Vintage Diaries.

5. Drowning girl

Earn woke up groggily, squinting his eyes at the bright sunlight. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he slowly sat up, looking around.

"Where the fuck am I?" He asked himself looking at the green lawn in front of him.  He was lying on the green luscious grass under the shade of a huge tree.

He slowly stood up with the support of the tree under whose shade, he had woken up.

He dusted himself, checking out for injuries and bruises. He was pretty much sure that the time machine had worked but he had no idea which year he had come to.

SPLASH

A loud splashing sound caught his attention.

"SOMEBODY HELP!!! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!!!" A woman was screaming with a horrified expression standing at the bank of the lake.

Earn could see a girl drowning in the middle of the lake. He rushed over without thinking twice and jumped into the lake.

The woman stood up seeing someone was there to help her miss. She was terrified as she watched her miss drown. She didn't know how to swim or else she would have saved her miss herself.

He swam over to the girl. The girl had already exhausted her energy and was drowning by the time he reached her. He caught her by the waist and swam back to the shore.

The woman's cries had gathered a few people on the shore. They helped Earn in lifting the girl out of the water.

Earn was tired, panting heavily. The undercurrents were heavy and swimming with a girl almost his own size on the arms wasn't an easy task.

"Young miss, open your eyes. Open your eyes." The woman was patting the girl's cheeks, crying.

The girl was showing no signs of waking up.

"Check if she is dead." A man in the audience said.

The woman turned to glare at him.

"Move away, please move away." Earn was still panting for air as he walked on all fours to the unconscious girl.

The crowd parted making way for him.

Earn stopped next to the girl. He gently tilted her head back with one hand and lifted her chin with the other. He then put his ear to the girl's mouth and nose and looked, listened, and felt for signs of breathing.

He was leaning in to give artificial respiration when others stopped him. "What on earth are you doing to her?" A woman asked.

"Ma'am she almost drowned. The water must have entered her lungs we need to get it out." Earn said politely. "Please let me administer the first aid."

"Please go ahead." The panicked lady who was crying earlier said.

Earn nodded and wasted no time. He pinched the girl's nose and sealed her lips over his mouth. He gave two slow, full breaths two seconds each. He checked her pulse. 

There was no response. Her chest didn't rise and fall like it should. So he tried again, re-tilting her head, lifting her chin, and repeating the appropriate steps.

He put two fingers on your girl's and waited five seconds. Seeing that she had a pulse, he gave one breath every three seconds. He continued to check for a pulse every minute. 

The girl's pulse was dropping. He suddenly got on his knee and started doing chest compressions.

 Using the heel of his hands, he applied five quick one-inch chest compressions to the middle of the breastbone in about three seconds. After five compressions, he pinched her nose and gave her artificial respiration again.

"COUGH!" The girl spit out the water, coughing and gasping.

Earn fell back to the grass in relief. The crowd cheered as the girl gained consciousness.

"Young miss." The crying woman called out gratefully.

"Please take her to a hospital." Earn said sitting on the grass. "And get her to change out of those clothes and put on to keep her warm."

"Thank you so much, Nong." The woman thanked with teary eyes.

Earn smiled at her and nodded. He then looked at the girl. She was still weak and pale, shivering from the breeze.

A few people came running to them, who Earn assumed were the young girl's servants given the way they were addressing her as Young Miss.

The girl was soon scooped up from the floor and wrapped up in a huge blanket. Her long black hair was still dripping with water.

Earn slowly got up and watched the girl being taken away by her servants. He looked down at his own clothes. They were all wet. He had no clothes to change into.

He was distressed, completely clueless about what he was going to do. The sun was setting and he had no idea where he was or what he should be doing next.

"Here." A towel was passed to him.

Earn looked up at the owner of the hand and saw a familiar yet unfamiliar face.

"Thank you, Khrab." He thanked the middle-aged man who offered him the towel and took it. He started drying his hair with that.

The crowd had already dispersed. Earn and the man were the only people left on the lawn.

Earn could feel the man's gaze on him. Even though he found it kind of creepy, given the man's stoic face, he smiled back at him.

He thought that the man was waiting for the towel. He handed the towel back to the man. "Thank you once again, khrab."

"I think you could use a change of clothes yourself." The man said eyeing him head to toe in a judgemental manner.

Earn smiled awkwardly. Normally, he would reject the offer. But he badly wanted to get out of those wet clothes. He complimented how he was going to say yes without making it seem awkward in his mind.

"My name is Opas and I am in charge of the Young Lady." The man said expressionless.

Earn nodded. The girl seemed to be from a rich family. He secretly observed the dressing style of the people around him. 

It seemed that he had indeed gone back to the nineties.

"We would really like to thank you for your help," Opas said in a formal tone. "Our residence is nearby. How about we provide a change of clothes for you as a form of gratitude?"

With no options left, Earn could only agree. "That would be great, Khrab." He mirrored the man's smile.

The man led the way with Earn following him closely behind.

Earn had several thoughts going on in his mind. He was yet to figure out everything. The decision to time travel was rather an impulsive decision. 

A large part of him believed that the time machine wasn't going to work. So he hadn't done much research on history.

"Here we are." The man's voice snapped him out of the daze.

Earn looked up and saw the mansion in front of him. "Holy crap!" he muttered to himself. His jaws dropped in amazement. He couldn't believe his eyes. He felt that fate was playing a game with him.