to see a photo of himself. It was his official portrait where he was in his uniform. A uniform that, at this point, he would likely never put on again.
This article was specifically about him and his condition. It went into scary accuracy about his injuries and the medically induced coma he had been put in, even the day he had woken up. Gordon knew his family and WASP had tried to keep the reporters away and his condition under wraps, so he wondered how such information had gotten out.
However, that wasn't really his main concern right now. What he was really focused on was that this article also had photos of the crash and the aftermath of the ship.
Right there in front of him, he could see the crushed and crumpled scraps of metal that once made up a state of the art, brand new ship. Gordon could remember being inside of that. He could remember the feeling of that very same metal digging into his skin and spine and causing pain in places he didn't even know could hurt.
He then clicked onto the next article.
And then the next when he reached the end of that one.
There wasn't a short supply of articles to read or photos to look at. Apparently, when an organisation like WASP let five of its members die and left a sixth critically injured in what was supposed to just be a test drive, it wasn't a small news day.
Gordon began spiralling as he read everything that he could find. It soon grew repetitive as articles covered the same information just in different sentences, but he had to read them nonetheless. He needed to see for himself. It wasn't fair that his crewmates had all died and he hadn't. He had to force himself to see it all, to know how their families were reacting, what they were saying about him undeservingly being the one to survive. He needed to see the crash and remember how it felt and remember the pain and-
The phone was abruptly ripped from his hands, and Gordon was left staring at his empty hands and the bedsheets they rested on.
He blinked several times as he took panting breaths. He hadn't even realised he had stopped breathing, until he had been brought back to his senses and he remembered where he was.
He looked up, and saw his dad standing next to his bed, coffee in one hand and his phone clutched in the other.
"Give that back." Gordon reached for the phone with a shaky hand. He wasn't done yet.
His dad moved the phone out of his reach.
"No, you need to get better first. You shouldn't be looking at any of that," his dad tried to argue, even though Gordon knew that this should be his say. It was his own trauma and body and pain. He needed to see it all.
"Give it back!" Gordon was firmer this time, and he stretched as far as he could towards his dad, ignoring the pain in his back that the movement gave him. "I want to see! I need to!"
His dad held the phone even further away as he stepped back.
"Please," Gordon begged. "I need to know everything that happened. I want to-" He took a deep breath as he tried to steady his racing heart. "I want to watch it."
His dad tilted his head and shifted on the spot in a mix of sympathy and uncertainty. "Gordon, that's- I don't think you should. You're still fragile and I don't know if you're ready for that."
Gordon's heart panged at hearing himself be described as fragile. That's all anyone ever saw him as anymore.
However, that gave him the drive to want to do this even more. He would prove that he could handle it, and also take this into his own hands when everyone else seemed to be taking that autonomy from him little by little.
He kept his hand held out as steady as he could manage.
He didn't say anything, he just pleaded with his gaze as he looked at his father.
Eventually, Jeff sighed, and he placed his coffee down as he began to type on his phone.
A couple minutes later, he was handing the device over to Gordon.
"Press play when you are ready- and only if you are ready, alright?"
Gordon nodded, no longer able to form words as he looked at the paused video on the screen in front of him.
His dad sat on his chair once again, but he pulled it as close as he could towards the bed.
Gordon hesitated for a long moment, wondering if this was really something he wanted to see, but at this point, he didn't want to back down. If he didn't do this now, he never would.
He pressed play before he could change his mind.
The video began of the hydrofoil gliding quickly across the water. There was a reporter's voice over the video, and Gordon turned the volume down as he had no intention of listening to commentary of the most traumatic moment of his life.
Gordon wondered how far into the test this was, but it must have been far, as in the next second, he was watching the ship hit the water and then implode.
He couldn't contain the gasp as he watched metal go flying from some parts of the ship whilst other parts collapsed in on themselves. The ship spun several times in the air, before it hit the water and began to sink.
The video ended there.
Gordon just stared at the phone screen for a long moment. He knew what it had felt like inside there. He knew the fear and the pain. However, he hadn't realised just how bad it looked from the outside. It looked very, very bad.
"Are you okay?" His dad's hand came to rest on his wrist.
Gordon nodded, and finally drew his gaze away from the phone to his dad.
"It's okay if you're not. These things take time to process," his dad tried reassuring, but it honestly wasn't needed.
Gordon somehow felt lighter, despite the images of the crash swirling around at the front of his mind, and despite seeing his crewmates' faces staring back at him as reporters wrote about their demise. At least now he knew. At least he could now fill in the gaps.
He passed the phone back to his dad. He still looked unsure, like he thought Gordon was lying to him and was pretending to be fine when he was really falling apart on the inside.
"Really, I am," Gordon reassured, feeling shaky, but sure. "I needed that. I think now I can…" He paused to find the right words. "Move on, or at least start to now that I've seen that."
There was still a very long way to go for him, both mentally and physically. He would carry his crewmates with him for the rest of his life, but at least this could give him a bit of closure that he didn't realise he needed until now he had it.
